NCSE-Core Exam Dumps - Nutanix SE Academy Questions and Answers

Shadow Clones is the AOS feature that provides enhanced read performance specifically for virtual desktop environments. This feature allows frequently read data to be cached locally on each node, reducing read latency and improving performance in environments with multiple virtual desktops accessing the same data​​.

To enhance the resiliency of the Nutanix environment against power outages to individual racks, it's essential to implement a strategy that ensures data availability even if an entire rack loses power. Here’s a step-by-step breakdown of the solution:

Current Environment Analysis:

The customer has two NX-3460-G7 blocks and one NX-3160-G7 block in a single rack.

Each block consists of multiple nodes, with a total of nine nodes across these blocks.

Objective:

Increase resiliency to power outages affecting individual racks.

Recommendations:

Move one node from each NX-3460-G7 block to the NX-3160-G7 block: This step is crucial to distribute the nodes across different physical blocks. By doing this, each block will have nodes that can ensure data availability even if a block is compromised.

Distribute the blocks across three separate racks: This ensures that even if one rack loses power, the nodes in the other racks can still maintain data availability and cluster operations.

Enable Rack Awareness: Rack Awareness is a feature in Nutanix that ensures data is distributed in such a way that a rack failure does not lead to data unavailability. When enabled, the system understands the physical location of each node and ensures data replication across different racks.

Implementation:

Physically relocate one node from each NX-3460-G7 block to the NX-3160-G7 block.

Physically distribute the three blocks (NX-3460-G7, NX-3460-G7, NX-3160-G7) across three different racks in the data center.

In the Nutanix Prism interface, enable Rack Awareness to logically inform the cluster of the new rack distribution.

Outcome:

By spreading nodes and blocks across three racks and enabling Rack Awareness, the customer will have increased resiliency. In case one rack loses power, the nodes in the other racks will ensure continuous data availability and cluster operations.

This approach leverages the best practices for ensuring high availability and fault tolerance in a Nutanix environment. It minimizes the risk of data loss or downtime due to power failures in a single rack.

References: For further information and detailed steps on enabling and configuring Rack Awareness, please refer to the Nutanix documentation related to high availability and data protection in multi-rack deployments.

D. Case Detail:

On portal.nutanix.com, open cases can be directly escalated from the "Case Detail" page. This page provides specific details about the case, including the ability to escalate it if necessary.

The "Case Detail" page contains all relevant information about the case, making it the appropriate place to manage and escalate cases.

To size a new project that requires offsite backup using Veeam with an RPO of 24 hours and the ability to restore from the past 7 days of backups, while considering the data change rate of 1%, the SE should configure the Nutanix Sizer with the following parameters:

Backup Frequency: Since the required RPO is 24 hours, a daily backup schedule should be set.

Retention Policy: The retention policy should be set to retain daily backups for 7 days. This means that each backup is kept for a week before it is overwritten.

Data Change Rate: The data change rate is 1%. This information is crucial for sizing the backup storage. A 1% daily change rate indicates that each daily backup will be approximately 1% of the total data size.

Backup Target: Veeam should be configured to send backups to an offsite location. This can be an external storage repository or a cloud target.

Storage Calculation: Calculate the total backup storage requirement. If the total data size is D, then the daily backup size will be 0.01D. Over 7 days, the storage requirement will be approximately 0.07D.

The SE should enter these details into the Nutanix Sizer to ensure the configuration aligns with the prospect's requirements.

References:

Nutanix documentation on configuring backup policies and retention in Veeam.

Standard practices for backup retention and RPO configurations in data protection solutions.

Erasure Coding (EC) Analysis:

Erasure Coding is a Nutanix feature that provides efficient storage utilization by distributing data across multiple nodes.

Write-cold Data Requirement:

Write-cold duration: Data must be 'write-cold' for a specific period before Erasure Coding can begin optimization.

Duration: The required duration for data to be considered 'write-cold' is 7 days.

Explanation:

Erasure Coding optimizes storage usage by encoding data across nodes. However, this process is applied to data that is infrequently accessed or modified.

The 7-day period ensures that the data is stable and not subject to frequent changes, making it suitable for EC optimization.

Outcome:

After 7 days of being 'write-cold', the data will be eligible for Erasure Coding, thereby optimizing storage efficiency while maintaining data resiliency.

References: For more details on Erasure Coding and its operational requirements, refer to Nutanix documentation on storage optimization and EC processes.

To migrate a VM configured for UEFI-boot from a Nutanix Hyper-V cluster to AHV, the recommended method is to use Nutanix Move. Nutanix Move is a migration tool designed to streamline the process of moving VMs between different hypervisors, including from Hyper-V to AHV. It supports UEFI-boot VMs and ensures that the VM's configuration and data are migrated efficiently and with minimal downtime.

References:

Nutanix Move Documentation

Nutanix Community Edition Getting Started Guide

To accurately size resources for VMs, certain VMs require further data analysis. Specifically, VMs with varying or unpredictable workloads, or those that have shown performance issues in the past, should be analyzed in more detail.

VM Analysis Criteria:

prodsrv02: If this VM has variable workload patterns or is known to run resource-intensive applications periodically, it requires detailed analysis to ensure that the resources allocated can handle peak loads without performance degradation.

prodsrv06: Similarly, if this VM has been identified to have inconsistent performance or varying resource utilization, further analysis is necessary to properly size the resources to meet its demands.

Data Collection:

Performance metrics such as CPU, memory, disk I/O, and network usage should be collected over a representative period to understand the peak and average resource requirements.

Sizing Tools:

Tools like Nutanix Sizer and Nutanix Collector can be used to gather detailed performance data and provide recommendations based on real usage patterns.

References:

Nutanix Sizing and Performance Best Practices.

Detailed Analysis Methods in Nutanix Documentation.

In Sizer, when creating a multi-cluster scenario, the Summary Failover Capacity indicator (N+0, N+1) shows the worst resiliency level of any cluster in the scenario. This helps in identifying the weakest link in terms of failover capacity across multiple clusters. If any cluster within the scenario has a lower failover capacity, the indicator will reflect this to ensure that the overall solution can handle the identified worst-case scenario​​.

To describe Nutanix hardware refreshes to a prospective customer, the SE should emphasize the seamless process of adding new hardware to an existing cluster and decommissioning old hardware:

Add New Nodes: New nodes can be added to the existing Nutanix cluster without downtime. This allows the cluster to temporarily expand its capacity and resources.

Migrate Workloads: Once the new nodes are operational, workloads can be migrated from the old nodes to the new nodes using live migration features (e.g., AHV, vMotion).

Decommission Old Nodes: After all workloads have been successfully migrated, the old nodes can be gracefully removed from the cluster.

Minimal Downtime: This process ensures minimal to no downtime and allows for hardware refreshes without significant disruptions to operations.

This streamlined approach significantly reduces the complexity and time required for hardware refreshes compared to traditional SAN-based environments.

References:

Nutanix documentation on adding and removing nodes from a cluster.

Best practices for performing hardware refreshes in Nutanix environments.

In the provided scenario, to meet the performance requirements and avoid any reduction in performance of the web servers, the systems engineer needs to adjust the CPU configuration. By switching to manual sizing and changing the CPUs of the node configuration to a dual 10 core model, the CPU resources will be sufficient to handle the workload without performance degradation​