NCA-6.10 Sample Questions Answers

When configuring a physical network switch in Prism Element,SNMP Configurationis required to enable monitoring and communication between the Nutanix cluster and the network switch. SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) is used to gather metrics and detect issues such as link failures or performance bottlenecks, ensuring the cluster operates efficiently with the physical network infrastructure.

The correct answer isA. It customizes alert thresholds.

User-defined Alert PoliciesinPrism Centralallow administrators to definecustom alert conditionsandthresholdstailored to specific workload behaviors and operational requirements. This helps fine-tune monitoring by settingalert criteria for metrics such as CPU usage, memory utilization, IOPS, latency, etc., beyond the default system-generated alerts.

Key Capabilities Include:

Define conditions usingpredefined metrics.

Set thresholds andseverity levels.

Associate alerts withspecific entitieslike VMs, hosts, or clusters.

Integrate withemail, SNMP, or third-party tools.

Prism Central UI Navigation Path:

Alerts & Monitoring > Alert Policies > Create Alert Policy

Official Reference:

Nutanix Administration Guide – Alerts and Monitoring

Excerpt: “User-defined alert policies in Prism Central allow administrators to define custom thresholds for system metrics, enabling more granular and proactive monitoring.”

Nutanix Prism Central Guide – Alert Policies Section

Conclusion:Custom alert policies donotautomate VM migrations (C), limit access (B), or control update frequency (D). Only optionAreflects the actual function.

Answer: A

The correct answer isC. It must have the same hypervisor as the other nodes in the cluster.

When adding astorage-only (SO) nodeto a Nutanix cluster:

It mustrun the same hypervisoras the existing nodes.

The SO node doesnot host VMsbut participates in thestorage layerto increase capacity and performance.

Nutanix currentlydoes not support mixed hypervisors(e.g., combining AHV with ESXi) within the same cluster, even for storage-only nodes.

Clarifications:

A & B:Neither Nutanix Files nor Objects are required for adding storage-only nodes.

D:Cross-hypervisor configuration is unsupported at the cluster level.

Official Reference:

Nutanix Hardware Administration Guide – Storage-Only Node Requirements

Excerpt: “All nodes in a cluster, including storage-only nodes, must run the same hypervisor type.”

Answer: C

To prevent password access to the CVM for both thenutanixandadminuser accounts,Cluster Lockdownshould be enabled. Cluster Lockdown restricts SSH access to the Controller VM (CVM), effectively disabling password-based logins for enhanced security. Access is then managed through more secure means, such as console access or specific tools like Nutanix Support.

A. Cluster Lockdown:Correct, as this prevents SSH-based access to the CVM.

B. STIG:Incorrect, as STIG (Security Technical Implementation Guide) focuses on broader compliance measures.

C. RBAC Policy on PC:Incorrect, as RBAC (Role-Based Access Control) controls Prism Central permissions, not CVM access.

D. Data-at-Rest Encryption:Incorrect, as this secures stored data, not access credentials.

The correct answer isA. NearSync Replication.

Key Concepts from Official Nutanix Documentation:

Nutanix supports various types of data replication methods depending on the Recovery Point Objective (RPO), Recovery Time Objective (RTO), and the latency between the sites.

Metro Availabilityrequires a maximum latency of<5ms RTTand is used forzero RPO synchronous replication. Since the given latency is 10ms,Metro Availability is not supportedin this case.

The correct answer isB. Run Nutanix Cluster Check (NCC).

Before performingany upgrade procedure(AOS, Foundation, LCM, etc.), it is strongly recommended torun the Nutanix Cluster Check (NCC). This tool performs acomprehensive health assessmentof the cluster and validates its readiness for the upgrade, including:

Disk integrity

Network configuration

CVM health

Cluster services status

Prism UI Navigation Path:

Health > Run NCC Check (via Actions menu)

Command Line Alternative:

bash

CopyEdit

ncc health_checks run_all

Clarifications:

A (Put hosts into maintenance mode): Not required before upgrades; LCM handles host management automatically.

C (Put CVMs into maintenance mode): Not correct. CVMs must be operational during upgrades.

