Nutanix  NCM-MCI Exam Dumps & Practice Test Questions

Question 1:

A Nutanix administrator observes that virtual machines are experiencing elevated latency. Upon investigation, it’s found that each node in the cluster has one SSD with 95% utilization and three HDDs, each operating at only 40% capacity.

What is the most likely reason for this performance degradation?

A. The Controller VMs (CVMs) are being overwhelmed by disk rebalancing tasks.
B. All virtual machine write operations are directed to the hard disk drives (HDDs).
C. All virtual machine read operations are served from the hard disk drives.
D. Virtual machines are completely unable to perform write operations.

Correct Answer: B

Explanation:

In Nutanix hyperconverged infrastructure, storage is organized into performance tiers—typically solid-state drives (SSDs) for high-speed operations and hard disk drives (HDDs) for high-capacity, lower-speed storage. SSDs play a crucial role, especially for write operations, because they serve as the initial destination for incoming data before it is later moved to HDDs during background tiering processes.

The scenario describes SSDs at 95% usage, which is alarmingly high. Such saturation indicates a bottleneck in the performance tier. Because Nutanix architecture uses SSDs to temporarily store writes before eventually moving them to HDDs, an overutilized SSD tier means that new write operations face delays. The SSDs cannot quickly accept additional I/O, which leads to queuing and increased latency for guest VMs.

Meanwhile, the HDDs are only 40% utilized, which indicates they are not the source of the current problem. Nutanix does not typically write directly to HDDs under normal operations unless the SSD tier is full or degraded. Therefore, the system may be diverting write operations directly to HDDs due to SSD overload, which is far slower and results in increased latency for the VMs.

Let’s analyze the incorrect options:

• A: Disk rebalancing or Curator operations do run in the background, but they are designed not to interfere with performance. Unless there’s a major issue, these tasks wouldn’t cause high latency.

• C: If reads were primarily coming from HDDs, we’d expect to see higher HDD usage. Also, Nutanix uses caching strategies to keep frequently accessed data on SSDs.

• D: VM write operations becoming entirely impossible would likely indicate SSD failure or full capacity with no mitigation, which the question does not suggest. Writes may be slowed, but not entirely blocked.

Thus, the high SSD utilization is pushing some or all write operations to the slower HDD tier, which causes significant performance degradation. This behavior aligns perfectly with option B.

Question 2:

A Nutanix administrator oversees a protection domain that replicates 50 VMs to a remote single-node target every 6 hours. The local site retains only 1 snapshot, and the remote site retains 8 snapshots. On Monday at 8:00 AM, a VM is discovered to be corrupted. The last good state of the VM was confirmed to be at 2:00 PM the previous Sunday.

How can the administrator restore the VM while preserving the current protection policies?

A. Activate the protection domain at the remote site and re-protect the VM.
B. Use the remote site’s local snapshot to restore the VM directly there.
C. Restore the VM from the remote snapshot by accessing it from the local site.
D. Use the local site’s current snapshot to restore the VM.

Correct Answer: C

Explanation:

In Nutanix environments, protection domains (PDs) manage replication and recovery processes across clusters. In this scenario, the administrator has scheduled snapshot replication every 6 hours and maintains only a single local snapshot, but eight remote snapshots for extended historical recovery.

Based on the snapshot schedule, backups are created at:
12:00 AM, 6:00 AM, 12:00 PM, and 6:00 PM each day.

By Monday at 8:00 AM, the snapshots stored at the remote site will likely still include those from Sunday 12:00 PM and 6:00 PM. The VM was healthy at 2:00 PM Sunday, so the closest post-good-state snapshot is the 6:00 PM Sunday snapshot—which should still be available among the 8 retained remote backups.

Now let’s evaluate each option:

• A: Activating the protection domain at the remote site is a disaster recovery step, used when the primary site is down. It temporarily fails over workloads to the remote site, which isn’t required here since only a VM needs restoration.

• B: This option would involve restoring directly at the remote site. However, the remote node is a single-node replication target, not intended for hosting or running VMs. It exists only to store replicated snapshots.

• C: This is the most effective and compliant solution. By accessing the remote snapshot from the local site, the administrator can restore the VM to its 6:00 PM Sunday state without disrupting ongoing protection policies. This uses the available remote data but keeps the recovery process centralized at the production site.

• D: The local site retains only one snapshot—the most recent one from 6:00 AM Monday. Since the corruption was found at 8:00 AM Monday, this snapshot is after the incident and thus unusable for restoring a clean state from Sunday.

