While Nutanix provides multiple management interfaces, each serves a distinct purpose in the hybrid cloud lifecycle. Prism Central and Prism Element are used for managing software-level entities like VMs, storage containers, and replication policies. However, for thedefinitive status of the cluster ' s cloud infrastructure—including whether the bare-metal nodes are provisioned, if the cluster is in a " Healthy, " " Degraded, " or " Failed " state, or if a " boot timeout " has occurred—administrators must usethe NC2 Portal. The NC2 Portal acts as the primary orchestration layer that bridges Nutanix and AWS; it is the only console that displays specific cloud deployment tasks, hardware replacement status, and AWS-raised infrastructure events in a unified view.

A valid CIDR range: A CIDR (Classless Inter-Domain Routing) range is necessary for creating the subnets within the VPC. This range defines the IP address space for the cluster and its components.

A my.nutanix.com account: This account is required to access Nutanix services, including the NC2 console, manage licenses, and perform other administrative tasks.

AWS Direct Connect and an on-premises Prism Central environment are not prerequisites for deploying an NC2 on AWS cluster. While Direct Connect can be used for enhanced network performance and connectivity, it is not a requirement for deployment. Similarly, having an on-premises Prism Central environment is not mandatory for NC2 deployment on AWS.

Refer to the Nutanix documentation on NC2 prerequisites and setup guides, and AWS documentation on VPC and subnet creation.

In Nutanix Cloud Integration with AWS, specifically version 6.7, the role that allows full access to clusters created within an organization is the Organization Administrator.

The Organization Administrator role has the highest level of privileges within an organization, enabling the user to manage all aspects of the clusters, including creation, modification, and deletion.

This role is designed to oversee and control the entire organization ' s resources, ensuring comprehensive management capabilities over all clusters and associated resources.

Refer to the Nutanix documentation on roles and permissions for NC2 on AWS for further details.

In an NC2 heterogeneous cluster (mixing different host types), the ability to addAmazon EBS volumesfor supplemental storage capacity is governed by both host compatibility and cluster redundancy rules. First, the administrator must ensure that the selected host types actually support EBS attachment; if the current selection does not, they mustadd a host type that supports EBS volumes. Second, the cluster must maintain its Replication Factor (RF) integrity. If the number of nodes for a specific storage-heavy host type is not amultiple of the RF(e.g., needing 4 nodes for RF2), the system may restrict storage expansion to prevent data unavailability during a failure. By ensuring the node count aligns with RF requirements and using compatible bare-metal instances, the administrator can unlock the EBS volume configuration options within the deployment workflow.

Configuring a proxy server for NC2 on AWS is a critical security step for organizations requiring centralized traffic inspection. This capability is specific to certain software versions and network architectures.

Support for proxy servers was introduced inAOS 6.7.1.6and requires the deployment to be within a user-created VPC (Bring Your Own VPC), rather than an auto-created VPC managed by Nutanix. It is important to note thatFlow Virtual Networking (FVN), which provides advanced overlay networking capabilities, currently does not support the use of a proxy server for cluster traffic. Therefore, administrators must choose between the advanced features of FVN and the traffic routing control provided by a proxy server based on their specific organizational requirements.

Nutanix offers a free trial to allow organizations to test NC2 capabilities.

This trial is flexible; users can initiate a separate 30-day free trial for each supported cloud provider, such as AWS and Azure, allowing for independent evaluations of different cloud environments. It is important to note that the " free " aspect of the trial applies only to theNutanix software licensing. The user is still responsible for allAWS infrastructure costs(bare-metal instances, storage, and data transfer) incurred during the trial period. Additionally, users are not restricted to the trial alone; they can choose to activate aPay-As-You-Go (PAYG)subscription even while the free trial is active to ensure a smooth transition to production after the evaluation ends.

To ensure that the newly created NC2 organization named Finance can only deploy clusters into certain cloud regions, the administrator should specify the allowed regions during the cloud account configuration.

This action restricts the regions available for cluster deployment, ensuring compliance with organizational policies or regulatory requirements.

The allowed regions can be set in the cloud account settings associated with the Finance NC2 organization, defining the geographical scope of operations.

Refer to the Nutanix documentation on NC2 cloud account configuration and region restrictions.

To ensure that alert emails are sent properly from Prism Central within an NC2 environment, configuring an SMTP server in the Prism Central settings is required. The SMTP server facilitates the sending of email notifications for alerts and other communications.

SMTP Configuration:

Prism Central requires an SMTP server to send email alerts. This involves specifying the SMTP server address, port, and authentication details if needed.

The configuration must include the email address from which the alerts will be sent and the recipient addresses.

Steps to Configure SMTP Server in Prism Central:

Log in to Prism Central.

Navigate to the " Settings " menu.

Select " Email Server " under the " Alerts " section.

Enter the SMTP server details, including the server address, port, and authentication credentials.

Test the configuration to ensure emails are sent correctly.

Nutanix Prism Central Administration Guide

Nutanix Support Documentation on Email Alert Configuration

Best Practices for Configuring SMTP Servers in Cloud Environments

When planning to leverage NC2 on AWS for an elastic DR scenario where the initial cluster is using 13en.metal, the following additional node types are supported for cluster expansion:

I3.metal: These instances provide high IOPS and low latency with NVMe SSDs, making them suitable for storage-intensive applications.

i4i.metal: These instances offer higher performance with AWS Nitro SSDs, improved network bandwidth, and better compute performance compared to the I3.metal instances.

Nutanix Cloud Clusters on AWS Documentation

Amazon EC2 I4i Instances – AWS

Amazon EC2 I3 Instances – AWS

To support Nutanix ' s native Local Key Manager (LKM) for data encryption in a cost-effective manner, a minimum of three nodes is required. This ensures that there is enough redundancy and reliability for the encryption services to function properly, complying with best practices for distributed key management.

Nutanix Support and Insights

Nutanix Cloud Clusters on AWS Administration