A bond is a logical interface that combines two or more physical interfaces on an AHV host. A bond provides high availability and load balancing for the network traffic of the host and its VMs. A bond can have different modes that determine how the traffic is distributed and how the bond handles failures of the physical interfaces. The most common bond modes are active-backup, active-active, and LACP1.

Nutanix recommends including at least two physical interfaces in every bond to ensure high availability and redundancy. If one of the physical interfaces fails or is disconnected, the other interface can take over the traffic without affecting the connectivity of the host or its VMs. Having at least two physical interfaces in a bond also allows for maintenance operations such as firmware upgrades or cable replacements without downtime2.

Nutanix does not recommend including NIC models from different vendors in the same bond, as this may cause compatibility issues or performance degradation. Nutanix also does not recommend using only one physical interface in a bond, as this provides no redundancy or load balancing benefits3.

The default network configuration for AHV hosts and CVMs is a bond named br0-up with two or more uplinks in active-backup mode. This means that only one uplink is active at a time, while the others are in standby mode. This provides high availability, but not load balancing or increased bandwidth. To increase the bandwidth available to the AHV host and the CVM, the administrator can change the bond mode to Active-Active, which allows all uplinks to be used simultaneously. This can be done using the manage-ovs commands on each AHV host. The steps are as follows1:

• Log in to the AHV host using SSH.
• Enter maintenance mode on the CVM by running allssh 'cluster status | grep -i cvm | grep -i down'.
• Change the bond mode to Active-Active by running manage_ovs --bond_mode active-active update_uplinks br0-up , where  is a comma-separated list of uplink interfaces (for example, eth0,eth1).
• Verify the bond mode by running manage_ovs show_uplinks.
• Exit maintenance mode on the CVM by running allssh 'cluster start'.

The best way to configure the VM for optimal performance is to set it up with 2 vNUMA nodes. This will ensure that the VM is configured to take advantage of the CPU and memory resources available in each node, and it will also ensure that all of the cores are utilized for the best performance. Additionally, the administrator should ensure that the VM has an affinity policy set up so that the vCPUs are evenly distributed across the four nodes. Finally, Flash Mode should be enabled in order to take advantage of the high-performance SSDs that are available in the cluster

LCM (Life Cycle Manager) is a feature that allows Nutanix administrators to perform one-click firmware and software upgrades for Nutanix clusters and components. LCM fetches inventory and update information from a pre-configured URL that contains the latest versions of firmware and software packages. However, upgrading Nutanix AOS does not automatically update the fetch URL. To update the fetch URL, the administrator needs to update the LCM framework. The LCM framework is the core component of LCM that provides the logic and functionality for inventory, download, and upgrade operations1.

To upgrade the LCM framework, the administrator needs to perform an LCM inventory. An LCM inventory is a process that scans the cluster and its components for their current firmware and software versions and compares them with the available versions from the fetch URL. If there is a newer version of the LCM framework available, it will be shown as an update option under Cluster Software Component in the Available Updates page. The administrator can then select and apply the LCM framework update to upgrade it to the latest version2.

The administrator can perform an LCM inventory using Prism Element or Prism Central. The steps are as follows3:

• In Prism Element, go to the Network Configuration page and click Life Cycle Management.
• In Prism Central, go to the Services page and click Life Cycle Management.
• Click Inventory in the toolbar and select Perform Inventory from the drop-down menu.
• Wait for the inventory process to complete and check for any available updates.

The critical alerts listed are indicating that the default passwords are still in use for IPMI, the host, and the Controller Virtual Machine (CVM). This suggests that the passwords for these components were not changed from the default during the initial cluster configuration and deployment process, which is a critical security practice.

A. CVM password changes: The alert for the CVM using the default password indicates that the CVM password has not been changed. It is a standard security measure to change default passwords to prevent unauthorized access.

C. Host password changes: Similarly, the alert for the host using the default password indicates that the default password for the host has not been updated. This applies to the passwords used to access the hypervisor host directly.