In conclusion, the administrator should retrieve the appropriate remote snapshot via the local interface to recover the VM effectively while keeping the protection domain intact. This method is consistent with Nutanix best practices for selective recovery.

The correct answer is clearly C.

Question 3:

A system administrator is troubleshooting a performance issue with a custom backup application running on a Windows VM. The virtual machine has 4 vCPUs (each with one core), 4GB of RAM, a 50GB vDisk for the operating system, and a single 2TB vDisk used by the backup application. However, the application's throughput is significantly underperforming.

Which change would most likely enhance the application's data throughput performance?

A. Increase the number of cores per vCPU
B. Increase the total number of vCPUs
C. Distribute the 2TB disk across four separate vDisks
D. Expand the VM memory by an additional 4GB

Answer: C

Explanation:

In virtualized environments—especially when dealing with large I/O workloads like backup operations—the architecture of storage can greatly affect performance. In this scenario, the performance bottleneck stems from the storage layer, where a single large 2TB vDisk is responsible for all the application's I/O activity.

Virtual machines typically access storage through virtual disks (vDisks), which are managed by virtual SCSI controllers. Each vDisk has limitations, especially around IOPS and queue depth, which restricts how many parallel operations can be performed. By using only one vDisk for a large backup workload, the system is forced to serialize many of its read/write tasks through a single queue, causing throughput degradation.

By splitting the 2TB disk into four smaller vDisks, each vDisk receives its own queue and I/O pathway. This enables the application—particularly if it supports multithreaded I/O—to perform operations in parallel, dramatically increasing effective throughput. This is a common best practice for I/O-intensive applications like backup software, databases, or analytics engines running on virtual machines.

Now, let's evaluate the other choices:

• A. Increase the number of cores per vCPU:
  This option is often misunderstood. In most hypervisors, the concept of “cores per vCPU” is mainly relevant for software licensing or CPU topology simulations. It doesn’t enhance performance in a meaningful way and certainly doesn’t affect disk I/O bottlenecks.

• B. Increase the total number of vCPUs:
  More vCPUs may help if the VM is CPU-bound, but backup applications are often I/O-bound rather than compute-bound. Unless CPU utilization is near 100%, adding more vCPUs will not resolve throughput issues.

• D. Add 4GB of memory:
  Extra memory might help marginally if the system is experiencing memory pressure or paging. However, the scenario specifically mentions low throughput, not memory constraints. Backup applications typically benefit more from disk I/O enhancements than from increased RAM unless caching is a major factor.

In summary, the most effective change to improve disk I/O throughput in this setup is to split the 2TB application disk into four vDisks. This enables parallel disk access, increasing performance and resolving the bottleneck.

Question 4:

An administrator oversees a Nutanix deployment with a central datacenter cluster consisting of 20 nodes and 1.5PB of storage. There are also five remote sites, each with 4-node clusters and 200TB of storage. These sites are linked to the central location via 1Gbps network connections with an average round-trip latency of 6 milliseconds

What is the shortest Recovery Point Objective (RPO) that can realistically be achieved across this distributed environment?

A. 0 minutes
B. 15 minutes
C. 1 hour
D. 6 hours

Answer: B

Explanation:

Recovery Point Objective (RPO) defines the maximum allowable time window in which data loss can occur in the event of a system failure. In a Nutanix Enterprise Cloud setup, the achievable RPO is determined by factors such as the type of replication in use, network bandwidth, and latency between clusters.

Let’s analyze the key details of the infrastructure:

• Remote clusters are connected to the central site using 1Gbps links.

• The average network round-trip time (RTT) is 6 milliseconds.
  While 1Gbps bandwidth is reasonable for general data replication, it is not ideal for continuous or real-time synchronization. The 6ms RTT further influences what replication methods are feasible.

Nutanix supports several types of data replication:

• Synchronous Replication: Achieves a 0-minute RPO by ensuring data is written to both source and destination instantly. However, this requires extremely low-latency (typically <5ms) and high-bandwidth connections. In this case, the 6ms latency and 1Gbps link disqualify synchronous replication due to latency overhead and throughput limitations.

• NearSync Replication: Designed for RPOs as low as 1 minute, but it similarly requires low RTT (ideally <5ms) and high-throughput links. The current setup exceeds the recommended latency, making NearSync unreliable for consistent sub-5-minute RPOs across multiple sites.

• Asynchronous Replication: This method is well-suited for WAN connections with moderate latency and bandwidth. It replicates snapshots of data at regular intervals. Nutanix typically supports minimum RPO intervals of 15 minutes in production environments using asynchronous replication. This strikes a balance between data protection, replication efficiency, and available network resources.