D (Clear all alerts): Irrelevant unless the alerts indicate upgrade-blocking issues, which NCC identifies.

Official Reference:

Nutanix Upgrade Guide – Pre-upgrade Checklist Section

Excerpt: “It is strongly recommended to run NCC prior to starting the upgrade process to detect any cluster issues.”

Answer: B

Nutanix Distributed Storage Fabric (DSF) provides storage access to an ESXi hypervisor using theNFS (Network File System)protocol. DSF abstracts the underlying storage hardware and exposes storage as an NFS datastore to ESXi hosts. This integration enables high performance, data protection, and scalability while simplifying storage management.

Other options:

LVM: Not used in Nutanix storage.

iSCSI: Used for specific use cases, not the default protocol for ESXi.

SMB: Not supported for ESXi environments.

The correct answer isB. Active/Backup.

Foredge environmentswith limited uplink capacity, such as1GbE, the recommended bond mode isActive/Backupdue to the following reasons:

Providesredundancywithout requiring link aggregation support from the upstream switch.

Avoids complexity and performance imbalance that can occur with hashing algorithms in other modes (e.g., Balance-SLB).

Round RobinandBalance-SLBcan causepacket reordering, performance issues, and are not ideal for low-throughput links.

Prism Element Configuration Path:

Network Configuration > Host NIC Bonding Mode

Official Reference:

Nutanix Network Best Practices Guide – Edge Deployment Section

Excerpt: “For clusters using 1GbE uplinks, Active/Backup bond mode is recommended for high availability without complexity.”

Answer: B

To run a full health check in Prism Element, the administrator should first select theActionsmenu. From there, the administrator can choose to execute health checks for the entire cluster or specific components. This ensures a comprehensive evaluation of the cluster’s health.

Other options:

Scheduled: Refers to predefined or automated health checks.

Checks: Displays the list of checks but doesn’t initiate them.

Failed: Filters checks based on their status but doesn’t start a new check.

The correct answer isC. 4

Erasure Coding (EC-X)in Nutanix is a data efficiency feature that replaces multiple replicas with parity data to reduce storage overhead while still protecting against failures. Theminimum node requirementfor enabling Erasure Coding is4 nodes, due to the need to distribute data and parity across multiple failure domains.

Details:

RF2 with EC-Xrequires at least4 nodes.

RF3 with EC-Xrequiresat least 6 or 8 nodes, depending on configuration.

Prism UI Navigation Path:

Storage > Storage Containers > Enable EC-X

Official Reference:

Nutanix Bible – Erasure Coding Section

Nutanix Storage Admin Guide

Excerpt: “A minimum of 4 nodes is required in a Nutanix cluster to enable Erasure Coding (EC-X) with RF2.”

When command-line access is unavailable, Nutanix administrators can use the Prism UI to generate an NCC (Nutanix Cluster Check) output. The steps are:

Configure the email settings inAlert Settingsunder the Prism UI.

Navigate to theHealth Dashboard, where the "Run Health Checks" option can be used.

Provide the administrator's email address to send the health report, which includes NCC outputs.

This method enables the administrator to share diagnostic information with Nutanix Support directly via email.

A. Run Health Checks in the Alert Dashboard and enter an email to send it to:Incorrect. Health Checks are run from the Health Dashboard, not the Alert Dashboard.

B. Configure email in Alert Settings and Run Health Checks in the Health Dashboard:Correct. This provides the requested NCC output when the command-line is inaccessible.

C. Run Health Checks in the Event Dashboard:Incorrect. Health Checks are not run from the Event Dashboard.

D. Configure email in Alert Settings and Run Health Checks in the Alert Dashboard:Incorrect, as this is not the correct location for Health Checks.

TheNutanix Moveutility is specifically designed for migrating VMs between hypervisors, including from ESXi to AHV. It automates the migration process while ensuring minimal downtime. Nutanix Move supports pre-migration assessments and automates data transfer and VM configuration for AHV.

