NCP-MCA Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA v6.5) Exam Questions and Answers

 A time trigger is a type of playbook trigger that allows the user to specify a schedule for running a playbook. This trigger is useful for automating tasks that need to be performed periodically or at a specific time. A manual trigger requires the user to initiate the playbook execution manually, which is not ideal for a recurring task. A report trigger is a type of playbook trigger that allows the user to run a playbook when a specific report is generated. However, this trigger does not guarantee that the report will be generated on the first of every month, as it depends on the report settings. A wait until day of month action is a type of playbook action that pauses the playbook execution until a specified day of the month. This action is unnecessary if the playbook already has a time trigger that specifies the desired schedule.

References:

Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA) course, Module 4: Playbooks, Lesson 4.1: Playbook Triggers

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) 6.5 Exam Blueprint Guide, Section 3.1: Create a playbook to automate IT operations using X-Play

The error message “INTERNAL_ERROR: ErrorCode: 9” typically indicates an issue with the SSH service on the VMs. In this context, where a playbook is being executed to shut down Linux VMs, it’s essential that the SSH service is running to allow for remote management and execution of commands. If the SSH service isn’t running, the playbook won’t be able to execute commands on the VMs, leading to an internal error.

References:

Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA) Course, Module 3: X-Play, Lesson 3.3: Creating and Managing Playbooks, Slide 19: Action Settings

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, Section 3: Validate Blueprints, Playbooks, and Automation Settings, Objective 3.3: Determine the correct method to validate required Playbook configurations

UESTION NO: 80

An administrator is unable to launch a Calm blueprint (new and old). Launching an existing blueprint under this condition fails with the error message:

The project for this blueprint does not have any associated Nutanix account.

Downloading and uploading the new blueprint also fails with

Launch with Variables' Profile expected to fall as Windows Server VWs attached with deleted Account.

Please modify them to use different account and try again.

Why is the administrator seeing this issue?

A. The account is in a failed state.

B. The has not been created.

C. The account is not verified.

D. The account been deleted.

Answer: D

The error messages indicate that the blueprint is trying to use a Nutanix account that no longer exists. This could happen if the account was deleted by another administrator or by a playbook action. The administrator should check the project settings and verify that the Nutanix account is still available and associated with the project. If not, the administrator should create a new account or use an existing one and update the blueprint accordingly. References: Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) 6.5 Exam Blueprint Guide, page 9; Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA), section 3; Nutanix NCP-MCA Certification Exam Sample Questions, question 80.

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

To make a Blueprint visible to a specific Project, it needs to be approved and published with that Project. This ensures that only authorized Blueprints are available for consumption by the Project members. Applying a Category or a version number to the Blueprint does not affect its visibility to the Project. References: Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, page 14, section 3.1.2

Categories are a way of organizing and managing resources in Nutanix Calm. Categories can be used to define access policies, filter resources, and group applications. By creating and assigning the Linux OS Category to the newly-created VM, the administrator can grant access to the OS Team based on their Active Directory Group membership. The OS Team can then use the web SSH console to access the Linux VM from the Calm UI.

References:

Nutanix Support & Insights, section “Categories”

Nutanix Support & Insights, section “Accessing the Web SSH Console”

 A Playbook is a collection of tasks that can be executed based on a trigger, such as a time, a webhook, or a manual action. A Playbook can be used to automate workflows across different systems and services, such as Nutanix Prism, VMs, hosts, and external APIs. A Playbook can also use variables, conditions, and loops to customize the execution logic and data.

In this scenario, the administrator wants to automate the batch processing application on the Linux VM, which can only be controlled by a command on the VM console. The application should run only outside of business hours, and the VM should send REST API calls to Prism to report its status.

The best way to configure a Playbook for this process is to use a Time Trigger, which allows the administrator to specify a schedule for the Playbook execution, such as daily, weekly, or monthly. The Time Trigger can also be configured to run only on certain days or hours, such as weekdays or nights. This way, the administrator can ensure that the Playbook runs only outside of business hours, without requiring any manual intervention.

The Playbook should then have two VM SSH tasks, one to initiate the batch processing application, and one to terminate it. A VM SSH task is a task that executes a command or script on a target VM using SSH. A VM SSH task can be used to control applications or services that do not have a programmatic interface, such as the batch processing application in this scenario. The VM SSH task can also use variables to pass data to or from the command or script, such as the VM name, IP address, or output.