Changing default passwords is a critical step in securing the Nutanix environment. This is highlighted in Nutanix's best practices and security guidelines, which recommend changing default passwords as part of the initial configuration to ensure that the environment is not left vulnerable to unauthorized access due to known default credentials. This process is typically part of the initial setup procedures outlined in the Nutanix documentation for cluster deployment and security configuration.

The IPMI alert also points to the need for changing default passwords, but since IPMI (Intelligent Platform Management Interface) is not specifically mentioned in the provided options, it falls under the broader category of host-level password changes, which would be covered by option C.

BIOS password changes (Option B) and Password policy changes (Option D) are also important but were not directly flagged by the alerts mentioned. BIOS password changes are usually a separate task and not indicated by the alerts given, while password policy changes are related to the policies governing password complexity and rotation rather than the initial password setup.

The issue described pertains to the inability to ping the IPMI IPs after moving the IPMI network links to the actual switches with specific VLAN configurations. The two changes that the administrator needs to make are:

A. SSH to AHV and set the VLAN ID using IPMI Tool: Since all VLANs are tagged in the new network configuration, the IPMI network interface needs to be aware of the VLAN it’s supposed to communicate on. This can be achieved by setting the VLAN ID using the IPMI Tool on the AHV.

C. SSH to AHV and change the IP address using IPMI tool: If the IPMI IP addresses were initially set in a different subnet that is not routable in the new network configuration, the administrator would need to change the IPMI IP addresses to match the new network configuration. This can be done by SSHing to the AHV and using the IPMI Tool to change the IP address.

According to the CPU (%) - VMware Docs web search result2, one of the possible causes of high CPU ready % is over-provisioning vCPUs for a VM or having too many VMs on a host. CPU ready % indicates the percentage of time that the VM was ready, but could not get scheduled to run on the physical CPU. High CPU ready % can lead to VM performance problems, such as slow response time or application latency. To improve VM performance, the administrator should reduce the number of vCPUs assigned to VMs or reduce the number of VMs on the hosts, so that there is less contention for CPU resources.

According to the Nutanix Community1, users can authenticate using their Active Directory credentials when Active Directory support is enabled for Prism Central. To enable Active Directory support, you need to configure Role Mapping12, which defines how Active Directory groups map to Prism Central roles.

https://next.nutanix.com/ncm-intelligent-operations-formerly-prism-pro-ultimate-26/configuring-authentication-38051

According to section 6 of the exam blueprint guide1, one of the topics covered is VM placement options. When creating a new VM on an AHV cluster, there are two ways to determine its initial placement:

• Automatic placement: The Acropolis Dynamic Scheduler (ADS) selects a host that provides adequate resources for the VM’s configuration, such as CPU, memory, disk space, and network bandwidth. ADS also considers factors such as host load, power state, availability domains, and affinity rules.
• Manual placement: The administrator can specify a host or a host group where they want to place the VM.

network segmentation on Nutanix clusters refers to creating a separate network for service-specific communication and isolating different types of traffic over selected VLANs or physical interfaces.

https://next.nutanix.com/ncm-intelligent-operations-formerly-prism-pro-ultimate-26/network-segmentation-isolating-service-specific-traffic-39463

https://next.nutanix.com/how-it-works-22/network-segmentation-basics-38414

The correct answer is A. Long term storage of data which is written once and read infrequently.

Erasure Coding is a feature that increases the usable capacity on a Nutanix cluster by reducing the amount of data replication. Instead of replicating data, Erasure Coding uses parity information to rebuild data in the event of a disk failure. The capacity savings of Erasure Coding is in addition to deduplication and compression savings1.

Erasure Coding is most beneficial for scenarios where the data is written once and read infrequently, such as long term storage of archival data, backup data, or cold data. This is because Erasure Coding has some trade-offs and limitations that may affect the performance and availability of the cluster. Some of these trade-offs and limitations are2:

• Erasure Coding requires more CPU and memory resources than replication, as it involves more complex calculations for encoding and decoding data.
• Erasure Coding increases the network bandwidth consumption, as it involves more data transfers between nodes for encoding and decoding data.
• Erasure Coding reduces the resiliency of the cluster, as it can tolerate fewer node failures than replication. For example, a cluster with redundancy factor 2 can tolerate one node failure with replication, but only two disk failures with Erasure Coding.
• Erasure Coding is not effective for workloads that have many overwrites or random writes, as it involves more overhead for updating the parity information.
• Erasure Coding is not supported for some features, such as volume groups, file server VMs, or Metro Availability.

