NCP-MCA Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA v6.5) Exam Question and Answers

The Restart Action of a Service allows the developer to define custom tasks that will be executed when the service is restarted. An Execute Task can run any script or command on the target VM, such as restarting the IIS service. This way, the Operator can use the Self-Service Portal to restart the service without logging into the VM or using another tool.

References:

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) v6.5, Section 2, Objective 2.1: Given a scenario, create a blueprint to deploy infrastructure and applications using Self-Service.

Nutanix Certified Professional Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) 6 Exam, Page 11, Section 2, Objective 2.1: Given a scenario, create a blueprint to deploy infrastructure and applications using Self-Service.

To launch application deployments on any remote Prism Central (PC) from the PC hosting Calm Global, the administrator must create a Nutanix account for each remote PC on the local PC (the one hosting Calm Global) and add these accounts to the relevant project. This setup allows Calm to manage and orchestrate resources across multiple Prism Central instances.

References:

Nutanix Calm documentation on Multi-Cluster Management.

Nutanix Best Practices for Global Deployments.

The error message "A specified logon session does not exist. It may already have been terminated" is often caused by the lack of CredSSP (Credential Security Support Provider) being enabled on the Windows Operating System. CredSSP is necessary for certain remote operations, including executing PowerShell scripts remotely.

References:

Microsoft documentation on Enabling CredSSP.

Nutanix documentation on Troubleshooting PowerShell Scripts.

Scaling VM replica settings allow you to specify the minimum, maximum, and default number of VMs that can be created from a blueprint service. The minimum and default values must be equal to or greater than the number of VMs needed at any time and at time of deployment, which is 2 in this case. The maximum value must be equal to or less than the project quota divided by the VM resources, which is 100/12 = 8 for vCPUs and 300/24 = 12 for memory. The lowest of these two values is the limit for the maximum value, which is 8. Therefore, the only option that meets all the requirements is B. MIN: 2, MAX: 7, Default: 2.

References:

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, page 10, Objective 3.1: Given a scenario, create a blueprint to deploy infrastructure and applications using Self-Service

Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA), Module 5: Self-Service, Lesson 5.2: Blueprint Design, slide 23: Scaling VM Replica Settings

Nutanix Certified Professional Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) 6 Exam, page 10, Objective 3.1: Given a scenario, create a blueprint to deploy infrastructure and applications using Self-Service

To make a Blueprint visible to a specific Project, it needs to be approved and published with that Project. This ensures that only authorized Blueprints are available for consumption by the Project members. Applying a Category or a version number to the Blueprint does not affect its visibility to the Project. References: Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, page 14, section 3.1.2

The administrator should use a trigger based on an event when creating a playbook to automate the scaling of the VDI solution. An event trigger is a type of trigger that executes a playbook when a specific event occurs in the Nutanix environment or in a third-party system. An event trigger can be configured to listen to events from various sources, such as Prism alerts, Calm actions, or external webhooks. In this scenario, the administrator can use an event trigger to listen to the webhook from the third-party monitoring tool and execute a playbook that creates additional resources and adds them to the VDI solution.

A trigger based on a REST API is not the best option, because it requires the administrator to manually invoke the playbook using an API call. This is not as efficient or reliable as using an event trigger that automatically executes the playbook when the capacity threshold is reached.

A trigger based on an email is also not the best option, because it requires the administrator to configure an email server and a mailbox to receive the notification from the third-party tool. This adds complexity and overhead to the automation process and may not be as secure or timely as using an event trigger.

A trigger based on an alert is a valid option, but it depends on the availability and compatibility of the Prism alert system with the third-party tool. If the third-party tool can send alerts to Prism, then the administrator can use an alert trigger to execute the playbook. However, if the third-party tool does not integrate with Prism, then the administrator cannot use an alert trigger and has to use an event trigger instead.

