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Terminology

Availability Zone – it is represented by all resources (Nutanix Clusters) connected to Prism Central or Xi Leap Availability zone. Depends on the architecture, Availability zone can represent geographic territory, datacenter or server room in the datacenter. Protection policies – in protection policies you set up (RPO, Retention), rules to auto-apply policies to virtual machines

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To maintain optimal metadata balance and data availability, and to meet the requirements for storage capacity, memory, and CPU cores, the recommended configuration should align closely with the existing node configurations while providing the necessary resources.

A. 2x NX-3060-G5 - 2x E5-2620v4 processors, 128GB RAM, 2x 960GB SSDs, 4x 2TB HDDs:

Adding two additional NX-3060-G5 nodes with the same specifications as the existing nodes ensures uniformity and maintains metadata balance and data availability.

This configuration provides enough additional storage capacity, memory, and CPU cores to accommodate the new workloads.

References:

Nutanix documentation on cluster expansion and the importance of maintaining uniform node configurations for optimal performance and reliability.

C. SX is limited to one 4-node cluster:

The Nutanix Xpress line is designed for smaller environments and is limited to a single 4-node cluster. This limitation makes it unsuitable for a prospect with multiple remote sites that need to replicate data to the main datacenter.

During a 1-click, non-disruptive upgrade on a 3-node Nutanix cluster, if a VM on Node A overwrites an existing block of data while the CVM on Node A is rebooting, Nutanix AOS ensures data integrity by writing two copies of the data across the remaining nodes. This approach maintains data resiliency by ensuring that multiple copies of the data are available even when one of the nodes is temporarily unavailable​​​​.

When providing a quote for a hybrid cluster to a customer with an existing vSAN ReadyNode quote, it is essential to avoid sizing solely based on the competitor's bill of materials for the following reasons:

Customer Requirements:

No Visibility to Actual Requirements: Sizing based on competitor's specifications without understanding the customer's specific requirements can lead to suboptimal solutions. The customer’s workload characteristics, performance expectations, and future growth plans must be considered.

Competitor Assumptions:

Unknown Assumptions: The assumptions made in the competitor's sizing, such as expected workload intensity, redundancy needs, and performance criteria, are not clear. These assumptions can vary significantly and may not align with the actual needs of the customer.

Customized Solution:

A tailored solution based on a thorough assessment using tools like Nutanix Sizer and Nutanix Collector ensures the configuration meets the specific performance, capacity, and resilience requirements of the customer.

References:

Nutanix Sizing Guidelines and Tools.

Best practices for creating customized infrastructure solutions based on customer needs.

To improve the performance of VDI desktops in an 8-node Nutanix VDI environment, consider the following key performance indicators:

Cluster Memory Utilization: 80%- This high level of memory utilization suggests that the cluster is experiencing memory pressure. Insufficient memory can lead to increased swap activity, affecting the overall performance of the VDI environment.

Cluster SSD Utilization: 70%- This level of SSD utilization indicates that storage performance is still within acceptable limits. Therefore, adding more SSD storage may not provide a significant performance boost.

Average VM CPU Wait Time: 11%- A high CPU wait time can be indicative of CPU contention, but in this scenario, it is more likely secondary to memory constraints.

CVM CPU Utilization: 75%- CVM utilization is moderately high, but not at critical levels. This suggests that the CVMs are performing their management functions adequately.

Given these conditions, adding more memory to the nodes will help reduce memory pressure, improve overall system performance, and reduce CPU wait time as VMs will have enough memory to operate efficiently without excessive swapping.

References:

Nutanix Bible, Performance Optimization section​​.

Nutanix-Community-Edition-Getting-Started, Memory and Performance tuning​​.

For highly active SQL workloads that write I/Os in 2 MB chunks to a vDisk, compression is the most suitable storage optimization technology. Compression works well with larger I/O sizes and can significantly reduce the storage footprint, providing better capacity optimization. This approach ensures that the large chunks of data are compressed efficiently, maximizing storage utilization and performance​​.

For a customer intending to build out their VDI environment over 18 months, the systems engineer should highlight the element of Nutanix WebScale architecture that ensures linear performance with predictable scaling.

WebScale Architecture:

Nutanix’s WebScale architecture is designed to provide consistent performance as the environment scales. Each node added to the cluster contributes proportional compute, storage, and network resources.

Linear Scaling:

This architecture ensures that performance remains consistent and predictable as new nodes are added, which is critical for maintaining a consistent user experience in a growing VDI environment.

Benefits:

Predictable Performance: Users can expect the same level of performance as the environment scales.

No Single Point of Failure: The distributed nature of Nutanix’s architecture ensures high availability and resilience, which is crucial for VDI environments.

References:

Nutanix WebScale Architecture documentation.

VDI deployment guides and scalability best practices on Nutanix platforms.

Understanding the Requirements:

The cluster is in a dark site, meaning it does not have access to the internet. This requires offline methods to update firmware.

Download the Update Firmware:

Option A: Download the update firmware .tgz file from the Nutanix Portal:

The administrator needs to download the firmware update package from the Nutanix Support Portal. This package typically includes the necessary firmware files bundled in a .tgz file format.

This step ensures that the correct and latest firmware version is obtained directly from Nutanix, which is essential for maintaining compatibility and stability​​.

Stage the Dark Site Bundle:

Option B: Download the dark site bundle and stage it on an internal webserver:

Since the cluster does not have internet access, the administrator must use the dark site bundle. This involves downloading the necessary files and staging them on an internal web server accessible by the Nutanix cluster.

This internal web server acts as a local repository for the firmware updates, ensuring that the cluster can access and apply the updates without needing an internet connection​​.

Conclusion:

To update the firmware in a dark site environment, the correct steps are to download the firmware .tgz file from the Nutanix Portal and stage the dark site bundle on an internal web server.

References: Nutanix documentation on dark site management and firmware updates.

Calculate Daily Change Rate Data:

Each VM has 100GB of data.

Daily change rate is 5%.

For 50 VMs: 50×100×0.05=25050 \times 100 \times 0.05 = 25050×100×0.05=250 GB of daily changed data.

Calculate Snapshot Data:

Daily snapshots for retention of 2 weeks (14 days).

Total snapshot data for 14 days: 250×14=3500250 \times 14 = 3500250×14=3500 GB or 3.5 TB.

Calculate Full Data Storage:

Each VM has 100GB.

For 50 VMs: 50×100=500050 \times 100 = 500050×100=5000 GB or 5 TB.

Total Storage Required:

Sum of snapshot data and full data storage: 3.5 TB+5 TB=8.5 TB3.5 \text{ TB} + 5 \text{ TB} = 8.5 \text{ TB}3.5 TB+5 TB=8.5 TB.

Additional Factors and Overhead:

Typically, an overhead of approximately 60-70% of the used space is recommended to accommodate additional requirements such as metadata, system usage, and unexpected data growth.

Adding overhead: 8.5 TB×1.6=13.6 TB8.5 \text{ TB} \times 1.6 = 13.6 \text{ TB}8.5 TB×1.6=13.6 TB.

Thus, the minimum amount of storage capacity for the remote cluster to meet the customer's data retention is approximately 14TB to 15TB.

References:

Nutanix documentation and data protection practices​​.

Considerations for overhead and additional storage needs as per standard data management best practices​​.