The Playbook should also have a Wait for Some Time task, which is a task that pauses the Playbook execution for a specified duration or until a condition is met. A Wait for Some Time task can be used to ensure that the batch processing application has enough time to complete its work, or to wait for a certain event or state to occur, such as a file creation, a service status, or a VM power state.

The Playbook should also have two REST API tasks, one before and one after the Wait for Some Time task. A REST API task is a task that executes an HTTP request to a specified URL, with optional headers, body, and authentication. A REST API task can be used to interact with external systems or services that expose an API, such as Nutanix Prism in this scenario. The REST API task can also use variables to pass data to or from the HTTP request, such as the VM name, IP address, or response.

The REST API tasks should be configured to send the VM status to Prism, such as the start and end time of the batch processing, the CPU and memory usage, or the output of the application. This way, the administrator can monitor and manage the VM and the application from Prism, without having to connect to the VM console.

The Playbook configuration should look something like this:

Time Trigger: Set the schedule to run daily, only on weekdays, and only at night (e.g., 10 PM to 6 AM).

VM SSH: Set the target VM to the Linux VM, and set the command or script to initiate the batch processing application (e.g., ./batch.sh start).

REST API: Set the URL to the Prism API endpoint, and set the HTTP method, headers, body, and authentication as required. Use variables to pass the VM name, IP address, and start time of the batch processing to the HTTP request (e.g., {"vm_name": "{{vm_name}}", "vm_ip": "{{vm_ip}}", "start_time": "{{start_time}}"}).

Wait for Some Time: Set the duration to the expected time for the batch processing to finish, or set a condition to wait until a certain event or state occurs (e.g., wait until file /tmp/batch.done exists).

REST API: Set the URL to the Prism API endpoint, and set the HTTP method, headers, body, and authentication as required. Use variables to pass the VM name, IP address, end time, and output of the batch processing to the HTTP request (e.g., {"vm_name": "{{vm_name}}", "vm_ip": "{{vm_ip}}", "end_time": "{{end_time}}", "output": "{{output}}"}).

VM SSH: Set the target VM to the Linux VM, and set the command or script to terminate the batch processing application (e.g., ./batch.sh stop).

References: 

https://www.nutanix.com/content/dam/nutanix/resources/datasheets/ds-ncp-mca-6-5.pdf

https://www.nutanix.com/content/dam/nutanix/resources/support/ds-ncp-mca.pdf

When launching Calm blueprints, there are two view options available: Developer and Consumer. The Developer view allows you to create, edit, and manage blueprints, as well as access advanced features such as macros, actions, and scripts. The Consumer view allows you to launch and manage applications from the Marketplace, as well as access basic features such as variables, tasks, and alerts. The view option is determined by the role assigned to the user in the project. Users with the Project Admin or Project Auditor role can switch between the Developer and Consumer views, while users with the Project User role can only access the Consumer view. References:

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) v6.5, Section 1 - Describe and Differentiate Automation Concepts and Principles, page 3

Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA), Module 2 - Nutanix Calm, Lesson 2.1 - Nutanix Calm Overview, page 9

Nutanix Calm User Guide, Introduction to Nutanix Calm, Nutanix Calm User Interface

Runbooks are a feature of Calm that allows for the creation of task-based automation against dynamic lists of Windows or Linux VMs. A runbook is a collection of tasks that can be executed on one or more VMs or services. A task is a unit of automation that can perform actions such as executing commands, running scripts, invoking APIs, or sending notifications. A runbook can be triggered manually, on a schedule, or based on an event. Runbooks can be used to automate common operations such as backup, restore, patching, scaling, or troubleshooting. References: Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, page 16; Nutanix Calm User Guide, section 3.4.

A Category in Nutanix is a grouping of entities (such as VMs, hosts, clusters, etc.) into a key-value pair. Categories are used to organize and manage resources more effectively by tagging them with meaningful identifiers.

References:

Nutanix documentation on Categories.

Nutanix Best Practices for Using Categories.

To complete the task of joining a newly-provisioned Windows 2019 Server to an Active Directory domain as part of the package install phase, follow these steps in the correct order:

Step 1: Add a task to the Package Install section.

Step 2: Choose Execute as the task type.

Step 3: Choose Powershell as the script type.

Step 4: Select the appropriate Credential.

Step 5: Write/insert the Powershell script contents into the script window.

 Add a task to the Package Install section: This sets up the task within the phase where packages and scripts are to be executed.

 Choose Execute as the task type: This specifies that the task will run a script or command.