References:

Nutanix Calm User Guide: Chapter 8: X-Play

Nutanix Calm DSL User Guide: Chapter 5: Playbooks

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide: Section 1: Describe and Differentiate Automation Concepts and Principles

A Calm Developer is a role that allows a user to create, update, and execute Playbooks in Calm. A Playbook is a collection of Tasks that can be executed on one or more Targets, such as VMs, applications, or services. A Calm Developer can also create and use Runbooks, Blueprints, and Library items in Calm. A Prism Admin is a role that allows a user to manage the Prism Central instance and its features, such as users, roles, alerts, policies, etc. A Calm Admin is a role that allows a user to manage the Calm service and its settings, such as endpoints, credentials, projects, etc. A Project Admin is a role that allows a user to manage a specific project and its resources, such as applications, Blueprints, Runbooks, etc. References:

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, page 14, section 4.1.1

Nutanix Calm Roles and Permissions

Nutanix Calm Playbooks

 According to the Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA) course1, you can create and configure multi-VM blueprints for the Nutanix, AWS, VMware, GCP, and Azure providers. However, according to the Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide2, the exam objectives only cover Nutanix and AWS as the providers for multi-VM blueprints. Therefore, the correct answer is C. Nutanix and E. Amazon AWS. References: Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA) course and Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide

To create an application blueprint for AWS and Azure in Nutanix Calm, the Blueprint Developer needs to complete the following actions:

Create AWS and Azure Accounts: These accounts must be created and configured within Nutanix Calm to allow integration with the respective cloud providers.

Add the provider Accounts to the project: Once the accounts are created, they need to be added to the specific project in which the blueprint will be developed. This ensures that the blueprint can use the resources and configurations associated with these accounts.

References:

Nutanix documentation on Creating Cloud Accounts.

Nutanix Best Practices for Project Configuration.

https://portal.nutanix.com/page/documents/details?targetId=Nutanix-Calm-Admin-Operations-Guide-v3_6_2:nuc-macros-variables-overview-c.html

Runtime variables are variables that can be modified by the Consumer during the deployment of a Blueprint or after the deployment is complete. They allow the Consumer to customize the attributes of the infrastructure and applications according to their needs. Runtime variables can be defined in the Blueprint settings or in the Blueprint YAML file. They can also be used in the Blueprint tasks to pass dynamic values to the scripts or commands. Runtime variables can be of different types, such as text, number, boolean, list, or password. They can also have default values, constraints, and descriptions to guide the Consumer.

References:

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, Section 2, Objective 2.1

Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA) Course, Module 4, Lesson 4.3

Nutanix Calm User Guide, Chapter 4, Section 4.2

An event trigger is a type of trigger that can be used to execute a playbook when a specific event occurs in the Nutanix platform. An event trigger can be configured with various parameters, such as the event type, the target VM, the target VM category, the target project, and the target user. In this scenario, the administrator wants to be notified when a subset of VMs within the Environment:Dev category is restored from snapshot. Therefore, the event trigger should have the following parameters:

Event type: Snapshot Restoration. This is the event that indicates a VM has been restored from a snapshot.

Target VM: VMS in Environment: Dev. This is the filter that specifies which VMs are relevant for the trigger. By selecting VMS in Environment: Dev, the trigger will only apply to the VMs that belong to the Environment:Dev category.

Other parameters: These can be left as default or customized as needed.

References:

Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA) Course, Module 3: X-Play, Lesson 3.2: Creating and Managing Playbooks, Slide 13: Event Trigger

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, Section 3: Validate Blueprints, Playbooks, and Automation Settings, Objective 3.1: Determine the causes of a Playbook execution failure

In Nutanix Calm, there are two types of blueprints: Single VM and Multi VM. Single VM blueprints are used to define and manage the deployment of individual virtual machines, while Multi VM blueprints are used to manage the deployment of applications that span multiple VMs with defined dependencies and configurations.

References:

Nutanix Calm documentation on Blueprint Types.

Nutanix Best Practices for Blueprint Creation.

To create an alert for idle VMs, the administrator needs to specify the following parameters:

Scope: Select the category value Environment:Production to filter the VMs that are affected by the alert.

Metric: Select CPU Usage (%) as the metric to monitor the VMs’ CPU utilization.