Given five remote sites all sharing 1Gbps WAN links, trying to push more frequent snapshots (e.g., every minute) could congest the network, causing delays, snapshot queuing, or even replication failures. Thus, Nutanix best practices favor 15-minute intervals as the most aggressive and reliable RPO for such setups.

Now, evaluating the other options:

• A (0 minutes): Only possible with synchronous replication, which the environment does not support due to latency constraints.

• C (1 hour) and D (6 hours): These are achievable but unnecessarily conservative. The question asks for the minimum achievable RPO—not a typical or safe one.

In conclusion, a 15-minute RPO using asynchronous replication is the optimal and realistic solution based on the environment’s network and storage configuration.

Question 5:

A Nutanix administrator is notified by the security team about a VM exhibiting suspicious networking behavior. Microsegmentation is enabled, and a firewall virtual appliance is active. The administrator must isolate the VM from the production network to avoid the risk of infection spread but still needs access to it for investigation and troubleshooting.

Which approach best satisfies both isolation and diagnostic access requirements?

A. Disable the virtual NIC on the suspicious VM
B. Use the Forensic Quarantine option to isolate the VM
C. Add a firewall rule to block production traffic while allowing diagnostic traffic
D. Create a security policy that uses a service chain to send VM traffic through the firewall

Correct Answer: B

Explanation:

In Nutanix environments where microsegmentation is active—typically via Nutanix Flow—network security is enforced at the VM level. This gives administrators precise control over how traffic flows and allows advanced features like quarantine. When a VM shows signs of compromise or malicious behavior, it must be isolated quickly to prevent further damage. However, it's often equally important to retain access to the VM for further analysis.

Option B, using the Forensic Method of quarantine in Nutanix Flow, is the ideal choice in this scenario. This method is designed specifically to isolate suspicious virtual machines while allowing secure access for diagnostics. Here's how it works:

• All external and internal traffic to and from the VM is blocked, effectively isolating it from the rest of the network.

• However, administrators can whitelist specific IP addresses or ports—such as those used by jump servers or bastion hosts—allowing limited and secure access.

• The VM remains powered on, so investigators can continue to gather evidence or determine the root cause of the issue.

• It leverages built-in policy mechanisms, ensuring compliance and auditability.

Option A, disabling the vNIC, would cut all network connectivity, including any administrative access, making diagnostics nearly impossible without re-enabling the interface—a risky maneuver in security-sensitive environments.

Option C, creating manual firewall rules, is a workaround that lacks the precision and auditability of Nutanix Flow's forensic quarantine feature. It's prone to misconfiguration and doesn't guarantee complete isolation unless every possible traffic vector is accounted for.

Option D, using a service chain to route traffic through a firewall, is designed for inspection—not isolation. The VM would still be able to communicate on the network, potentially enabling the continued spread of malware.

In security-sensitive environments, isolation should be both effective and controlled. The Forensic Quarantine Method strikes this balance by halting lateral movement while enabling secure diagnostics. For Nutanix administrators, this is the recommended best practice when dealing with potentially compromised VMs.

Question 6:

A Nutanix customer has implemented asynchronous replication between Site A and Site B. During a planned failover, they activate the protection domain on Site B. Later, they run the command ncli pd deactivate_and__destroy_vms name=<protection_domain_name> on Site A.

What will be the result of executing this command?

A. VMs are removed from Site B and the protection domain becomes active
B. VMs at Site A are powered off, requiring manual power-on at Site B
C. VMs are deleted from Site A and the protection domain is deactivated
D. The customer must manually power off VMs at Site A and power them on at Site B

Correct Answer: C

Explanation:

In Nutanix, asynchronous replication allows administrators to maintain up-to-date snapshots of VMs between a primary site (Site A) and a recovery site (Site B). These snapshots are managed under Protection Domains (PDs), which handle the scheduling and application of replication policies.

During a planned failover, the administrator transitions control from the primary site to the recovery site. This process typically involves:

• Ensuring all recent snapshots are transferred to Site B

• Activating the protection domain on Site B

• Powering on VMs as necessary at the secondary site
  This operation prepares Site B to serve production workloads while Site A is temporarily offline or undergoing maintenance.

The command ncli pd deactivate_and__destroy_vms performs two actions:

1. Deactivates the protection domain at Site A

2. Destroys the VMs associated with the protection domain on Site A

This is not a soft failover—it's a destructive action intended to finalize the failover process by eliminating any risk of duplicated VMs or conflicts. Once this command is executed:

• The protection domain at Site A is no longer active

• The VMs at Site A are permanently deleted

Option C is correct because it precisely describes this outcome: the VMs are removed from Site A, and the PD becomes inactive there.