Therefore, if an administrator needs to configure a container on a Nutanix cluster, they should enable Erasure Coding only if the container will store data that is written once and read infrequently. This way, they can maximize the capacity savings of Erasure Coding without compromising the performance and availability of the cluster.

According to the Nutanix Support & Insights web search result1, erasure coding is a data savings technique that utilizes stripes and parity calculation in a Nutanix cluster. Erasure coding increases the usable capacity on a cluster by reducing the replication factor of data blocks. Instead of replicating data, erasure coding uses parity information to rebuild data in the event of a disk or node failure. Erasure coding can save up to 50% of storage space compared to replication factor 2, and up to 75% compared to replication factor 32.

Answer: A. VM-VM anti-Affinity policy

A VM-VM anti-Affinity policy is a rule that ensures that two or more VMs don’t run on the same AHV host. It’s useful when an application provides HA and an AHV host can’t be an application’s single point of failure1. In this case, the SQL cluster VMs should have a VM-VM anti-Affinity policy configured to prevent them from running on the same host and causing an outage if that host fails. A VM-VM anti-Affinity policy can be created using the aCLI commands2. The other options are not relevant for this scenario.

References: 1: Affinity Policies - Nutanix Support & Insights 2: Affinity Policies Help | Nutanix Community

According to the Nutanix Support & Insights web search result1, route injection is used to maintain I/O operations in the cluster when the Stargate service becomes unavailable on a single CVM on an AHV node. Route injection is a mechanism that allows the CVMs to communicate with each other and redirect the I/O requests to another healthy CVM in the cluster. Route injection uses the Linux kernel routing table to add or delete routes dynamically, based on the availability of the Stargate service on each CVM.

According to the web search results, the two impacts on the cluster that will result from increasing the vCPU count on all of the VDI VMs are:

• Increase CPU utilization%: CPU utilization is the percentage of time that a CPU is busy executing instructions5. By increasing the vCPU count on all of the VDI VMs, the administrator will increase the demand for CPU resources on the cluster, which will increase the CPU utilization percentage6.
• Increase CPU ready%: CPU ready is the percentage of time that a vCPU is ready to run but is waiting for a physical CPU to become available5. By increasing the vCPU count on all of the VDI VMs, the administrator will increase the contention for physical CPU resources on the cluster, which will increase the CPU ready percentage6. A high CPU ready percentage can indicate performance issues such as latency or slowdowns5.

Nutanix provides two types of granular RBAC for AHV hosts: category based and cluster based3. Category based RBAC allows administrators to assign roles to users or groups based on categories, which are key-value pairs that can be applied to various entities in Prism Central, such as clusters, hosts, VMs, images, and networks. Categories can be used to group entities by different criteria, such as department, project, environment, or location. For example, an administrator can create a category key named Department and assign different values to it, such as Finance, Marketing, or Engineering. Then, the administrator can apply this category to different clusters or hosts and assign roles to users or groups based on this category. This way, users or groups can have different levels of access to different clusters or hosts depending on their department4.

Cluster based RBAC allows administrators to assign roles to users or groups based on specific clusters registered in Prism Central. For example, an administrator can create a role named Cluster Admin and assign it to a user or group for a particular cluster. This way, the user or group can have full access to that cluster and its hosts and VMs, but not to other clusters5.

Active-Active is a bond mode that allows all uplinks in the bond to be used simultaneously for traffic transmission and reception. This bond mode provides load balancing and increased bandwidth for the AHV host and its VMs. Active-Active bond mode uses a hashing algorithm based on source MAC addresses to distribute traffic across different uplinks in the bond. Each individual VM NIC uses only a single bond member interface at a time, but multiple VM NICs are spread across different bond member interfaces. As a result, it is possible for a Nutanix AHV node with two 10 Gb interfaces to use up to 20 Gbps of network throughput, while individual VMs have a maximum throughput of 10 Gbps6.

