Pass the Nutanix Nutanix Certified Professional (NCP) NCP-CI-AWS Questions and answers with CertsForce

A standard NC2 deployment typically requires a management subnet and a public subnet for basic internet and console access. However, when moving to aFlow-based deployment(using Flow Virtual Networking), the architecture becomes more complex, requiringManagementandFlow Virtual Networksubnets specifically tailored for the overlay. TheManagement subnetis used for the bare-metal hosts and CVMs to communicate with the NC2 portal and Prism Central. TheFlow Virtual Network subnet(often the Transit VPC subnet) is required to host the distributed gateways that manage encapsulated Geneve traffic. These subnets are essential for segregating the management traffic from the virtualized workload traffic, ensuring that the software-defined overlay has a dedicated and secure path through the AWS VPC infrastructure.

TheCluster Protectfeature is the native Nutanix solution designed specifically for NC2 on AWS to protect both the cluster data and thePrism Centralmanagement instance. Unlike standard replication, Cluster Protect utilizesAmazon S3 bucketsto store snapshots of the cluster configuration, Prism Central metadata, and User VM data. This is considered the " best way " for native protection because the entire recovery workflow is orchestrated directly from theNC2 console. If a cluster or an entire Availability Zone fails, the administrator can use the NC2 portal to redeploy the cluster and restore the Prism Central instance and data from the S3 bucket, eliminating the need for third-party backup software while maintaining a simple cloud-native recovery path.

To ensure that NC2 VMs can access AWS resources without traversing the internet, the administrator can use AWS VPC Peering and Interface Endpoints. Both methods ensure that traffic stays within the AWS network, maintaining security and efficiency.

Interface Endpoint:

Interface Endpoints allow you to privately connect your VPC to supported AWS services. They use AWS PrivateLink to route traffic directly to services within the AWS network, bypassing the public internet.

Steps:

Create an interface endpoint for the required service in the AWS VPC console.

Ensure the security groups and route tables are configured to allow traffic to the interface endpoint.

VPC Peering:

VPC Peering allows the routing of traffic between VPCs using private IP addresses, without the need for internet gateways, NAT devices, or VPN connections.

Steps:

Create a VPC peering connection between the VPCs.

Update the route tables to direct traffic between the peered VPCs.

Ensure security group rules allow the necessary traffic between VPCs.

AWS VPC Peering Documentation

AWS Interface Endpoint Documentation

Nutanix Cloud Clusters on AWS Administration Guide

When establishing a landing zone in a brand new AWS region for NC2 with Flow Virtual Networking (FVN), the network team must provision specific subnets to support the management plane and the transit architecture. The first essential component is theFVN Overlay External Subnet, which resides within the Transit VPC and acts as the entry/exit point for traffic moving between the overlay network and external environments like the internet or on-premises data centers. The second requirement is a dedicatedPrism Central subnet, which is necessary to host the Prism Central instance that will manage the NC2 clusters within that region. These subnets provide the structural foundation for the software-defined networking overlay, ensuring that management traffic is properly segregated from user workload traffic and that the transit gateway logic has a designated physical network path.

AHV Metro Availability provides a synchronous replication solution for zero-RPO disaster recovery.

For this to function correctly within an NC2 on AWS environment, the clusters must be architected to survive anAvailability Zone (AZ)failure while maintaining the extremely low latency required for synchronous operations. The supported configurations include havingtwo NC2 clusters running in the same AWS region but in different AZs, ensuring that if one zone goes offline, the other can immediately take over. Additionally, asingle-node NC2 clustercan be used as a target in a different AZ within the same region for specific low-footprint synchronous requirements. Deploying across different regions is not suitable for Metro Availability due to the high latency of inter-region traffic, which would exceed the requirements for synchronous data writes.

When deploying a new NC2 cluster on AWS, especially when moving to specialized hardware like EC2 dedicated hosts, two critical external factors must be verified: subscription status and AWS resource limits. First, the administrator must ensure that theNC2 subscriptionis active and has sufficient credits or a valid payment method to support the new deployment. Second, AWS imposes default limits on the number ofvCPUsand specific instance types that can be provisioned in a region. Since dedicated hosts consume a large number of vCPUs, the deployment will fail if the AWS account quota is exceeded. Verifying and, if necessary, requesting a quota increase from AWS is a mandatory step to ensure the underlying infrastructure is available for the Nutanix software.

To ensure continuous availability and maintain the specified Replication Factor (RF) during maintenance or hardware issues, Nutanix follows a proactive " provision before removal " logic for host replacement in the cloud. The correct operational sequence begins with adding a new host to the cluster first. This step expands the cluster ' s capacity and ensures there is a destination ready for data synchronization. Once the new host is fully integrated into the storage fabric, the system migrates the virtual machines and their associated data away from the degraded or old host. Only after the old host has been completely evacuated and the cluster returns to a healthy, balanced state does the NC2 console conclude the operation by removing the old host from the cluster configuration.

Nutanix Cloud Clusters on AWS requires bare-metal EC2 instances to run the Nutanix AHV hypervisor and the Controller VMs (CVMs).

Nutanix supports specific " metal " instance types that provide the necessary hardware access for the hypervisor to manage resources efficiently. The primary supported instance types include thei3.metal, which is optimized for high I/O workloads; thei3en.metal, which offers more storage capacity and higher network bandwidth; and thei4i.metal, which utilizes the latest Intel Ice Lake processors for superior compute and storage performance. Other instance types listed, such as virtualized " xlarge " or " micro " instances, do not provide the bare-metal access required to run the Nutanix software stack in an NC2 environment.

The NC2 Tile within the my.nutanix.com portal is the correct interface to deploy NC2. This portal provides an integrated and user-friendly interface specifically designed for deploying and managing Nutanix Clusters on AWS.

NC2 Deployment Interface:

NC2 Tile within the my.nutanix.com portal: This portal provides the necessary tools and options to deploy and manage NC2 clusters. It includes functionalities for setting up the clusters, configuring network settings, and managing resources.

Advantages:

User-Friendly Interface: Simplifies the deployment process with a guided setup.

Integrated Tools: Provides access to all necessary tools for managing the deployment and monitoring of NC2 clusters.

Nutanix Cloud Clusters on AWS Administration Guide

Nutanix my.nutanix.com Portal Documentation

Nutanix Best Practices for Cluster Deployment

When creating a new NC2 cluster using an existing AWS VPC infrastructure, two private subnets are needed. These subnets are used as follows:

One private subnet for user VMs, which houses the virtual machines that users interact with.

Another private subnet for cluster management, which is used for internal cluster operations and management tasks, ensuring that management traffic is isolated from user traffic for security and performance reasons.

Nutanix Support and Insights

Nutanix Cloud Clusters on AWS Administration