Option A is incorrect. The VMs at Site B remain intact and operational, and the PD is already active at Site B—not Site A.

Option B is misleading because the VMs are not merely powered off—they are completely deleted at Site A.

Option D is also incorrect, as the command removes the need for manual intervention. The VMs are destroyed programmatically, and no manual power operations are required at Site A.

This command is usually part of a deliberate, planned migration or cutover process. It's critical that the VMs are already active and tested at Site B before executing it. If run prematurely, it could result in irreversible data loss.

Question 7:

An administrator needs to deploy five new virtual machines to support an OLAP data analytics initiative. Each VM requires 4 vCPUs, 64 GB of RAM, and a 1.5 TB virtual disk. The current Nutanix cluster comprises four nodes, each providing 24 vCPUs (20% utilized), 192 GB of RAM (60% utilized), and a storage configuration of 2 × 1.92 TB SSDs and 4 × 2 TB HDDs. The cluster's RF2 container has 13.5 TB of free extent store capacity and is 30% utilized.

Which component of the cluster presents the greatest concern when supporting this workload?

A. Physical RAM
B. Physical Cores
C. Storage
D. Flash Tier

Answer: D

Explanation:

To evaluate the Nutanix cluster's readiness for the upcoming OLAP workload, we need to examine each resource—CPU, memory, storage capacity, and flash tier—against the demand imposed by the five new virtual machines.

First, let's consider CPU. Each VM demands 4 vCPUs, resulting in a total of 20 vCPUs. The cluster offers 96 vCPUs across four nodes (24 per node), with only 20% currently used. This leaves more than enough headroom to accommodate the new VMs. Therefore, CPU is not a limiting factor, and Option B can be eliminated.

Next is RAM. The five VMs require a combined 320 GB. The cluster has 768 GB total RAM, but 60% is used, leaving around 307 GB free—just under the required 320 GB. While this appears problematic at first glance, virtualization platforms often support memory overcommitment through techniques like ballooning, compression, and swapping. Additionally, VMs rarely consume all memory instantly upon boot. As such, RAM might be tight but isn’t a showstopper, and Option A is not the best choice.

Considering storage, each VM's 1.5 TB virtual disk results in a combined need of 7.5 TB. Due to RF2 (Replication Factor 2), the actual disk usage would be double—15 TB. Although only 13.5 TB is reported as available extent store capacity, that figure pertains to active metadata and hot-tier storage. Given the total raw disk availability (15.36 TB SSD + 32 TB HDD = 47.36 TB) and 30% overall usage, there is still enough space. Thus, storage capacity itself is not the main issue, eliminating Option C.

The Flash Tier, however, is vital for OLAP workloads, which rely heavily on fast reads and low-latency I/O. The cluster has 15.36 TB of total SSD storage across all nodes. If the VMs generate 7.5 TB of hot data, the SSD layer could face saturation—especially when existing workloads are already using it. Nutanix promotes only frequently accessed (“hot”) data to SSD, but OLAP workloads typically generate substantial active datasets that demand high SSD performance. SSD exhaustion can lead to increased tiering to HDD, reduced cache hits, and overall degraded performance.

In summary, while the CPU, RAM, and storage can support the workload (though tightly), the Flash Tier is the critical component at risk of becoming a performance bottleneck.

Question 8:

A Nutanix administrator manages two clusters—Corp-cluster-01 and Corp-cluster-02—under Prism Central. They must ensure that specific VM images remain restricted to Corp-cluster-01 and are not accessible by Corp-cluster-02 or any other clusters that may be registered in the future.

Which two configuration options should be selected when creating the image placement policy to fulfill this requirement?

A. Specify Corp-cluster-01 as the target cluster in the policy
B. Set the policy enforcement to Soft
C. Set the policy enforcement to Hard
D. Specify Corp-cluster-02 as the target cluster in the policy

Answers: A and C

Explanation:

Image placement policies in Nutanix Prism Central provide a mechanism to control where virtual machine images are stored and replicated across multiple clusters. The objective in this scenario is to confine images exclusively to Corp-cluster-01, while explicitly blocking access from Corp-cluster-02 and any future clusters.

To achieve this, the administrator must take two key actions:

1. Explicitly define Corp-cluster-01 as the placement target, and

2. Set the enforcement level to Hard to ensure the policy is strictly applied.

Let's analyze the relevant options:

Option A – Designate Corp-cluster-01 as the target
This is essential. By clearly defining Corp-cluster-01 as the placement destination, Prism Central knows where the image must reside. Without this, images might default to a shared pool or be available across all clusters, violating the requirement.