Therefore, if an administrator needs to optimize for maximum single VM throughput, they should select Active-Active bond mode for their AHV cluster. This bond mode can be configured using Prism Element UI or manage-ovs commands on each AHV host7. No additional configuration is required on the upstream switch side, as long as the switches are interconnected physically or virtually and both uplinks trunk the same VLANs8.

data size for flash mode exceeds 25% of the SSD capacity could cause the performance issues. Flash mode is a feature that allows vDisks to be pinned to SSDs for faster access, but it has a limit of 25% of the SSD capacity per node. If this limit is exceeded, some vDisks may be evicted from flash mode and cause disk latency2.

Virtual NIC receive packet dropped is the most useful VM metric for isolating the cause of users being disconnected from remote desktop sessions to a specific VM. This metric shows the number of packets that are dropped by the virtual NIC of the VM due to insufficient buffer space or other reasons. Packet drops can indicate network congestion, misconfiguration, or performance issues that can affect the quality and availability of remote desktop sessions. Packet drops can also cause retransmissions, delays, and errors in TCP-based protocols such as RDP2. To view this metric in Prism, go to Entities > Compute & Storage > VMs > Summary View and select a VM. Then, in the Details View, go to Metrics > Performance and select Virtual NIC receive packet dropped from the drop-down menu3.

"Playbook allows you to define a trigger that results in the execution of an action or a series of actions. A trigger may be an event that occurs in the system, such as an alert or a request made by you. The resultant actions that you configure can be VM actions, communication actions, alert actions, or report actions." https://portal.nutanix.com/page/documents/details?targetId=Intelligent-Operations-Guide-vpc_2023_3:ssp-report-management-ssp-pc-c.html#:~:text=The%20environment%20summary%20report%20provides,is%20registered%20to%20Prism%20Central.

inline compression is a technique that compresses all incoming write I/O operations over 4 KB inline in the persistent write buffer (oplog)23. This approach enables you to use oplog capacity more efficiently and helps drive sustained performance2. From AOS 5.18 onward, inline compression (compression delay=0) is enabled by default for all new containers24.

https://portal.nutanix.com/page/documents/solutions/details?targetId=TN-2032-Data-Efficiency:TN-2032-Data-Efficiency

According to the web search results, one of the requirements for cross-hypervisor disaster recovery (CHDR) is to install and configure Nutanix Guest Tools (NGT) on all the VMs2. NGT configures the VM with all the required drivers for VM portability. Without NGT, the VMs may fail to boot after being migrated to a different hypervisor type. 

According to the Network File System web search result3, NFS (Network File System) is a distributed file system protocol that allows a user on a client computer to access files over a network in a manner similar to how local storage is accessed. NFS is one of the access protocols supported by Files. According to the [MS-WPO]: File Access Services Protocols web search result4, SMB (Server Message Block) is a Windows file sharing protocol that enables applications to discover, access, and share files that are hosted on or made available by a file server, using a network between them, in a secure and managed environment. SMB is another access protocol supported by Files. Therefore, SMB and NFS are two access protocols supported by Files.

The correct answer is D. VM Storage Controller Bandwidth.

VM Storage Controller Bandwidth is a metric that measures the amount of data that a VM is reading and writing to the storage fabric. The storage fabric is the network of storage controllers (CVMs) that provide distributed and fault-tolerant storage services to the VMs on the Nutanix cluster. The VM Storage Controller Bandwidth metric shows the read and write bandwidth in megabytes per second (MBps) for each VM. The higher the bandwidth, the more data the VM is transferring to and from the storage fabric1.

The administrator can use Prism Central to view the VM Storage Controller Bandwidth metric for each VM in a chart or a widget. The administrator can also use Prism Central to view other metrics related to the VM’s storage performance, such as VM Storage Controller IOPS, VM Storage Controller Latency, and VM Disk Usage2.

