Nutanix NCP-MCA - Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA 6.10) Exam

When configuring Calm to use Kubernetes as a provider, the administrator can choose between two Kubernetes types: Karbon and Vanilla. Karbon is Nutanix’s own Kubernetes distribution that is integrated with Prism and AHV. Vanilla is any other Kubernetes distribution that is not Karbon, such as OpenShift, Rancher, or EKS. The administrator needs to provide the Kubernetes API endpoint and credentials for the Vanilla type, while the Karbon type is automatically discovered by Calm. References: Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, page 14; Nutanix NCP-MCA Questions, question 102.

A provider is a configuration that allows Nutanix Calm to interact with a public cloud platform, such as AWS, Azure, or GCP. A provider contains the credentials, settings, and policies required to deploy and manage VMs on the public cloud. Before creating a blueprint for a new public cloud environment, the administrator should create a new provider for AWS and specify the region, access key, secret key, and other parameters. This will enable the administrator to select the AWS provider as the deployment location for the blueprint and configure the VM attributes accordingly. References: Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA), page 15; Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA), section 2.

In Nutanix Calm, the RBAC (Role-Based Access Control) role that enables adding VMs to a project is the Project Admin role. Project Admins have the necessary permissions to manage and configure resources within a project, including the addition of VMs, handling project settings, and managing application blueprints.

References:

Nutanix Calm documentation on RBAC Roles.

Nutanix Best Practices for Project Administration.

After upgrading Self-Service (formerly Calm) from version 3.3 to 3.6, the administrator noticed that Policy Engine scheduled jobs were failing and an alert was being presented in Prism Central. This issue is likely due to a version mismatch between the upgraded components. The recommended solution is to use Lifecycle Manager (LCM) to upgrade the Policy Engine to ensure compatibility with the new version of Self-Service.

References:

Nutanix documentation on Upgrading Components with LCM.

Nutanix Best Practices for Managing Upgrades.

The port 5986 is used for PowerShell Remoting over HTTPS, which is a secure way of executing PowerShell commands on a remote Windows VM. Calm uses PowerShell Remoting to run scripts on Windows VMs as part of the blueprint actions. Therefore, the port 5986 needs to be opened on the VM firewall to allow the communication between Calm and the VM. The other ports are not related to PowerShell Remoting, as they are used for SQL Server (1433), Remote Desktop Protocol (3389), and PowerShell Remoting over HTTP (5985). References: Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) 6.5 Exam Blueprint Guide, page 10; Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA), section 3; Nutanix Calm User Guide, page 93.

To reduce the manual effort for the NOC personnel, the administrators can create a new Action that contains the custom Python script as an Execute task with a script type of EScript. This will allow the NOC personnel to run the script on any VM from the Calm UI or API without logging into each VM. To ensure the process is repeatable across all applications, the administrators can create a new Runbook that contains the same Action and assign it to the relevant Projects. This will enable the NOC personnel to run the script on multiple VMs across different applications in a single workflow. To provide audit history for management of the actions, the administrators can view the Execution History tab under the Runbook page for audit purposes. This will show the details of each Runbook execution, such as the status, duration, user, and logs. Alternatively, the administrators can also view the Audit tab under the Application view for audit purposes. This will show the history of all actions performed on the application, such as launch, update, delete, and run actions. References: Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, page 18, section 4.2.1. 

The archived application logs within Prism Central can be found under Services > Calm > Settings. Calm automatically archives run logs of the deleted applications and custom actions that are older than three months. The administrator can download the archives within 7 days from the time of archive creation. For a running application, data is not archived for the system-generated Create actions. References: Nutanix Support & Insights

In Nutanix's Multicloud Automation (formerly known as Calm), playbooks can be configured to respond to various conditions and events that occur within the infrastructure. If a VM, such as one named ORACLE, becomes CPU constrained, a playbook can be triggered to automatically add more virtual CPUs (vCPUs) to the VM. In addition, playbooks can integrate with various notification services such as Slack, allowing administrators to be informed of the changes being made.

Based on the provided options and according to Nutanix documentation, the correct action is that the playbook will add more vCPU and will send a Slack message. This ensures that the VM's performance can be adjusted dynamically while keeping the relevant personnel informed via Slack.

References:

Nutanix Calm Documentation

Nutanix Multicloud Automation Playbooks Guide

 The alert in Prism Central indicates that Calm showback is not able to reach the beam service. This could be due to network connectivity issues or incorrect configurations. The administrator should check the DNS configuration in Prism Central (Option A) to ensure that it is correctly configured to allow communication with the Beam service. Additionally, checking if Prism Element is configured with Proxy settings (Option C) is essential as it can also affect the communication between Calm and Beam. Pulse (Option B) and Flow (Option D) are not related to the Calm showback feature and do not impact its functionality.

References:

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) v6.5, Section 2 - Deploy and Configure Nutanix Calm and Related Components, Objective 2.4 - Identify required configuration settings for a Nutanix Calm deployment

Enabling and Disabling Showback in Calm | Nutanix Community

When a task fails in a Multi VM Blueprint deployment within Nutanix Calm due to an issue such as a typographical error, and the error has been corrected, the administrator has options to handle the situation without needing to start the entire process from scratch.

According to Nutanix Calm documentation, the appropriate action after fixing the error is to choose the "Retry task" option. This allows the deployment process to continue from the point of failure, saving time and resources as opposed to deleting and relaunching the entire application or moving the blueprint to another project.

References:

Nutanix Calm Administration Guide

Nutanix Calm Troubleshooting and Best Practices