 Choose Powershell as the script type: Since joining a Windows Server to a domain typically involves running a PowerShell script, this is the appropriate script type.

 Select the appropriate Credential: Use the credentials with the necessary permissions to join the server to the Active Directory domain.

 Write/insert the Powershell script contents into the script window: Enter the PowerShell script that performs the domain join operation.

Add-Computer -DomainName "yourdomain.com" -Credential (Get-Credential) -Restart

References:

Nutanix Calm documentation on Script Execution in Blueprints.

Nutanix Best Practices for Joining a Domain.

 A Playbook is a set of actions that are triggered by an event or a schedule. To run a Playbook, it must be enabled first. If a Playbook is not enabled, it will not respond to any events or schedules, and no Plays will be recorded for it. Therefore, the most likely cause of the issue is that the administrator forgot to enable the Playbook after building it. References: Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, page 13, section 3.2. Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA) course, module 4, lesson 2.

An event trigger is a type of trigger that can be used to execute a playbook when a specific event occurs in the Nutanix platform. An event trigger can be configured with various parameters, such as the event type, the target VM, the target VM category, the target project, and the target user. In this scenario, the administrator wants to be notified when a subset of VMs within the Environment:Dev category is restored from snapshot. Therefore, the event trigger should have the following parameters:

Event type: Snapshot Restoration. This is the event that indicates a VM has been restored from a snapshot.

Target VM: VMS in Environment: Dev. This is the filter that specifies which VMs are relevant for the trigger. By selecting VMS in Environment: Dev, the trigger will only apply to the VMs that belong to the Environment:Dev category.

Other parameters: These can be left as default or customized as needed.

References:

Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA) Course, Module 3: X-Play, Lesson 3.2: Creating and Managing Playbooks, Slide 13: Event Trigger

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, Section 3: Validate Blueprints, Playbooks, and Automation Settings, Objective 3.1: Determine the causes of a Playbook execution failure

A Playbook action has a default memory limit of 256 MB, which can be increased up to 1024 MB in the advanced settings of the action. If the action requires more memory than the limit, it will fail with the error message “Internal Error, Maximum Memory size limit reached”. To resolve this issue, the administrator can edit the action and increase the memory limit to a suitable value, depending on the complexity and requirements of the action.

References:

Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA) Course, Module 3: X-Play, Lesson 3.3: Creating and Managing Playbooks, Slide 19: Action Settings

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, Section 3: Validate Blueprints, Playbooks, and Automation Settings, Objective 3.3: Determine the correct method to validate required Playbook configurations

To update the running configuration for a multi-VM application in AWS using the Manage tab for the application in Calm, the administrator needs to provide the provider information for the AWS account. This includes the access key, secret key, region, and VPC ID. If the provider information is missing, the administrator will not be able to perform any actions on the application from Calm. References: Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, page 16, section 4.1.1. 

Protection Domains are a Nutanix feature that allows you to replicate data across clusters or to a remote site. You can use Protection Domains to replicate images from one cluster to another, and then use them for workload automation. This is one of the methods documented in the Nutanix Solutions Portal for Citrix MCS on Nutanix AHV1. Alternatively, you can also use Prism Central to manage multiple clusters and use Protection Policies to replicate images across clusters2. However, this option is not listed in the question, so the best answer is A. References:

1: Multi Cluster Image Replication for Citrix MCS on Nutanix

2: Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide

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.

The error message indicates that the script failed to authenticate to the remote server using CredSSP. CredSSP is a security mechanism that allows a client to delegate its credentials to a remote server for authentication. To use CredSSP, both the client and the server need to enable it and configure the role and the trusted hosts. The command Enable-WSManCredSSP -Role Client enables CredSSP on the client side and specifies the remote server as a trusted host. This command should be added to the script before invoking the Invoke-Command cmdlet that runs the script block on the remote server. The other commands are either irrelevant or incorrect for this scenario. References: Nutanix Calm: PowerShell Scripts - Read the Docs and Enable-WSManCredSSP (Microsoft.PowerShell.Management) - PowerShell | Microsoft Docs.