Condition: Select Less Than as the operator and enter 5 as the threshold value to define the idle state.

Duration: Enter 5 as the duration value and select Minutes as the unit to set the time period for the idle state.

To create a Playbook with the alert as the trigger, the administrator needs to do the following steps:

Name: Enter a descriptive name for the Playbook, such as Idle VM Alert.

Trigger: Select Alert as the trigger type and choose the alert that was created for idle VMs.

Action: Select Email as the action type and enter the recipient email address, subject, and message for the notification.

The Playbook will run whenever the alert is triggered and send an email to the administrator informing them about the idle VMs.

References:

Nutanix Certified Professional Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) 6 Exam, page 9

Nutanix University - NCP-MCA 6 Exam Prep - Alerts and Playbooks

The port 5986 is used for PowerShell Remoting over HTTPS, which is a secure way of executing PowerShell commands on a remote Windows VM. Calm uses PowerShell Remoting to run scripts on Windows VMs as part of the blueprint actions. Therefore, the port 5986 needs to be opened on the VM firewall to allow the communication between Calm and the VM. The other ports are not related to PowerShell Remoting, as they are used for SQL Server (1433), Remote Desktop Protocol (3389), and PowerShell Remoting over HTTP (5985). References: Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) 6.5 Exam Blueprint Guide, page 10; Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA), section 3; Nutanix Calm User Guide, page 93.

The administrator needs to add AWS as a provider in Calm. A provider is a cloud platform or infrastructure that hosts the application VMs or services. Calm supports various providers such as Nutanix, AWS, Azure, GCP, VMware, and Kubernetes. To add a provider, the administrator needs to go to the Providers page in the Calm UI and click on the +Create Provider button. Then, the administrator needs to select the AWS provider type and enter the required information such as name, access key, secret key, and regions. References: Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, page 11; Nutanix Calm User Guide, section 3.1.

A Category in Nutanix is a grouping of entities (such as VMs, hosts, clusters, etc.) into a key-value pair. Categories are used to organize and manage resources more effectively by tagging them with meaningful identifiers.

References:

Nutanix documentation on Categories.

Nutanix Best Practices for Using Categories.

Calm integrates natively with AWS and AHV as providers. A provider is a cloud platform or infrastructure that hosts the application VMs or services. Calm supports various providers such as Nutanix, AWS, Azure, GCP, VMware, and Kubernetes. AWS and AHV are two of the most commonly used providers in Calm, as they offer scalability, flexibility, and cost-efficiency for deploying applications. References: Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, page 11; Nutanix Calm User Guide, section 3.1.

To make a custom variable type available for all deployments, the developer should publish the variable type to the Marketplace. By publishing it to the Marketplace, the variable type becomes accessible to all administrators and users across different projects, ensuring consistency and reusability.

References:

Nutanix Calm documentation on Publishing to Marketplace.

Nutanix Best Practices for Variable Management.

 In the context of Nutanix Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA), the order of actions in a playbook is crucial for its successful execution. In this case, the playbook is designed to execute a script to fix a known problem in an application but keeps failing because it attempts to power off the VM and take a snapshot before executing the script. The correct order should be to execute the script first, then power off the VM if necessary, and finally take a snapshot. 

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) 6.5 Exam: This is the official exam blueprint guide that covers the objectives, topics, and skills required for the certification. It also provides some sample questions and answers.

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide: This is another version of the exam blueprint guide that has similar content as the previous one.

Free Questions for NCP-MCA by certscare - p2pexams.com: This is a PDF document that contains 11 questions and answers for the NCP-MCA exam. The question you asked is one of them, and the answer is the same as mine.

When creating a Runbook in Nutanix Calm, the "Default Endpoint" field is optional. Essential fields such as Name, Project, and Task Name are required to define the Runbook's structure and execution parameters. The Default Endpoint can be specified if there is a preferred initial endpoint for executing tasks, but it is not mandatory.

References:

Nutanix Calm documentation on Runbook Creation.

Nutanix Best Practices for Runbook Management.

