Free Practice Questions for Nutanix NCP-MCA Exam

Substrates are the components of a blueprint that define the cloud resources and configurations for deploying VMs or applications. Substrates can be associated with different cloud accounts, such as AWS, Azure, GCP, or Nutanix, to enable multicloud deployments. By using substrates, an administrator can create a blueprint that can deploy VMs to multiple clouds, depending on the availability, cost, or performance requirements.

References:

Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA) course, Module 3: Blueprints, Lesson 3.2: Substrates1

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, Section 2.1: Create a blueprint to deploy infrastructure and applications using Nutanix Calm2

In Approval Policies within Nutanix Calm, "Conditions" are used to set the criteria for an approval to be triggered. Conditions define the specific circumstances under which an approval process should be initiated, such as specific actions or threshold limits.

References:

Nutanix Calm documentation on Approval Policies.

Nutanix Best Practices for Defining Conditions.

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

Categories in Self-Service (formerly Calm) are metadata labels that are assigned to cloud resources. These categories help organize and manage resources by tagging them with specific attributes, making it easier to apply policies and manage the infrastructure.

References:

Nutanix Calm documentation on Using Categories.

Nutanix Best Practices for Category Management.

Nutanix provides a documented process to seed Github based scripts into the Calm Task Library, which allows users to import and use custom tasks from the Nutanix public Github repository or any other Github repository. This process is described in the Nutanix Calm DSL User Guide and the Nutanix Calm DSL Tutorial.

Nutanix also publishes official vetted blueprints and tasks to Nutanix’s public Github Calm repository, which is located at https://github.com/nutanix/blueprints . These blueprints and tasks are created and maintained by Nutanix engineers and can be used as reference or templates for building Calm applications. Some examples of these blueprints and tasks are:

Kubernetes Cluster: A blueprint that deploys a Kubernetes cluster on Nutanix AHV using Calm.

MySQL HA: A blueprint that deploys a MySQL cluster with high availability on Nutanix AHV using Calm.

Windows Server: A blueprint that deploys a Windows Server 2019 VM on Nutanix AHV using Calm.

[Install Python]: A task that installs Python on a Linux VM using Calm.

Calm’s public repository does not contain Nutanix-vetted custom scripts created and published by community members. These scripts are hosted in a separate repository called [Automation], which is a centralized repo for community driven Nutanix automation. These scripts are not officially supported or endorsed by Nutanix and may not be compatible with the latest versions of Calm or Nutanix products.

Nutanix does not provide documented processes to seed scripts from any source repository. Users can only import scripts from Github repositories using the Calm Task Library. Other source repositories are not supported by Calm.

References:

Nutanix Calm DSL User Guide

Nutanix Calm DSL Tutorial

Nutanix Calm Blueprints

Kubernetes Cluster

MySQL HA

Windows Server

[Install Python]

[Automation]

The most optimal way to correct the failed deployment is to retry the failed deployment. This option allows the administrator to resume the deployment from the point of failure, without having to redeploy the entire application or create a new runbook. Retrying the failed deployment also preserves the application state and configuration, and avoids creating duplicate resources or conflicts.

Redeploying the application is not the best option, because it requires the administrator to delete the existing application and launch a new one from scratch. This option wastes time and resources, and may result in data loss or inconsistency.

Creating a runbook to retry is also not the best option, because it requires the administrator to write a custom script or workflow to handle the retry logic. This option adds complexity and overhead to the automation process, and may not be compatible with the original blueprint or application.

Rewriting the blueprint to have error handling is a valid option, but it is not the most optimal one. This option requires the administrator to modify the blueprint code and add logic to handle different types of errors and exceptions. This option improves the robustness and reliability of the blueprint, but it does not correct the failed deployment itself. The administrator still has to redeploy the application or retry the failed deployment after rewriting the blueprint.

References:

Nutanix Calm User Guide: Chapter 6: Managing Applications

Nutanix Calm DSL User Guide: Chapter 4: Blueprints

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide: Section 3: Validate Blueprints, Runbooks, Playbooks, and Automation Settings

To remove an application from Self-Service (formerly Calm) while keeping the VM up and running, the administrator should:

Go to the Manage tab of the application in Self-Service.

Select the Delete action.

By doing this, the application will be removed from the management of Self-Service, but the VM will remain running in the environment.

References:

Nutanix documentation on Managing Applications.

Nutanix Best Practices for Application Deletion.

The Playbook is designed to manually reduce the vCPU count on any selected VM within the environment. However, it failed during a test run on VM2 because there was a running snapshot of the VM. According to Nutanix Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) principles, you cannot reduce the vCPU count on a VM that has an active snapshot1. This is because the snapshot captures the state of the VM configuration and data, and reverting to a snapshot will restore both the guest OS and the virtual hardware2. Therefore, changing the vCPU count while a snapshot is running will cause inconsistency and error. The other options are incorrect because:

A. The Playbook can be executed against a VM on AHV, as long as there is no snapshot running3.

B. The VM does not need to be powered off before vCPU can be reduced, as this can be done using hot-plug CPU feature4.

D. The play will not cause the VM to go below the minimum vCPU, as the minimum number of vCPUs is set to 1 in the Playbook, and the VM has 4 vCPUs initially. References: Nutanix Support & Insights, Solved: Snapshot query !! - VMware Technology Network VMTN, Calm on ESXi Deployment | Nutanix Community, Virtual CPU Configuration and Limitations - VMware Docs

The Policy Engine is a Calm feature that allows you to define and enforce policies for your projects, such as quotas, approvals, and actions. You can use the Policy Engine to set project quotas for the ESXi hypervisor, such as the number of VMs, CPU cores, memory, and storage that can be provisioned by the project. This helps you to control the resource consumption and allocation of your ESXi clusters. References:

Nutanix Support & Insights: This is the official Nutanix documentation for Calm on ESXi, where you can find information about the Policy Engine and how to configure it for your projects.

Nutanix Exam NCP-MCA Topic 2 Question 28 Discussion: This is a forum where you can find discussions and explanations for Nutanix certification exam questions, including question 28 from topic 2, which is similar to your question.

Calm on ESXi Deployment: This is a Nutanix community post where you can learn more about how to deploy and use Calm on ESXi.