Deploy the Move appliance and Import the .vmdk into the Image Service. These are two methods that can be used to migrate a VM from VMware ESXi to AHV2. The Move appliance is a tool that automates the migration process by converting the VM disks and configuration to AHV format and transferring them to the Nutanix cluster3. The Image Service is a feature that allows users to upload and manage disk images that can be used to create or clone VMs on AHV4. By importing the .vmdk file of the VMware VM into the Image Service, users can create a new AHV VM from that image.

 According to the Nutanix Support & Insights web search result1, the name of the internal bridge used by AHV nodes and CVMs is br0. The internal bridge is an Open vSwitch (OVS) bridge that connects the AHV host management interface, the CVM interface, and the VM vNICs. The internal bridge also acts as a gateway for the CVM and VM traffic to reach the external network through the host physical NICs.

Automated live migration is a feature of Nutanix that allows the cluster to automatically move VMs from one host to another without any downtime, in order to optimize the performance and availability of the cluster. According to the Nutanix documentation1, automated live migration can occur in the following scenarios:

• Cluster resource hotspot: When a host or a group of hosts experience high resource utilization, such as CPU, memory, or network, the cluster can automatically migrate some VMs to other hosts with lower utilization, in order to balance the load and avoid performance degradation.
• AOS upgrade: When upgrading the Nutanix software (AOS), the cluster can automatically migrate the VMs from the host that is being upgraded to another host in the same availability zone, in order to maintain the VM availability and minimize the impact of the upgrade process.
• AHV host maintenance mode: When putting an AHV host into maintenance mode, the cluster can automatically migrate all the VMs from that host to another host in the same availability zone, in order to prepare the host for maintenance operations such as hardware replacement or firmware update.

According to the Nutanix Files Guide, Nutanix Files instances are composed of a set of VMs (called FSVMs). Files requires at least three FSVMs running on three nodes to satisfy a quorum for high availability. By default, Files deploys three FSVMs when you create a file server instance.

Configure VM-Host affinity for the nodes that meet the application’s GPU requirement. This is because VM-Host affinity allows the administrator to specify which nodes a VM can run on or must not run on1. By creating a VM-Host affinity rule that binds the application VM to the three nodes that have the physical GPU, the administrator can ensure that the VM will always run on a node that meets its requirement, regardless of any HA or migration events. This also allows the other nodes in the cluster to host other VMs without any restrictions.

According to the Nutanix Support & Insights web search result2, VM NICs on AHV can operate in two modes: Access and Trunked. Access NICs are the default, and allow one VLAN on the NIC. Trunked NICs allow multiple VLANs on a single NIC for VMs that are VLAN aware. If you must use trunked NICs, follow the steps described in the web search result2. Therefore, the most efficient way to have a VM on an AHV cluster with access to multiple VLANs is to update a vNIC on the VM to operate in trunked mode for all desired VLANs.

The task that needs to be performed when time is not synchronizing properly after deploying a cluster is NTP configuration. In the Nutanix Multicloud Infrastructure (NCP-MCI) 6.5, Network Time Protocol (NTP) is used to synchronize the system time across all the nodes in a cluster. If the time is not synchronizing properly, it indicates that there might be an issue with the NTP configuration. Therefore, checking and correcting the NTP configuration would be the appropriate action to resolve this issue. The other options like DNS configuration, HA configuration, and SMTP configuration are not directly related to time synchronization in a cluster.

Zombie VMs and overprovisioned VMs are two types of inefficient VMs that can waste resources and increase costs in a Nutanix environment. Zombie VMs are VMs that are powered on but have no activity or utilization for a long period of time. Overprovisioned VMs are VMs that have more resources allocated than they actually need or use. Both types of VMs can be identified by adding predefined views to a report in Prism Central.

A predefined view is a template that defines what data is displayed and how that data is represented in a report. Prism Central provides several predefined views for different purposes, such as capacity planning, performance analysis, anomaly detection, and efficiency optimization. To add a predefined view to a report, go to Operations > Reports > New Report and select the desired view from the list1.

The Zombie VMs List view shows the list of zombie VMs in the environment based on the CPU usage, memory usage, disk IOPS, and network throughput metrics. The view also shows the amount of resources wasted by these VMs and the potential savings that can be achieved by deleting or resizing them2.