After upgrading Self-Service (formerly Calm) from version 3.3 to 3.6, the administrator noticed that Policy Engine scheduled jobs were failing and an alert was being presented in Prism Central. This issue is likely due to a version mismatch between the upgraded components. The recommended solution is to use Lifecycle Manager (LCM) to upgrade the Policy Engine to ensure compatibility with the new version of Self-Service.

References:

Nutanix documentation on Upgrading Components with LCM.

Nutanix Best Practices for Managing Upgrades.

To ensure the VMs are properly remediated, the Playbook actions should be added in the following order: Take a VM Snapshot, VM add Memory, Resolve Alert. This is because Memory Hot Add allows the administrator to increase the memory allocation of a running VM without powering it off. Taking a VM snapshot before adding memory provides a backup point in case of any issues. Resolving the alert after adding memory clears the notification and updates the status of the VM. Powering off the VM is not necessary and may cause downtime or disruption to the applications running on the VM. References: Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, page 11; Nutanix Calm SaaS User Guide, section 4.2.3.

 A Playbook is a set of actions that are triggered by an event or a schedule. To run a Playbook, it must be enabled first. If a Playbook is not enabled, it will not respond to any events or schedules, and no Plays will be recorded for it. Therefore, the most likely cause of the issue is that the administrator forgot to enable the Playbook after building it. References: Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, page 13, section 3.2. Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA) course, module 4, lesson 2.

The default connection timeout value for an HTTP endpoint in Nutanix Calm is 60 seconds. This timeout defines how long the system will wait for a connection to be established before timing out.

References:

Nutanix Calm documentation on HTTP Endpoints.

Nutanix Best Practices for Configuring Endpoints.

 Nutanix Calm is a feature of Prism Central that enables you to automate the deployment and management of infrastructure and applications across multiple clouds. Prism Central is a centralized management plane that provides unified visibility and control over Nutanix clusters and services. Prism Element is the local management plane for each Nutanix cluster that runs the Acropolis Operating System (AOS). Both Prism Central and Prism Element are required for Nutanix Calm to function properly and access the resources and services of the Nutanix platform. References:

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) v6.5, Section 2 - Deploy and Configure Nutanix Calm and Related Components, page 1

Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA), Module 1 - Introduction to Nutanix Multicloud Automation, Lesson 1.1 - Nutanix Multicloud Automation Overview, page 4

Nutanix Calm User Guide, Introduction to Nutanix Calm, Nutanix Calm Architecture

The error message indicates that the project for the blueprint does not have any associated Nutanix account. This typically means that the new account added in Self-Service (formerly Calm) has not been verified. Account verification is required to ensure the account is properly configured and has the necessary permissions to be used within a Self-Service project.

References:

Nutanix Calm documentation on Account Management.

Nutanix Best Practices for Verifying Accounts.

A service dependency is a feature of Nutanix Calm that allows you to define the order of execution and the conditions for starting and stopping services in a blueprint. By creating a service dependency between the application and the database, you can ensure that the application will not start until the database is fully installed and ready. This avoids the need for manual intervention or inefficient workarounds like loops or sleep statements. References: Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA), page 41; Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA), section 2.

Test Script is a feature of Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) Self-Service that allows users to test or validate scripts before deployment. Test Script enables users to run scripts on a VM without creating a blueprint or a runbook. Users can select a VM, choose a script type, enter the script content, and execute the script. The output of the script is displayed in the Test Script window. Test Script can be used to troubleshoot errors, verify functionality, or preview the results of a script before using it in a blueprint or a runbook. References: Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, page 14, section 3.1. Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA) course, module 3, lesson 4. Validate Your Nutanix Cloud Manager Self-Service Skills + Access Special Offer.

Self-Service (formerly Calm) automatically cleans up the database every 3 months. This regular maintenance task helps manage database size and performance by removing old and unnecessary data.

References:

Nutanix Calm documentation on Database Cleanup.

Nutanix Best Practices for Calm Maintenance.

To run a blueprint deployment and tasks in a different Prism Central instance than the one running Self-Service (formerly Calm), the administrator should add the remote Prism Central instance as an account. This configuration allows Self-Service to interact with multiple Prism Central instances, enabling the management and deployment of blueprints across different environments.