 Nutanix Calm is a feature of Prism Central that enables you to automate the deployment and management of infrastructure and applications across multiple clouds. Prism Central is a centralized management plane that provides unified visibility and control over Nutanix clusters and services. Prism Element is the local management plane for each Nutanix cluster that runs the Acropolis Operating System (AOS). Both Prism Central and Prism Element are required for Nutanix Calm to function properly and access the resources and services of the Nutanix platform. References:

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) v6.5, Section 2 - Deploy and Configure Nutanix Calm and Related Components, page 1

Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA), Module 1 - Introduction to Nutanix Multicloud Automation, Lesson 1.1 - Nutanix Multicloud Automation Overview, page 4

Nutanix Calm User Guide, Introduction to Nutanix Calm, Nutanix Calm Architecture

To create a custom alert policy, the administrator needs to specify the entity type, the impact, the severity, the condition, and the notification method. In this case, the entity type is VM, the impact is performance, the severity is warning, the condition is CPU usage > 70%, and the notification method is email. Additionally, the administrator can use categories to filter the entities that are affected by the alert policy. By selecting the category Env:Production, the administrator can limit the alert policy to only apply to the production VMs.

References:

Nutanix

https://www.bing.com/th?id=OSK.rK3sz-kbZCnJ9cwhAmYELm3vDpqzAZFHBIZFgLsHbGQ &pid=cdx&w=128&h=128&c=7

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) v6.5, Section 2 - Deploy and Configure Self-service and Related Components, Objective 2.5 - Identify required configuration settings for a Self-Service deployment

How to create custom alert policies | Prism central | Nutanix Community

Calm integrates natively with AWS and AHV as providers. A provider is a cloud platform or infrastructure that hosts the application VMs or services. Calm supports various providers such as Nutanix, AWS, Azure, GCP, VMware, and Kubernetes. AWS and AHV are two of the most commonly used providers in Calm, as they offer scalability, flexibility, and cost-efficiency for deploying applications. References: Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, page 11; Nutanix Calm User Guide, section 3.1.

The most optimal way to correct the failed deployment is to retry the failed deployment. This option allows the administrator to resume the deployment from the point of failure, without having to redeploy the entire application or create a new runbook. Retrying the failed deployment also preserves the application state and configuration, and avoids creating duplicate resources or conflicts.

Redeploying the application is not the best option, because it requires the administrator to delete the existing application and launch a new one from scratch. This option wastes time and resources, and may result in data loss or inconsistency.

Creating a runbook to retry is also not the best option, because it requires the administrator to write a custom script or workflow to handle the retry logic. This option adds complexity and overhead to the automation process, and may not be compatible with the original blueprint or application.

Rewriting the blueprint to have error handling is a valid option, but it is not the most optimal one. This option requires the administrator to modify the blueprint code and add logic to handle different types of errors and exceptions. This option improves the robustness and reliability of the blueprint, but it does not correct the failed deployment itself. The administrator still has to redeploy the application or retry the failed deployment after rewriting the blueprint.

References:

Nutanix Calm User Guide: Chapter 6: Managing Applications

Nutanix Calm DSL User Guide: Chapter 4: Blueprints

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide: Section 3: Validate Blueprints, Runbooks, Playbooks, and Automation Settings

A playbook REST API action allows the administrator to send an HTTP request to a specified endpoint, such as the Prism Central API, to perform an operation, such as deleting a VM. A playbook webhook action allows the administrator to send a payload to a specified URL, such as a ServiceNow webhook, to trigger an event, such as an approval flow. Both of these actions can be used to automate the deletion of VMs from a ServiceNow approval flow, where the developers can request and confirm the removal of their environments. A playbook webhook trigger and a playbook REST API trigger are not valid options, as they are used to initiate a playbook based on an external event, not to perform an action within a playbook. References: Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) 6.5 Exam Blueprint Guide, page 10; Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA), section 4; NCP-MCA Exam Dumps - Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud …, question 70.

A Self-Service (formerly Calm) developer can find detailed and downloadable logs for analyzing a Blueprint deployment failure in the specific Application Audit tab. This tab provides insights and logs related to the deployment, helping to diagnose and resolve issues.

References:

Nutanix Calm documentation on Application Audit.

Nutanix Best Practices for Troubleshooting Deployments.

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 correct macro syntax in Nutanix Calm is @@{and}@@. This syntax is used to reference variables and parameters within blueprints and tasks, allowing for dynamic substitution of values during execution.

References:

Nutanix Calm documentation on Macro Syntax.

Nutanix Best Practices for Using Macros.

The easiest way to automate the VM utilization and resource allocation is to use a playbook that has been already tested and validated in a test environment. A playbook is a collection of actions that can be triggered by events or schedules to perform various tasks on the Nutanix platform. By importing the playbook from the test environment to the production environment, the administrator can save time and effort in creating a new playbook from scratch. The administrator only needs to adjust the values of the playbook parameters, such as the VM name, the CPU and memory thresholds, the VCPU and memory increments, and the notification settings, to match the production environment. The playbook can then be executed manually or automatically based on the desired frequency and conditions.

