NCP-CI-AWS Nutanix Certified Professional - Cloud Integration - AWS (NCP-CI-AWS6.7) Exam Questions and Answers

When a node is marked as "Condemned," it indicates that the system has determined that the node is no longer reliable for operations. As part of the automated recovery and protection process, the following action is typically taken:

The node has a power reset sent to it (Answer A):

In most cases, a condemned node undergoes a power reset as an initial recovery attempt. This action attempts to reboot the node to bring it back to a healthy state. If the reset fails,further manual or automated steps may be required to address the hardware or software issue.

References:

Nutanix Cluster Management Documentation

Nutanix Support Knowledge Base

The alert indicates a potential issue with the VPC/Subnet settings, preventing the cluster nodes from contacting Nutanix services.

To resolve this, the administrator needs to ensure that the subnet 10.0.1.0/24, which is assigned for Bare metal hosts, has an outbound Internet connection.

This connection is necessary for the cluster nodes to communicate with external Nutanix services for updates, license validation, and other essential operations.

Verify that there are appropriate route tables and security group rules allowing outbound traffic to the Internet from the 10.0.1.0/24 subnet.

Ensure that there is either an Internet Gateway (IGW) attached to the VPC or a NAT Gateway configured if using private subnets.

References:Refer to the Nutanix documentation and AWS VPC configuration guides to ensure proper Internet connectivity and routing setups.

To allow wide open access to a particular NC2 AWS cluster from an on-premises subnet (10.19.160.0/24), the proper Custom Security Group formatting needs to include the necessary tags that specify the external cluster UUID and the networks allowed.

Custom Security Group Configuration:

The configuration should include tags to identify the cluster and the networks that should be granted access.

Key: nutanix:clusters

Key: nutanix:clusters:external

Value:

Explanation of Choice:

Option Bincludes the necessary tags and values, ensuring that the specific cluster UUID is recognized and the on-premises subnet (10.19.160.0/24) can communicate with the NC2 cluster.

Security Group Tags:

nutanix:clusters:external- Identifies the cluster as external.

nutanix:clusters:external:cluster-uuid- Specifies the unique identifier for the cluster, enabling proper traffic routing and access.

References:

Nutanix Cloud Clusters on AWS Administration Guide

AWS Security Group Documentation

Nutanix Best Practices for Custom Security Group Configuration

To ensure that every NC2 on AWS cluster deployed allows full access from the on-premises CVM subnet efficiently, the administrator should create a custom AWS Network Security Group.

Use a key value oftag:nutanix:clusters:externalfor the security group, and set the inbound allow address to the on-premises subnet.

This approach leverages AWS tags to manage security group rules dynamically and ensures that the necessary access permissions are applied automatically to all clusters with the specified tag.

This method reduces the need for manual configuration of each cluster's security group, streamlining the process for a test/dev environment where clusters are frequently created and destroyed.

References:Refer to the AWS documentation on Network Security Groups and Nutanix documentation on best practices for securing NC2 clusters.

When configuring a syslog server in the Prism Central Admin Center for Nutanix, one of the available log modules is Acropolis.

The Acropolis module logs system events related to the Nutanix Acropolis operating system, which is critical for monitoring and auditing system activities and performance.

Configuring syslog with the Acropolis module ensures that important events and issues related to the Acropolis environment are captured and can be forwarded to an external syslog server for centralized logging and analysis.

References:Refer to the Nutanix documentation on Prism Central and syslog configuration for the full list of available log modules and detailed steps for configuration.

The role of "Customer Administrator" in Nutanix Cloud Integration with AWS (NC2) is designed to meet the requirements of creating and managing multiple organizations and clusters, as well as managing user access for the entire company.

Roles and Permissions:

Customer Administrator: This role has the broadest set of permissions, allowing the user to create and manage organizations, clusters, and user access across the entire company. It encompasses administrative control over multiple aspects of the NC2 environment.

Capabilities:

Organization Management: Ability to create and manage multiple organizations.

Cluster Management: Full control over creating, configuring, and managing clusters.

User Access Management: Manage user roles and permissions, ensuring that the right individuals have access to the necessary resources.

Why Not Other Roles:

Organization Administrator: Limited to managing organizations but not clusters and user access at the company level.

Customer Security Administrator: Focuses on security aspects, lacking broader administrative capabilities.

