Nutanix Updated NCP-MCI-6.5 Exam Questions and Answers by kajus

According to the web search results, the two actions that the administrator should perform to determine if the current cluster can accommodate the new VMs are:

• Utilize Optimize Resources for VM efficiency: Optimize Resources is a feature in Prism Central that helps the administrator improve the efficiency and performance of their VMs by identifying and resolving issues such as overprovisioning, inactivity, constraints, or bullying3. By using Optimize Resources, the administrator can reclaim unused resources and optimize the resource allocation for their VMs3.
• Determine utilization with Cluster Runway: Cluster Runway is a feature in Prism Central that helps the administrator estimate how long their cluster can continue to run normally based on the current consumption rate of CPU, memory, and storage resources4. By using Cluster Runway, the administrator can see how adding more VMs will affect the resource utilization and capacity of their cluster4.

Automated live migration is a feature of Nutanix that allows the cluster to automatically move VMs from one host to another without any downtime, in order to optimize the performance and availability of the cluster. According to the Nutanix documentation1, automated live migration can occur in the following scenarios:

• Cluster resource hotspot: When a host or a group of hosts experience high resource utilization, such as CPU, memory, or network, the cluster can automatically migrate some VMs to other hosts with lower utilization, in order to balance the load and avoid performance degradation.
• AOS upgrade: When upgrading the Nutanix software (AOS), the cluster can automatically migrate the VMs from the host that is being upgraded to another host in the same availability zone, in order to maintain the VM availability and minimize the impact of the upgrade process.
• AHV host maintenance mode: When putting an AHV host into maintenance mode, the cluster can automatically migrate all the VMs from that host to another host in the same availability zone, in order to prepare the host for maintenance operations such as hardware replacement or firmware update.

VirtIO drivers are device drivers that are specifically designed for virtualized environments. They allow the guest operating system to communicate directly with the underlying hardware, bypassing the emulation layer. This improves the performance and efficiency of the virtual machines. VirtIO drivers are supported by various hypervisors, including Nutanix AHV1.

Nutanix AHV uses SCSI disks for VMs by default. However, Windows does not have native support for SCSI disks and requires VirtIO drivers to recognize them. Therefore, if an administrator is installing Windows 2019 on a new VM on an AHV cluster, they need to install the VirtIO drivers before selecting the destination disk for the installation. Otherwise, they will not see any drives listed for the install2.

To install the VirtIO drivers during Windows installation, the administrator can use one of the following methods3:

• Use a VirtIO ISO image that contains the driver files. The administrator can download the VirtIO ISO image from the Nutanix support portal and upload it to the AHV image service. Then, they can attach the VirtIO ISO image to the VM as a CD-ROM device and load the driver from it during Windows installation.
• Use a Nutanix Guest Tools (NGT) ISO image that contains the driver files and other tools. The administrator can download the NGT ISO image from Prism Element or Prism Central and attach it to the VM as a CD-ROM device. Then, they can load the driver from it during Windows installation.
• Use a floppy disk image that contains only the driver files. The administrator can create a floppy disk image using tools such as WinImage or WinRAR and upload it to the AHV image service. Then, they can attach the floppy disk image to the VM as a floppy device and load the driver from it during Windows installation.

Configure VM-Host affinity for the nodes that meet the application’s GPU requirement. This is because VM-Host affinity allows the administrator to specify which nodes a VM can run on or must not run on1. By creating a VM-Host affinity rule that binds the application VM to the three nodes that have the physical GPU, the administrator can ensure that the VM will always run on a node that meets its requirement, regardless of any HA or migration events. This also allows the other nodes in the cluster to host other VMs without any restrictions.