NS0-177 Cisco and NetApp Certified FlexPod Design Specialist Practice Questions
Prepare for NS0-177 with more than an answer.
- Level
- Specialist
- Valid for
- 2 years
Domains covered on the exam 4
- FlexPod Design25%
- Networking25%
- Security25%
- Tools25%
- 1
A customer is experiencing an issue where a newly deployed Cisco UCS blade cannot boot from its designated NetApp LUN. To utilize the FlexPod Cooperative Support model efficiently, how should the customer initiate the support request?
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Correct answer: B
Under the FlexPod Cooperative Support model, a customer only needs to open a case with one vendor (usually the one where the symptom is most apparent, e.g., Cisco for a blade failing to boot). If that vendor determines the issue involves the partner's equipment (e.g., NetApp storage), they will seamlessly engage the other vendor's support team via the TSANet framework without requiring the customer to open a second ticket.
- 2
When designing a FlexPod environment, which storage protocol is specifically optimized for block-level access over standard Ethernet networks and is commonly utilized to boot Cisco UCS blades without requiring dedicated Fibre Channel (FC) switches?
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Correct answer: B
iSCSI provides block-level SAN access over standard Ethernet networks (TCP/IP). It is widely used in FlexPod designs to provide SAN boot capabilities for Cisco UCS blades without the need to deploy and manage a dedicated Fibre Channel (MDS) infrastructure.
- 3
In a FlexPod network architecture, the Cisco UCS Fabric Interconnects (FIs) can operate in either End-Host Mode (EHM) or Switch Mode. What is the primary advantage of deploying the FIs in End-Host Mode for ethernet traffic?
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Correct answer: B
In End-Host Mode (the default and recommended mode for FlexPod), the Fabric Interconnect does not participate in Spanning Tree Protocol (STP). Instead, it appears to the upstream Nexus switches as a large server with many adapters. This eliminates the risk of spanning tree loops while allowing active-active forwarding and highly efficient utilization of uplinks.
- 4
An architect is reviewing a FlexPod Datacenter design utilizing virtual Port Channels (vPC) on a pair of Cisco Nexus 9000 switches. The vPC peer-link fails, but the vPC keepalive link remains operational.
What is the expected behavior of the secondary vPC peer switch in this scenario?
flowchart TD A[Nexus 9000 - Primary] |Peer-Link Fails| B[Nexus 9000 - Secondary] A |Keepalive Active| B A --> C[UCS FI-A] B --> C A --> D[UCS FI-B] B --> DShow answer details
Correct answer: B
In a vPC topology, if the vPC peer-link fails but the peer-keepalive link is still active, it triggers a "split-brain" mitigation mechanism. The secondary vPC peer detects that the primary is still alive (via the keepalive) but the data path (peer-link) is down. To prevent loops and traffic blackholing, the secondary switch automatically suspends (shuts down) its vPC member ports, forcing all traffic to traverse the primary switch.
- 5
A healthcare provider is replacing their legacy infrastructure with a new FlexPod Datacenter solution. The primary workload consists of a large-scale Epic EHR database that demands consistently low latency, high IOPS, and strict zero-data-loss disaster recovery capabilities. Which combination of FlexPod components is most appropriate for this specific workload?
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Correct answer: C
For a mission-critical database workload like Epic EHR requiring consistently low latency and high IOPS, NetApp All Flash FAS (AFF) with NVMe is the optimal storage choice. Cisco UCS B-Series or X-Series paired with Nexus 9000 provides the necessary compute density and network bandwidth required by FlexPod Datacenter best practices.
- 6
A financial services organization is designing a FlexPod solution to support a new Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) initiative. The workload requires massive parallel processing capabilities and high-throughput data access. Which specific compute component should the architect select to meet these requirements?
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Correct answer: B
AI and ML workloads heavily rely on massive parallel processing, which is best delivered by Graphics Processing Units (GPUs). In the Cisco UCS portfolio, C-Series rack servers (or specialized X-Series nodes) are designed to house high-performance, full-size PCIe NVIDIA GPUs required for deep learning and AI workloads.