Cluster Administrator: Limited to managing clusters without the ability to manage organizations and user access comprehensively.

References:

Nutanix Cloud Clusters on AWS Administration Guide

Nutanix Role-Based Access Control Documentation

When setting up a landing zone for Nutanix clusters on AWS, having only private subnets for cluster management and user VMs is not sufficient for full cluster functionality. Nutanix clusters often need to communicate with the internet for updates, patches, and other cloud services.

VPC Configuration:

The VPC already has two private subnets (one for cluster management and one for user VMs).

Additional Requirements:

To access public services like S3 or for the cluster nodes to reach Nutanix services for updates, a public subnet is essential.

Why Public Subnet for Internet Access?:

A public subnet allows resources within it to communicate directly with the internet, which is necessary for accessing Nutanix's update servers, applying patches, and other maintenance tasks.

This subnet typically includes an internet gateway, enabling instances in the public subnet to receive and send traffic directly to the internet.

References:

Nutanix Cloud Clusters on AWS Administration Guide

AWS Networking Best Practices

Nutanix Networking and Subnet Configuration Guidelines

The administrator has not created the necessary Security Group:

The error message indicates that the creation of network interfaces in a shared subnet requires specifying a security group. This means that the necessary security group has not been created or assigned to the network interfaces.

Creating the appropriate security group and ensuring it is associated with the network interfaces during cluster deployment should resolve this issue.

References:Refer to AWS documentation on security groups and network interface configuration and Nutanix documentation on prerequisites for deploying NC2 clusters in an existing AWS VPC.

To avoid IP address conflicts and ensure there are no configuration issues when reusing an existing AWS subnet, the administrator should take the following actions:

aCLI > net.add_to_ip_blacklist 10.79.4.200 aCLI > net.add_to_ip_blacklist 10.79.4.201 (Answer A):

This command adds the specified IP addresses to the blacklist, preventing AHV IPAM from assigning these addresses to any VMs. This ensures that the existing EC2 instances with IPs 10.79.4.200 and 10.79.4.201 are not allocated to other VMs in the NC2 cluster.

Configure the AHV IPAM to use DHCP range 10.79.4.2 -10.79.4.253 (Answer D):

By configuring the AHV IPAM to use a specific DHCP range, you ensure that the IP addresses assigned to the EC2 instances (10.79.4.200 and 10.79.4.201) are not included in the DHCP pool. This prevents IP address conflicts within the subnet.

References:

Nutanix aCLI Reference

Nutanix NC2 on AWS Documentation

AWS VPC and Subnet Basics

For the NC2 cluster deployed in the North Virginia region (us-east-id), consuming IPs from the 10.78.2.0/24 range, the subnets configured within the same CIDR range of 10.78.0.0/16 will be recognized.

The subnetDR01 (10.78.2.0/24)is directly within the range of the deployed cluster.

The subnetL2stretch (10.19.101.0/24)is also configured in the NC2 AWS VPC, although not in the immediate range of the cluster, it may show up due to broader network configurations for stretched L2 operations.

SubnetsVDI (10.78.130.0/22)andDR02 (10.79.120.0/24), although part of the same VPC, are not directly within the immediate CIDR range or may not be recognized in this specific configuration scenario.

References:Refer to the Nutanix documentation on NC2 AWS VPC subnet configurations and Prism Element settings for detailed guidelines on network visibility and configuration.

The clusters that are to be protected must be registered with the same instance of Prism Central (Answer C):

For Cluster Protect to function correctly, all clusters intended for protection must be registered under the same Prism Central instance. This ensures consistent management and coordination of protection policies and operations across clusters.

The Cluster Protect feature requires AOS version 6.7 or higher (Answer D):

Cluster Protect is a feature that is available starting from AOS version 6.7. To utilize this feature, ensure that the Nutanix clusters are running this version or a newer one.

References:

Nutanix Cluster Protection Documentation

Nutanix AOS Release Notes

When selecting the NC2 subscription plan from the Nutanix Billing portal, the available options include:

Pay-as-you-Go (PayG): A flexible payment option where users are billed based on their actual usage, providing cost efficiency for variable workloads.

Bring your own License (BYOL): Allows users to utilize existing Nutanix licenses they have purchased, offering a cost-effective way to leverage existing investments in Nutanix software.

References:Refer to the Nutanix billing and subscription documentation for detailed descriptions of subscription plans and their benefits.

