NCS-Core Nutanix Certified Services Core Infrastructure Professional (NCS-Core 6.8) Free Practice Exam Questions (2025 Updated)

To troubleshoot physical network mis-cabling without physical access to the data center and connected to Cisco Nexus 9k switches, the appropriate command to run from the Nutanix AHV host is lldpctl. This command allows the consultant to view the Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP) information about directly connected devices. LLDP is supported on Nexus switches and provides detailed network topology information, which is crucial for identifying how the AHV nodes are connected to the switches, and to verify correct physical connections.References: Nutanix Command Reference Guide, Cisco Nexus 9000 Series documentation.

Ref: https://portal.nutanix.com/page/documents/details?targetId=Web-Console-Guide-Prism-v5_17:arc-configure-fault-tolerance-rack-prism-c.html

For a Nutanix cluster to support Replication Factor 3 (RF3), a minimum of 5 nodes is required. RF3 means that three copies of the data are maintained across the cluster for fault tolerance and high availability. Having at least five nodes ensures that there are sufficient nodes to distribute these copies across different fault domains, minimizing the risk of data loss and providing improved resilience against node failures.References: Nutanix Bible, Nutanix Technical Documentation on Data Resiliency.

When using active-backup bonding, failover delay can occur due to Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) reconvergence. STP places ports in a learning and listening state before forwarding traffic, causing packet loss during failover.

To minimize failover time, Spanning-tree PortFast should be enabled on the switch ports connected to the Nutanix hosts. PortFast immediately transitions ports to the forwarding state, avoiding the default 30-50 second delay caused by STP reconvergence.

Jumbo frames (A) only optimize network performance by allowing larger packet sizes but do not impact failover speed.

PAGP (B) is a Cisco-specific link aggregation protocol and is not applicable to Nutanix AHV bonding.

LACP on switch (C) is used for link aggregation, which is not relevant here as the default mode is active-backup, not LACP-based bonding.

Considering the equipment setup with one Out-of-Band Management (OOBM) Ethernet switch and two 10GbE SFP+ Top of Rack (ToR) switches, the consultant should recommend six DAC (Direct Attach Cable) 10GbE cables and three Ethernet cables. The DAC 10GbE cables are suitable for connecting the nodes to the ToR switches to handle high-speed data transfers, while the Ethernet cables are necessary for connections related to management purposes, such as connecting to the OOBM switch for remote management tasks. This recommendation ensures adequate connectivity for both data and management networks.References: Nutanix Hardware and Installation Guide, Best Practices for Network Cable Management.

The administrator's goal is to maximize storage potential in a cluster already configured with post-process compression and capacity deduplication. Erasure Coding (EC-X) is an effective method to further increase space savings by reducing the amount of redundancy data required for fault tolerance. It splits data into multiple chunks, which are distributed across the cluster, and parity is calculated and stored. This method is more space-efficient compared to traditional RAID or mirroring techniques, especially in environments where large data volumes need efficient storage.

References:

Nutanix Bible: Storage Efficiency

Nutanix University: Storage Configuration and Optimization

According to Nutanix best practices for network configuration, it is recommended to use either:

10G uplinks only: This provides sufficient bandwidth for typical data center operations.

25G uplinks only: This option is suitable for higher bandwidth requirements. Mixing uplinks with different speeds, such as 10G and 25G, is not recommended as it can lead to non-optimal performance and complexity in handling traffic.

References:

Nutanix Bible (https://www.nutanixbible.com ), specifically sections discussing network interface configurations.

Nutanix Network Administration Guide, which details best practices for network setup.

The failure to discover nodes during installation can often be attributed to the lack of IPv6 support on the network, especially if the Foundation process relies on IPv6 for node discovery. If IPv6 is not enabled on the customer’s switch, the discovery packets may not be properly routed, resulting in the nodes not being discovered. Enabling IPv6 on the switch could resolve this discovery issue.

References:

Nutanix Foundation Troubleshooting Guide: Nutanix Support Portal

Network Configuration and Troubleshooting Documentation

The optimal sequence for deploying a Nutanix AHV cluster with built-in software encryption involves the following steps:

Create Cluster: Establish the cluster foundation, which sets up the basic network and cluster configurations.

Install License Key: The ultimate licensing must be applied before enabling encryption because the feature depends on this license.

Encrypt Cluster: Once the cluster is created and licensed, enable encryption to secure the data at rest. This step should be done before creating storage containers to ensure that all data written to the containers is encrypted from the outset.

Create Storage Containers: Finally, create the storage containers. With encryption already enabled, any data written to these containers will be automatically encrypted.

References:

Nutanix Bible (https://www.nutanixbible.com ), specifically the sections on licensing and data encryption.

Nutanix University: NCS-Core 6.8 Training (https://university.nutanix.com ), covering deployment and configuration best practices.

To revert both clusters to their original state after testing DR by activating VMs on the remote cluster, the administrator needs to ensure that replications are suspended to prevent any further changes during the process. The steps include suspending the replications on the primary site to prevent any conflicts or data loss (Step 1), deactivating the Protection Domain on the remote site using ncli to stop the DR environment (Step 2), and then migrating the protection domain back to the primary site (Step 3). This sequence ensures that both clusters return to their original states with minimal disruption.References: Nutanix Disaster Recovery Guide, Nutanix Administration Guide.

Ref: https://next.nutanix.com/prism- infrastructure-management-26/disk-space-usage-high-alert-in-prism-38199

ref http://www.joshodgers.com/tag/cpu-ready/

The document that needs to be completed with the customer to collect configuration items such as IP addresses, Gateway, DNS servers, and NTP Servers is the Technical Checklist. This checklist is designed to ensure all necessary technical information is gathered prior to the installation, enabling a smooth and efficient setup process.References: Nutanix Cluster Deployment Guide, Pre-installation Planning Documentation.

An alert of this nature in the file server dashboard usually indicates issues related to node availability within a cluster. Specifically, the failure of a node in a three-node cluster (Option B) can lead to insufficient resources to handle all tasks, which might trigger such an alert. Additionally, setting a node to maintenance mode in a three-node cluster (Option D) also disrupts service availability and could generate a similar alert, as the remaining nodes might struggle to handle the load or maintain data redundancy.References: Nutanix AOS User Guide, Nutanix Files Documentation.