References:

Nutanix documentation on Managing Accounts in Calm.

Nutanix Best Practices for Multi-Cluster Management.

Alerts are a way of monitoring the health and performance of the Nutanix cluster and the VMs running on it. Alerts can be triggered by various metrics, such as CPU usage, memory usage, disk space, network traffic, etc. Alerts can also be configured to send notifications to the administrator or other recipients via email, Slack, PagerDuty, etc. To satisfy the request from the Accounting department, the administrator should create an Alert with the following settings:

Trigger: CPU Usage (%) > 90 OR Memory Usage (%) > 90

Scope: VM

Category: LOB:Accounting

Notification: Email to accounting@company.com This way, the Alert will only apply to the VMs that belong to the Accounting department, and will send an email notification to the Accounting department when any of their VMs exceed the specified thresholds. References: Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA), page 9; Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA), section 1; [Nutanix Prism Central Guide - Alerts]

A category is a key-value pair that can be assigned to an entity in Prism Central to simplify daily operations and management. Categories can be used to filter, search, and group entities based on common attributes. Categories can also be used to define policies and permissions for different entities. A category can be assigned to a cluster, a VM, an image, a network, a blueprint, an application, or a project. A category cannot be assigned to a hypervisor, a protection domain, or a storage container, as these are not entities in Prism Central. References: Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, page 12; Nutanix Prism Central Guide, section 4.1.

To manage and optimize the performance of virtual machines (VMs) within a playbook, administrators often need to adjust the resources allocated to VMs. Here are the appropriate actions:

VM Add Memory Action: This action allows the administrator to increase the memory allocation to a VM, which can be essential for applications requiring more RAM.

VM Add CPU Action with limits: Adding CPUs with defined limits ensures that the VM receives the necessary CPU resources without exceeding the cluster's capacity.

These actions enable the dynamic scaling of resources, improving VM performance and ensuring resource availability.

References:

Nutanix documentation on Playbook Actions.

Nutanix Best Practices for Resource Allocation.

Nutanix Calm supports various providers to manage and orchestrate applications across different cloud environments. Providers are the cloud platforms or services that host the VMs or containers that run the application components. Calm supports the following providers12:

Nutanix AHV

VMware vSphere

AWS

Azure

GCP

Kubernetes

Bare Metal

OpenStack

Cloud-Init

Terraform

Among the options given, only Kubernetes and GCP are supported providers in Calm. Oracle Cloud and IBM Cloud are not supported providers in Calm. References:

1: Nutanix Calm Admin and Operations Guide3

2: Nutanix Calm Configuration and Training4

 The best way to automate the entire database and application deployments is to use a combination of Nutanix Calm and Nutanix Era. Nutanix Calm is a multicloud automation platform that allows you to create blueprints to deploy and manage infrastructure and applications across different cloud environments. Nutanix Era is a database management platform that allows you to provision, clone, patch, refresh, and restore databases in a simplified and automated way. By creating a Calm blueprint that deploys applications and calls Era APIs to automate database deployments, you can achieve faster and consistent releases, as well as reduce the manual effort and complexity involved in the process. You can also leverage the features of Calm and Era, such as self-service, governance, showback, backup, and recovery, to enhance the efficiency and security of your deployments. References: 

https://www.nutanix.com/support-services/training-certification/certifications/certification-details-nutanix-certified-professional-multicloud-automation-v6-5

https://www.nutanix.com/content/dam/nutanix/resources/support/ds-ncp-mca.pdf

The Plays dashboard in Prism Central provides a centralized view of all the Playbooks that have been executed across the clusters registered with Prism Central. It shows the status, duration, and output of each Playbook run, as well as the details of the triggers, targets, and actions involved. An administrator can use the Plays dashboard to troubleshoot why a Playbook failed to grow the memory of a VM by checking the error messages, logs, and output of the Playbook run. The other options are not the correct places to check for Playbook failures, as they do not provide the same level of information and visibility as the Plays dashboard. References: Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) v6.5, Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) 6 Exam, Nutanix Exam NCP-MCA Topic 4 Question 20 Discussion

 The alert in Prism Central indicates that Calm showback is not able to reach the beam service. This could be due to network connectivity issues or incorrect configurations. The administrator should check the DNS configuration in Prism Central (Option A) to ensure that it is correctly configured to allow communication with the Beam service. Additionally, checking if Prism Element is configured with Proxy settings (Option C) is essential as it can also affect the communication between Calm and Beam. Pulse (Option B) and Flow (Option D) are not related to the Calm showback feature and do not impact its functionality.

