Pure Storage Portworx-Enterprise-Professional - Pure Certified Portworx Enterprise Professional (PEP) Exam

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To collect a comprehensive support bundle for Portworx Autopilot, the proper procedure is to create a dedicated directory, send a support signal to the running Autopilot process to trigger diagnostics collection, and then the generated support bundle files from that directory. This approach ensures all relevant Autopilot logs, configuration files, and runtime metrics are gathered in a structured way, enabling effective troubleshooting and root cause analysis. Simply restarting or deleting pods is insufficient, as it does not guarantee a full diagnostics capture. The Portworx troubleshooting and support documentation outlines this method as the standard for collecting detailed Autopilot support information, facilitating accelerated support response and issue resolution in production clusters【Pure Storage Portworx Support Guide†source】.

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To check Portworx-specific alerts on a healthy node, administrators use the command pxctl alerts show. This command displays current alerts raised by Portworx, including warnings and critical notifications about storage, nodes, and cluster health. Even if one node is down, alerts from the healthy nodes can provide insights into cluster-wide issues or the status of the affected node. While journalctl displays system and service logs and kubectl describe node shows Kubernetes node info, neither provides aggregated Portworx alert data. The Portworx observability documentation recommends using pxctl alerts show for focused monitoring and alert management, enabling administrators to respond effectively to operational events within the Portworx cluster【Pure Storage Portworx Monitoring Guide†source】.

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When troubleshooting a Portworx node that appears down, the first step is to verify the overall Kubernetes cluster health, particularly the node’s readiness. Running kubectl get node -o wide provides detailed information about all cluster nodes, including their status, roles, and network details. Ensuring the affected node is marked “Ready” or identifying any abnormal conditions helps isolate whether the problem is at the Kubernetes level or specific to Portworx. If the node is not Ready, issues may lie with Kubernetes components or node-level hardware/network problems. After confirming node status, further investigation using pxctl status or examining kubelet logs with journalctl can pinpoint Portworx-specific or system-level failures. Portworx operational best practices recommend starting with Kubernetes node health checks before delving into Portworx or system logs to effectively triage issues【Pure Storage Portworx Troubleshooting Guide†source】.

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Cloud Snapshots are designed to store snapshots of critical application volumes directly into an external Object Store such as Amazon S3 or other S3-compatible storage. This solution provides offsite durability, disaster recovery capability, and long-term retention beyond the cluster’s local storage capacity. Cloud Snapshots allow administrators to create consistent, incremental snapshots that are efficiently uploaded to cloud storage, enabling protection against data loss scenarios such as cluster failure or site outages. This contrasts with Local Snapshots, which remain on the cluster’s local storage, and Backups, which may refer to full data copies. The Portworx documentation explains Cloud Snapshots as the recommended approach for storing critical volume snapshots securely and durably offsite, supporting business continuity strategies【Pure Storage Portworx Cloud Snapshot Guide†source】.

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Telemetry in Portworx refers to the automated collection and reporting of cluster performance and health metrics to Pure1 or other monitoring services. To enable telemetry, the spec.telemetry.enabled flag must be set to true in the StorageCluster Custom Resource Definition (CRD). This setting activates the telemetry pod on each node, which collects data such as resource usage, storage capacity, and errors, then securely uploads it to Pure Storage’s management platform. Enabling telemetry helps administrators gain insights into cluster performance trends, preemptively identify issues, and optimize resource utilization. The Portworx operator respects this flag during installation and upgrades to ensure telemetry is consistently configured. Neither spec.autopilot.enabled (which controls the Autopilot feature) nor spec.csi.enabled (which controls CSI driver deployment) affects telemetry settings. Official Portworx documentation highlights this flag as critical for activating health monitoring and analytics features within Portworx clusters【Pure Storage Portworx Telemetry Guide†source】.

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Using encrypted Persistent Volume Claims (PVCs) with Portworx requires that an administrator first configure a secret provider responsible for managing the encryption keys. The secret provider could be an external Key Management System (KMS) such as AWS KMS, Google Cloud KMS, Hashicorp Vault, or Kubernetes Secrets. This step is critical because encryption keys are essential to securely encrypt and decrypt data on volumes. Although enabling encryption in the StorageClass via parameters like secure: enabled is necessary to activate encryption on volumes, it is insufficient without a properly configured secret provider to manage the keys. The secret provider ensures keys are securely stored, rotated, and accessed, fulfilling compliance and security requirements. Portworx documentation stresses this as a foundational step to enable encrypted PVCs, highlighting that without a configured secret provider, encrypted volumes cannot be provisioned or used effectively【Pure Storage Portworx Encryption Docs†source】.

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To create a StorageClass in Kubernetes for Portworx volumes that are encrypted and replicated twice, the correct parameters are encrypted: "true" to enable encryption and repl: "2" to specify two replicas. Option A accurately sets these parameters, ensuring volumes provisioned with this StorageClass will be encrypted at rest and maintain two replicas for data redundancy. Option B uses sharedv4: "true", which relates to NFS-like sharing, not encryption. Option C uses secure: "true", which is not the recognized parameter for enabling encryption in Portworx StorageClass definitions. The official Portworx StorageClass parameter documentation confirms encrypted as the correct flag for encryption and repl to specify replication factor, enabling administrators to enforce data security and availability policies declaratively through Kubernetes manifests【Pure Storage Portworx StorageClass Guide†source】.

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The Portworx diagnostics bundle, known as “diags,” aggregates comprehensive diagnostic data for troubleshooting. This includes Portworx journal logs, which record detailed system and service events essential for identifying errors or malfunctions. Additionally, the bundle contains outputs from key CLI commands such as pxctl status and pxctl volume list that provide snapshots of the cluster’s health, volume states, and configuration at the time of collection. Basic operating system information, including kernel version, disk hardware details, and network interfaces, is also captured to understand the underlying environment. Together, these components equip Portworx support and administrators with the contextual data needed for effective root cause analysis and faster issue resolution. The official Portworx support documentation recommends collecting and submitting this bundle for all significant troubleshooting cases as it expedites problem diagnosis and resolution【Pure Storage Portworx Support Guide†source】.

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Dynamic Provisioning in Kubernetes with Portworx StorageClasses enables automatic, on-demand creation of storage volumes as requested by applications through Persistent Volume Claims (PVCs). This eliminates the need for administrators to manually create and manage volumes, significantly improving operational efficiency and accelerating application deployment. StorageClasses encapsulate parameters such as replication, encryption, and IO profiles, ensuring consistent volume configuration. Dynamic Provisioning also supports scaling and workload agility by provisioning storage transparently based on application needs. This feature is central to cloud-native storage management and is well documented in both Kubernetes and Portworx installation guides. It contrasts with manual volume creation, which is labor-intensive and error-prone, thus dynamic provisioning enhances automation and simplifies storage lifecycle management【Pure Storage Portworx Kubernetes Guide†source】.