A. Move:Correct, as it is the Nutanix tool for hypervisor migrations.

B. acli:Incorrect, as acli is used for command-line configuration and management within AHV, not migration.

C. Flow:Incorrect, as Nutanix Flow focuses on network security and micro-segmentation.

D. Ncli:Incorrect, as Ncli is a command-line utility for cluster management, not migration.

Deduplication is most effective withfull clone VMsbecause it reduces redundant data blocks stored on the cluster. Full clone VMs often contain identical OS and application files, making them ideal candidates for deduplication, which optimizes storage usage and improves efficiency.

Other options:

Server workloads: May benefit from deduplication but not as significantly as full clone VMs.

Linked Clone VMs: Already share base disk images, so deduplication offers limited benefits.

Cold data: Deduplication is less effective for data that isn’t accessed frequently.

TheData Protectionfeature in Prism Element provides built-in disaster recovery capabilities by enabling asynchronous replication between Nutanix clusters. With a latency of 30ms between the two sites, asynchronous replication can ensure that data is replicated efficiently while adhering to recovery point objectives (RPO). The administrator can configure Protection Domains and Replication Targets to set up DR between the clusters.

A. Recovery Plan:Incorrect, as Recovery Plans are part of Prism Central for orchestrated failover, not Prism Element.

B. Protection Policies:Incorrect, as these are defined under Prism Central.

C. Data Protection:Correct, as it enables disaster recovery via replication configurations in Prism Element.

D. Metro Cluster:Incorrect, as Metro Cluster requires low latency (<5ms) and is not suitable for a 30ms latency scenario.

Redundancy Factor 3 (RF3) requires a minimum of five nodes in the cluster to ensure that data can be distributed across enough nodes to tolerate the failure of two nodes. If the cluster has fewer than five nodes, RF3 cannot be enabled.

A. Check that the cluster has been properly licensed:Licensing is not directly related to enabling RF3.

B. Check that the cluster has five or more nodes:Correct, as RF3 requires at least five nodes.

C. Check hardware availability of the nodes:While hardware health is important, it does not determine RF3 eligibility.

D. Check AOS version and upgrade, if needed:RF3 requirements are not specific to an AOS version.

Shared storage for Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) is a use case for NutanixVolumes. Nutanix Volumes provides block storage (via iSCSI) to external systems, such as WSFC nodes, allowing them to share storage for failover clustering. This configuration is essential for high availability in Windows environments.

Other options:

Files: Provides file-based storage (NFS/SMB), not suited for WSFC shared block storage.

FT1 and RF2: Refer to Fault Tolerance and Redundancy Factor, not storage solutions.

To license a new AOS-based cluster with no add-on packages, the appropriate license type isNutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI). The NCI license provides the fundamental capabilities required for Nutanix clusters, including:

Storage and data management.

Core virtualization features.

Compute resources for workloads.

NCI is designed for organizations that need the essential features of the Nutanix platform without additional add-ons such as database services (NDB) or advanced storage options (NUS).

Other options:

A. Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM):Focuses on management capabilities for multi-cloud and operational tasks, not core infrastructure licensing.

C. Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS):Specifically provides unified file and object storage capabilities, not relevant for a base AOS cluster.

D. Nutanix Database Service (NDB):A dedicated licensing tier for database management features.

To remove old VM snapshots, the task should be completed from theVM dashboardin Prism Element. This dashboard allows administrators to manage virtual machine-related operations, including snapshot creation, deletion, and restoration. Steps include:

Navigate toPrism Element > VM.

Select the VM for which snapshots need to be deleted.

Click onSnapshots, then delete the selected snapshots.

To rerun only the health checks that previously failed or issued warnings, the administrator can select theOnly Failed and Warning Checksoption in Prism Element. This targeted approach helps verify that resolved issues have been addressed without rerunning all checks unnecessarily.

Steps:

Navigate toPrism Element > Health > NCC Checks.

Filter forOnly Failed and Warning Checksand rerun them.

Other options:

A. Run LCM Pre-Upgrade: Runs pre-upgrade checks, not related to health check validation.

B. Runncc health_checks run_all: Executes all checks, not just failed ones.

C. Select Run Check for each check worked: Requires manual execution for each check.