The Overprovisioned VMs List view shows the list of overprovisioned VMs in the environment based on the CPU usage, memory usage, disk IOPS, and network throughput metrics. The view also shows the amount of resources wasted by these VMs and the potential savings that can be achieved by resizing them3.

By adding these two views to a report, an administrator can identify inefficient VMs and take appropriate actions to optimize resource utilization and reduce costs.

References: 1: Reports Management - Prism Central Guide 2: Zombie VMs List - Prism Central Guide 3: Overprovisioned VMs List - Prism Central Guide

According to the Nutanix Prism Element Guide, Prism Element uses a single SSL certificate on a Nutanix cluster. The certificate is used to secure the communication between the web browser and the Prism web console. The certificate is also used to authenticate the cluster to external services, such as Active Directory, SMTP, and SNMP. The certificate can be either self-signed or signed by a trusted certificate authority (CA). The certificate can be replaced or renewed through the Prism web console or the ncli command-line interface.

Enable Memory Overcommit on the over-provisioned VMs is the most efficient resolution to enable additional VMs to be created. Memory overcommit allows VMs to use more memory than physically available on a host by compressing and swapping memory pages to storage1. This can improve memory utilization and increase VM density on a cluster1. However, memory overcommit is not supported when HA is configured to use reserved hosts, so you may need to disable HA reservation on the cluster before enabling memory overcommit1.

According to the Dell Unity: Data Reduction Technical White Paper1, snapshots and clones on Dell Unity use the Copy-on-Write (CoW) algorithm to maximize efficiency and effectiveness. CoW is a technique that defers the copying of data until it is modified. This means that snapshots and clones only consume space when changes are made to the source or the clone, respectively. CoW also preserves the original data in case of a rollback or recovery operation.

https://portal.nutanix.com/page/documen ts/details/?targetId=Prism-Central-Guide-Prism-v510:mul-alert-policies-user-defined-configure-pc-c.html

 When a node with Erasure Coding fails, the cluster will automatically rebuild the missing data using replication factor (RF) 2 or 3, depending on the cluster configuration. This means that the data that was previously stored using Erasure Coding will now be stored using full copies, which may increase the amount of data stored in the SSD tier1.

Step 1 ---> Login into Prism Element.

Step 2 ---> Select the Gear Icon at top right of the page.

Step 3 ---> Click Upgrade Software.

Step 4 ---> Select the component to upgrade.

Step 5 ---> Click download.

Step 6 ---> Once the download completes, select upgrade.

Invalid:-

1 - Select Prism Central.

2 - Select user login.

3 - On left select upgrade Prism Central.

According to section 4 of the exam blueprint guide1, one of the topics covered is AHV networking components and configuration settings. One of these components is Open vSwitch (OVS), which is a software switch that provides network connectivity between VMs and physical networks. OVS has two types of ports:

• Uplink ports: These are physical ports that connect to external networks or switches.
• Internal ports: These are virtual ports that connect to VMs or other internal networks.

To view the uplink state of all AHV nodes in the cluster, an administrator can use the manage_ovs command with the show_uplinks option. This command displays information such as port name, link state, speed, duplex mode, MTU size, bond mode, and bond status. However, this command only works on a single node. To run the command on all nodes in the cluster, an administrator can use the allssh command, which executes a command on all CVMs in parallel. Therefore, the correct command is:

allssh manage_ovs show_uplinks

According to the web search results, two steps that should be taken to prepare for relocating an AHV cluster to a new datacenter during a maintenance window are:

• Shut down all user VMs in the cluster: This step is necessary to ensure that there is no data loss or corruption during the relocation process. The user VMs can be shut down either individually or in bulk by using the Prism Element web console or the acli command-line interface1.
• Stop all Nutanix Files clusters: If the AHV cluster hosts any Nutanix Files clusters, they should be stopped before relocating the cluster. Nutanix Files clusters are composed of one or more virtual machines that provide file services to clients. Stopping a Nutanix Files cluster will stop all the file server VMs and release the resources they consume2. The Nutanix Files clusters can be stopped by using the Prism Element web console or the ncli command-line interface3.