To protect workloads on an NC2 cluster on AWS, deploying strategies that ensure high availability and disaster recovery are essential. The two valid options are:

Create a Second NC2 Cluster in a Different Availability Zone:

High Availability: Deploying a second NC2 cluster in a different availability zone ensures that workloads can be quickly recovered in case of an availability zone failure.

Disaster Recovery: This setup enables asynchronous replication between clusters, providing a robust disaster recovery solution.

Use an Existing On-Prem Nutanix Cluster as a Disaster Recovery Target:

Hybrid DR: Leveraging an existing on-premises Nutanix cluster for disaster recovery provides a cost-effective and efficient DR solution.

Replication: Set up replication policies to ensure data is consistently copied from the NC2 cluster on AWS to the on-premises cluster.

Why Not Other Options:

One-node cluster in another availability zone: Not a valid DR solution as a single-node cluster cannot provide the required resilience and high availability.

Deploy a cluster across two availability zones: While this can enhance availability, it is not a typical approach for Nutanix clusters which are designed to operate within a single availability zone for simplicity and performance reasons.

References:

Nutanix Cloud Clusters on AWS Administration Guide

Nutanix Disaster Recovery Best Practices

AWS Availability Zones and Disaster Recovery Documentation

AWS supports EC2 bare-metal instances in regions with at least 3 partitions. Partitions in AWS provide high availability and fault tolerance by distributing instances across different hardware to minimize the impact of hardware failures.

References:

AWS EC2 Bare Metal Instances Documentation

AWS Regions and Availability Zones

AWS Direct Connect allows companies to create private, dedicated connections between their data centers and AWS. This bypasses the internet and provides a more reliable and faster network connection directly to AWS services, including S3.

References:

AWS Direct Connect Documentation

AWS S3 Access over Direct Connect

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.

References:

Nutanix Prism Central Administration Guide

Nutanix Support Documentation on Email Alert Configuration

Best Practices for Configuring SMTP Servers in Cloud Environments

When performing a migration from an NC2 environment to a Nutanix on-premises environment, the task should be performed using the NC2 Prism Central. This is because NC2 Prism Central provides a centralized management interface that allows administrators to manage and migrate workloads between cloud and on-premises environments seamlessly.

References:

Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) Documentation

Nutanix Community Guide

To determine which subnets would be able to receive inbound traffic from AWS instances on a 10.0.0.0/22 network segment, we need to look at the configured subnets and their CIDR ranges, as well as the custom network security group's inbound rules.

Available CIDR ranges in VPC:

70.73.0.0/16

10.79.107.0/24

10.0.0.0/22

Configured Subnets in NC2 AWS VPC:

VDI: 10.78.130.0/22

SQL: 10.78.3.0/24

Server01: 10.78.2.0/24

Server02: 10.79.120.0/24

Tier01: 10.19.101.0/24

Custom Network Security Group Inbound Rule:

Allows all inbound traffic from 10.0.0.0/22.

Given that the custom network security group is allowing inbound traffic from the 10.0.0.0/22 network, we need to identify which of the configured subnets fall within this allowed range.

Analysis:

The subnets 10.78.130.0/22, 10.78.3.0/24, 10.78.2.0/24, 10.79.120.0/24, and 10.19.101.0/24 do not overlap with 10.0.0.0/22. Therefore, none of these subnets would naturally fall within the 10.0.0.0/22 range directly.

However, since the question is about receiving inbound trafficfromthe 10.0.0.0/22 network and considering security group rules, all subnets mentioned can technically receive traffic if the inbound rules are configured correctly, but since we are strictly asked about the configuration from the image and the overlap in the ranges:

Server01 (10.78.2.0/24)andTier01 (10.19.101.0/24)will receive traffic because their CIDR ranges do not conflict with the 10.0.0.0/22 range, thus allowing traffic without additional restrictions.

References:

Nutanix Clusters on AWS Administration Guide

AWS VPC and Subnet documentation

Network Security Group rules configuration in Nutanix documentation

The Cluster Protect feature, which provides data protection and disaster recovery capabilities for Nutanix clusters, requires either the AOS Ultimate or NCI Ultimate license. These licenses include the necessary features to leverage Cluster Protect for ensuring data resilience and recovery.

References:

Nutanix Documentation - Cluster Protection Features

Nutanix AOS 6.7 New Features