Option C – Use Hard enforcement
This ensures strict adherence to the defined policy. With Hard enforcement, the image cannot be accessed or transferred to any other clusters under any circumstance. It guarantees exclusivity, which matches the administrator’s goal to prevent Corp-cluster-02—and future clusters—from having access.

Now, reviewing the incorrect options:

Option B – Soft enforcement
Soft policies act as preferences rather than rules. While they attempt to keep images on the specified cluster, they allow exceptions. This leniency undermines the requirement to block access from other clusters and makes the policy unreliable.

Option D – Include Corp-cluster-02 as a target
This directly contradicts the administrator's intent. Including Corp-cluster-02 would make the image accessible where it shouldn't be.

In conclusion, to prevent images from being available outside Corp-cluster-01, the administrator must define Corp-cluster-01 as the only destination and enforce the policy strictly using the Hard option.

Question 9:

Which component is primarily responsible for managing all cluster metadata in a Nutanix AHV environment?

A. Acropolis Hypervisor
B. Prism Central
C. Cassandra
D. Zookeeper

Correct Answer: C

Explanation:

In Nutanix architecture, metadata plays a central role in managing storage, cluster health, performance metrics, and VM operations. The metadata database is responsible for keeping track of where all data and objects reside within the distributed storage fabric.

The Cassandra database is the component primarily responsible for managing all cluster-wide metadata in a Nutanix environment. Cassandra is a distributed NoSQL database known for its scalability, high availability, and fault tolerance, making it well-suited for storing metadata across the Nutanix cluster.

Metadata stored in Cassandra includes:

• VM configurations

• Storage container information

• Disk and snapshot mapping

• Cluster configuration details

Each node in a Nutanix cluster runs a copy of Cassandra. The data is sharded and replicated across the nodes to ensure high availability. If one node fails, metadata can still be retrieved from another node that contains a replica of that shard.

Now, let’s examine the incorrect options:

• A. Acropolis Hypervisor (AHV) is the Nutanix-built hypervisor that handles virtualization tasks. It does not manage metadata directly.

• B. Prism Central is a centralized management solution that aggregates data and provides a unified interface for managing multiple clusters. While it displays metadata, it does not store or manage it.

• D. Zookeeper plays a role in cluster coordination, maintaining configuration and synchronization for services like leadership election or service registration. It’s vital for cluster consistency but not for metadata storage.

In summary, Cassandra is the authoritative source for metadata in a Nutanix cluster. It provides the foundational service that enables the platform’s distributed storage capabilities, high availability, and scalability. Understanding Cassandra’s role is crucial for success in the NCM-MCI exam and for real-world architecture design.

Question 10:

What is the main function of the Nutanix CVM (Controller Virtual Machine)?

A. It runs the Prism Central interface
B. It handles hypervisor scheduling
C. It provides data services and cluster management tasks
D. It manages BIOS and firmware updates

Correct Answer: C

Explanation:

The Controller Virtual Machine (CVM) is the core operational component in any Nutanix cluster. It runs on every node in the cluster and is responsible for providing data path and control path services.

The CVM is where Acropolis Distributed Storage Fabric (ADSF) services run. These services handle:

• I/O operations (reads and writes)

• Data replication

• Deduplication and compression

• Cloning and snapshots

• Metadata management (via Cassandra)

• Communication between nodes (via Stargate and Curator services)

Without the CVM, the Nutanix software-defined storage layer would not function. When a VM writes data to a virtual disk, the I/O is intercepted by the hypervisor and passed to the CVM, which handles replication and placement across the cluster. The CVM also communicates with other CVMs to maintain data redundancy and consistency.

Now, evaluating the incorrect answers:

• A. Prism Central runs on a separate virtual machine (not the CVM) and is used for centralized management across multiple clusters.

• B. Hypervisor scheduling, such as managing CPU and memory for VMs, is the responsibility of the hypervisor itself (e.g., AHV, ESXi, or Hyper-V), not the CVM.

• D. BIOS and firmware management is typically handled via Foundation or Life Cycle Management (LCM) tools, not directly by the CVM.

In conclusion, the CVM is essential to the storage and cluster management layer of Nutanix. Every key data operation in a Nutanix cluster flows through it. For the NCM-MCI exam, understanding the responsibilities and dependencies of the CVM is critical for success and for designing highly available and resilient infrastructures.