NCA-V6-10 Nutanix Practice Questions
Prepare for NCA-V6-10 with more than an answer.
- Exam fee
- $99 USD
- Level
- Associate
- Valid for
- Lifetime (no expiration)
Domains covered on the exam 4
- Describe Lifecycle Management25%
- Describe Nutanix Basic Administration35%
- Maintain Environmental Health of a Nutanix Cluster25%
- Describe Cluster Configuration Options15%
- 1
True or False: In a Nutanix AHV environment, live migration of a VM can be performed between two separate Nutanix clusters as long as they are both managed by the same Prism Central instance.
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Correct answer: B
This statement is false. Standard AHV live migration operates within the boundaries of a single cluster. While Prism Central can manage multiple clusters, it does not enable direct live migration of a running VM between them. Moving a VM between clusters requires a different process, such as setting up a protection domain and replicating the VM, which involves a brief period of downtime.
- 2
An administrator is creating a new storage container for a VDI workload. To maximize usable space for user profiles and linked clones, the administrator wants to enable storage efficiency features. Which feature works at a block level to save space by storing only unique copies of data?
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Correct answer: D
Deduplication is the process of identifying and eliminating duplicate blocks of data within a storage container. In a VDI environment where many VMs are based on the same golden image, there will be a large number of identical data blocks. Deduplication stores only one unique copy of each block and uses pointers for all other instances, resulting in significant space savings.
- 3
A junior administrator is using the Prism Element VM dashboard for the first time. They need to create a new VM from an existing image that was uploaded to the cluster. In the 'Create VM' dialog, which option must be selected to attach the disk image to the new VM?
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Correct answer: B
The Nutanix Image Service is the centralized repository for storing bootable disk images. When creating a new VM, the administrator must select 'Add New Disk' and then choose the operation 'Clone from Image Service'. This allows them to select a previously uploaded image to serve as the boot disk for the new VM.
- 4
What is the minimum number of nodes required in a Nutanix cluster to maintain data availability during a single node failure if the highest availability factor is configured?
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Correct answer: B
The highest availability factor is Replication Factor 3 (RF3), which maintains three copies of the data. To enable RF3 on a storage container, the cluster must have a minimum of 5 nodes. This ensures that even with a single node failure, there are still at least two copies of the data available, and the cluster has sufficient nodes to rebuild the data to full resiliency.
- 5
During an LCM inventory, the process fails. The administrator suspects a connectivity issue is preventing the CVMs from reaching the Nutanix release repository on the internet. Which TWO components should the administrator check to resolve this? (Select TWO)
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Correct answer: A, E
For LCM to perform an inventory and download updates, the CVMs must be able to resolve and reach external Nutanix URLs. This requires correct DNS server configuration to resolve hostnames to IP addresses. In many corporate environments, outbound internet access is only allowed through a proxy server, so the HTTP Proxy must also be correctly configured in Prism Element.
- 6
A financial services company is deploying a new Nutanix cluster and must comply with a strict security policy that requires all management traffic to be isolated. The administrator has already configured a separate VLAN for the CVMs and hypervisor hosts. Which additional step is crucial for securing the remote management interface of the nodes?
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Correct answer: D
The IPMI/BMC interface provides out-of-band management capabilities, including remote power control and console access. Placing it on the same VLAN as CVMs or user traffic creates a security risk. Best practice dictates that IPMI/BMC ports should be configured on a completely separate, isolated, and secured management VLAN to prevent unauthorized access to the physical hardware layer.
- 7
During a routine health check, an administrator notices that the cluster's metadata disk usage is consistently high. Which TWO actions can help mitigate this issue? (Select TWO)
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Correct answer: B, D
Each VM snapshot creates a significant amount of metadata. A large accumulation of snapshots is a primary cause of high metadata disk usage. Deleting them reduces the metadata footprint. Adding nodes with larger SSDs expands the total metadata capacity across the cluster, providing a long-term solution to accommodate growth.
- 8
True or False: When creating a VM template from a VM on an AHV cluster, the source VM must be powered off to ensure data consistency.
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Correct answer: A
This statement is true. To create a VM template, which is a deployable base image, the source virtual machine must be in a powered-off state. This ensures that the file system is static, in-memory data is flushed to disk, and the resulting template is application-consistent.
- 9
An administrator is tasked with performing a one-click upgrade of the AOS software on a production cluster. They have successfully run the latest Nutanix Cluster Check (NCC) and resolved all failures. What is the next step the Life Cycle Manager (LCM) will perform after the administrator initiates the upgrade?
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Correct answer: A
The LCM orchestrates a rolling upgrade to maintain cluster availability. After pre-upgrade checks, it selects one CVM, places it into maintenance mode, upgrades the AOS on that node, and then restarts the CVM. Once the CVM is back online and stable, LCM proceeds to the next node in the cluster, repeating the process until all nodes are upgraded.
- 10
Case Study:
A mid-sized healthcare provider, HealthForward, runs its electronic health record (EHR) system on a 5-node Nutanix AHV cluster. Due to regulatory compliance (HIPAA), all patient data must be encrypted at rest. The security team has mandated the use of an external Key Management Server (KMS) that is already deployed in their datacenter. The cluster currently uses self-encrypting drives (SEDs), but software-based encryption was not enabled during the initial deployment.
The systems administrator is now tasked with enabling data-at-rest encryption on the existing cluster to meet the new compliance requirement. The primary goals are to ensure all existing and future data is encrypted, integrate with the corporate KMS, and minimize disruption to the live EHR application. The administrator has already verified network connectivity between the CVMs and the external KMS.
What is the correct high-level process for the administrator to enable data-at-rest encryption on this cluster?
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Correct answer: D
Nutanix data-at-rest encryption can be enabled on a live cluster. The process is performed online without requiring downtime. After configuring the external KMS in Prism Element, the Distributed Storage Fabric (DSF) initiates a background process that re-encrypts all existing data. This is a rolling process that manages I/O to minimize performance impact on running applications like the EHR system.