References:

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) v6.5, Section 2 - Deploy and Configure Nutanix Calm and Related Components, Objective 2.4 - Identify required configuration settings for a Nutanix Calm deployment

Enabling and Disabling Showback in Calm | Nutanix Community

The Calm SaaS API key consists of two components: name and token. The name component is analogous to the ID or username you provide when you configure your Calm tunnel client VM to establish the tunnel connection. The token component is analogous to the password portion of the HTTP basic authentication. The Calm SaaS API key is used along with the Calm APIs and Calm DSL to access Calm. The API key file that you download will have the name and token components in the JSON format. References: Nutanix Support & Insights

The error message indicates that the script failed to authenticate to the remote server using CredSSP. CredSSP is a security mechanism that allows a client to delegate its credentials to a remote server for authentication. To use CredSSP, both the client and the server need to enable it and configure the role and the trusted hosts. The command Enable-WSManCredSSP -Role Client enables CredSSP on the client side and specifies the remote server as a trusted host. This command should be added to the script before invoking the Invoke-Command cmdlet that runs the script block on the remote server. The other commands are either irrelevant or incorrect for this scenario. References: Nutanix Calm: PowerShell Scripts - Read the Docs and Enable-WSManCredSSP (Microsoft.PowerShell.Management) - PowerShell | Microsoft Docs.

Autopilot is a feature of Nutanix Calm that allows the administrator to automate the execution of playbooks based on predefined conditions or triggers. Autopilot can optimize the performance, availability, and cost of applications by applying the appropriate actions in response to events or metrics. Before configuring autopilot, the administrator must be aware of the following limitations12:

Autopilot never waits for approvals. This means that the administrator must ensure that the playbooks are tested and verified before enabling autopilot. Autopilot will execute the playbooks without any human intervention or confirmation.

Autopilot feature only applies to metric-based alerts as triggers. This means that the administrator can only use metrics from the Nutanix Prism Central or the Nutanix Karbon clusters as the conditions for triggering the playbooks. Autopilot does not support other types of triggers such as schedules, webhooks, or manual triggers. References: Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, page 10; Nutanix Calm SaaS User Guide, section 4.3.

When configuring Playbooks to automate the scaling of CPU and memory resources for VMs, the administrator should consider the following prerequisites:

CPU can be added to a powered on VM if the guest OS supports it. This is also known as hot-plug CPU. The administrator should check the compatibility of the guest OS and the hypervisor before enabling this feature. For example, Windows Server 2019 supports hot-plug CPU on AHV, ESXi, and Hyper-V, but not on XenServer1.

Memory can be removed from a powered on VM if the guest OS supports it. This is also known as hot-unplug memory. The administrator should check the compatibility of the guest OS and the hypervisor before enabling this feature. For example, Linux supports hot-unplug memory on AHV, ESXi, and XenServer, but not on Hyper-V2.

VM must be powered off to add CPU if the guest OS does not support hot-plug CPU. This is also known as cold-plug CPU. The administrator should plan for the downtime required to power off and power on the VM after adding CPU.

