Nutanix NCP-CI-AWS - Nutanix Certified Professional - Cloud Integration - AWS (NCP-CI-AWS 6.10) Exam

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.

ThePrism Central Marketplaceserves as the centralized hub for discovering, enabling, and managing various Nutanix services and integrated technologies. For administrators deploying NC2 on AWS, the Marketplace is the designated environment to verify the compatibility and support status ofMulticloud Snapshot Technology (MST). Within this interface, the system provides documentation and automated workflows that confirm the best installation process for the specific environment. This ensures that the required software versions and dependencies are met before attempting to protect workloads to cloud object storage like Amazon S3. Utilizing the Marketplace simplifies the " Day Two " operational tasks by providing a validated path for deployment rather than relying on manual configuration or external templates.

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.

The requirement for two private subnets in the NC2 cluster configuration workflow serves the same purposes:

One subnet is designated for user VMs, ensuring user workloads are separated from management operations.

The other subnet is designated for cluster management, maintaining the integrity and security of management processes and internal communications.

Nutanix Clusters on AWS Deployment Guide

Nutanix Cloud Clusters on AWS Administration

To deploy an NC2 cluster using an existing AWS network, the NAT Gateway should be placed in a public subnet. A public subnet is one that has a route to an Internet Gateway, allowing the NAT Gateway to provide outbound internet access for resources in private subnets. The NAT Gateway is used to enable instances in private subnets to access the internet while keeping them secure by not exposing them directly to the public internet.

Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) on AWS Documentation

When reserving licenses for Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2), administrators must understand the inclusion of add-ons within different tiers. For organizations requiring multi-protocol storage, the Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) add-on is flexible and can be associated with either the NCI Pro or NCI Ultimate licensing tiers. Furthermore, the NCI Ultimate tier is designed to be comprehensive; it automatically includes high-value features such as Advanced Replication and Security (Microsegmentation) by default. This simplifies the licensing process because these features do not require separate manual applications once the Ultimate tier is selected. While NCI Ultimate is feature-rich, it does not include the NUS add-on by default, which remains a capacity-based selection that must be specifically managed alongside the base license tier.

Before accessing the Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) console, the first step is to create a My Nutanix account.

This account serves as the primary gateway for managing and accessing Nutanix services, including NC2.

Once the account is created, users can log in to the Nutanix portal, where they can manage their subscriptions, start trials, and access various Nutanix services, including the NC2 console.

Refer to the Nutanix documentation on getting started with NC2 and the My Nutanix account creation process.

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.

To manually create an AWS VPC with Public access to Prism Element for testing purposes, the following components must be created:

VPC: A Virtual Private Cloud to provide an isolated network for the resources.

Delegated Subnets: Subnets within the VPC to segment the network and allocate IP ranges.

Route Tables: To define routing rules for the subnets to ensure proper traffic flow.

NAT Gateway: To enable instances in the private subnets to access the internet.

Internet Gateway: To allow direct internet access to instances in the public subnets.

Load Balancer: To distribute traffic across multiple instances for improved availability and redundancy.

Refer to the AWS documentation on VPC creation and Nutanix documentation on network setup for Prism Element access.

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.