VM must be powered off to reduce memory if the guest OS does not support hot-unplug memory. This is also known as cold-unplug memory. The administrator should plan for the downtime required to power off and power on the VM after reducing memory. References: Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA), page 10; Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA), section 3; Nutanix Support Portal - Guest OS Compatibility Matrix

According to the Nutanix Calm Administration Guide1, the minimum system requirements for Prism Central are 32 GB of RAM and 8 vCPUs. If the production Prism Central has less than the minimum RAM, it may affect the performance of Calm and other services running on Prism Cen

A Developer permission level grants access to create, update, delete, and duplicate blueprints in Nutanix Calm12. A Developer can also launch, manage, and delete applications from blueprints, as well as create, update, delete, and duplicate runbooks2. A Consumer can only launch and manage applications from blueprints, but cannot modify them2. An Operator can launch, manage, and delete applications from blueprints, as well as run and manage runbooks, but cannot create or modify them2. A Domain Admin can perform all the actions of a Developer and an Operator, as well as manage projects, categories, and endpoints2. References:

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) v6.5

Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA)

In Nutanix, Categories can be assigned to various entities to help organize and manage resources. The two entities that can be assigned categories are:

Hosts: Categories can be used to tag and manage hosts within the infrastructure.

VMs: Categories can also be assigned to virtual machines, allowing for better organization and management based on specific attributes or requirements.

References:

Nutanix documentation on Category Management.

Nutanix Best Practices for Using Categories.

A provider is a configuration that allows Nutanix Calm to interact with a public cloud platform, such as AWS, Azure, or GCP. A provider contains the credentials, settings, and policies required to deploy and manage VMs on the public cloud. Before creating a blueprint for a new public cloud environment, the administrator should create a new provider for AWS and specify the region, access key, secret key, and other parameters. This will enable the administrator to select the AWS provider as the deployment location for the blueprint and configure the VM attributes accordingly. References: Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA), page 15; Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA), section 2.

The image shows a failed status for an SSH_VM_Task, which is manually triggered. Since the task involves SSH, it’s likely that the IP Address SSH action has a timeout of 5 minutes, causing the playbook to fail if it cannot complete within this time frame. The IP Address SSH action is used to execute commands on a remote VM using SSH. It requires the IP address, username, password, and command to run as inputs. The timeout parameter specifies how long the action will wait for the command to finish before aborting. If the timeout is too short, the action may fail due to network latency, slow execution, or other factors. References:

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) 6.5 Exam, page 16, section 1.3.2.2: “Playbooks”

[Nutanix University: NCP-MCA 6.5 Exam Prep - Playbooks], video 4: “Playbooks”

To reduce the manual effort for the NOC personnel, the administrators can create a new Action that contains the custom Python script as an Execute task with a script type of EScript. This will allow the NOC personnel to run the script on any VM from the Calm UI or API without logging into each VM. To ensure the process is repeatable across all applications, the administrators can create a new Runbook that contains the same Action and assign it to the relevant Projects. This will enable the NOC personnel to run the script on multiple VMs across different applications in a single workflow. To provide audit history for management of the actions, the administrators can view the Execution History tab under the Runbook page for audit purposes. This will show the details of each Runbook execution, such as the status, duration, user, and logs. Alternatively, the administrators can also view the Audit tab under the Application view for audit purposes. This will show the history of all actions performed on the application, such as launch, update, delete, and run actions. References: Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, page 18, section 4.2.1. 

From the exhibit, it is clear that Prism Central needs to communicate with Calm managed target Linux VMs via SSH and with Calm managed target Windows VMs via PowerShell or Shell scripts. The appropriate ports to open for these communications are:

TCP 22: This port is used for SSH, which is necessary for managing Linux VMs.

TCP 5985 and 5986: These ports are used for PowerShell remoting, which is essential for managing Windows VMs.

References:

Nutanix Calm documentation on Network Ports.

Best practices for Nutanix Network Configuration.

The Calm Marketplace acts as an application store, providing end users with a catalog of available applications. By default, Calm comes pre-seeded with validated Blueprints for multiple open source and enterprise applications. These are the set of pre-seeded application Blueprints. Additionally, Marketplace Manager acts as a staging area for publishing default and user-created Blueprints to your local Marketplace. These are the published and versioned Blueprints. The other two options, library of executable tasks and store of all Blueprints created in Calm, are not features of the Calm Marketplace. References: Calm: Marketplace - Read the Docs and Calm: Marketplace - Read the Docs