References:

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) v6.5, Section 3 - Validate Blueprints, Runbooks, Playbooks, and Automation Settings, Objective 3.3 - Determine the correct method to validate required Playbook configurations

Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA), Module 4 - X-Play, Lesson 4.2 - Playbooks

How to create and execute playbooks in Prism Central | Nutanix Community

 Runtime variables are used to pass information between different components of a Blueprint, such as VMs, services, tasks, and replicas. They can be defined in the Blueprint YAML file or in the UI. By setting the mount_path as a runtime variable, the administrator can ensure that both database VMs use the same value for the mount_path during the deployment. This way, the backup files can be hosted on the same location for both VMs. References:

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) 6.5 Exam, page 25, section 2.1.1: “Runtime Variables”

[Nutanix University: NCP-MCA 6.5 Exam Prep - Runtime Variables], video 2: “Runtime Variables”

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.

A Calm Developer is a role that allows a user to create, update, and execute Playbooks in Calm. A Playbook is a collection of Tasks that can be executed on one or more Targets, such as VMs, applications, or services. A Calm Developer can also create and use Runbooks, Blueprints, and Library items in Calm. A Prism Admin is a role that allows a user to manage the Prism Central instance and its features, such as users, roles, alerts, policies, etc. A Calm Admin is a role that allows a user to manage the Calm service and its settings, such as endpoints, credentials, projects, etc. A Project Admin is a role that allows a user to manage a specific project and its resources, such as applications, Blueprints, Runbooks, etc. References:

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, page 14, section 4.1.1

Nutanix Calm Roles and Permissions

Nutanix Calm Playbooks

A Branch Condition is a type of action in X-Play that allows you to create conditional logic based on the output of a previous action or a custom expression. A Branch Condition can have multiple branches, each with a different condition and a different set of actions to execute if the condition is met. The minimum number of actions required in a Branch Condition is two: one for the condition itself, and one for the action to perform if the condition is true. If the condition is false, the Branch Condition will skip to the next action in the Playbook. You can add more branches to a Branch Condition, but you cannot have less than two. References: Nutanix Calm: Playbooks - Read the Docs and Nutanix Calm: Branch Condition - Read the Docs.

The Task Library is a centralized repository of tasks that can be reused across multiple blueprints. The administrator can publish a task to the Task Library by clicking on the Publish icon in the task editor. The task will then be available in the Task Library tab under the Tasks section in the Calm UI. The administrator can select the task from the Task Library and drag and drop it into another blueprint. This way, the administrator can reuse the task with the least amount of effort.

References:

Nutanix Certified Professional Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) 6 Exam, page 11

Nutanix University - NCP-MCA 6 Exam Prep - Tasks and Task Library

 According to the Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA) course1, you can create and configure multi-VM blueprints for the Nutanix, AWS, VMware, GCP, and Azure providers. However, according to the Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide2, the exam objectives only cover Nutanix and AWS as the providers for multi-VM blueprints. Therefore, the correct answer is C. Nutanix and E. Amazon AWS. References: Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA) course and Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide

 In order to add users to a Project, the Prism Central administrator must first configure an Authentication Directory. This is a service that provides user authentication and authorization for Prism Central, such as Active Directory or OpenLDAP. By configuring an Authentication Directory, the administrator can enable users to log in to Prism Central using their existing credentials and assign them roles and permissions based on their group membership. The administrator can also create local user accounts for users who do not belong to any Authentication Directory.

References:

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, Section 2, Objective 2.5

Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA) Course, Module 2, Lesson 2.2

Configuring Authentication | Nutanix Community

Categories are a way of organizing and managing resources in Nutanix Calm. Categories can be used to define access policies, filter resources, and group applications. By assigning new VMs to a category, the administrator can grant access to the OS Team based on their Active Directory Group membership. The OS Team can then use the web SSH console to access the Linux VMs from the Calm UI.

References:

Nutanix Support & Insights, section “Categories”

Nutanix Support & Insights, section “Accessing the Web SSH Console”

Nutanix Command Line Interface | Nutanix Community, section “SSH to any CVM as a nutanix user and type ncli and hit return to enter the ncli command shell and will be the same process for acli.”

Nutanix Support & Insights, section “Customizing a Linux VM with Cloud-Init”

 The Send Alert to Webhook action allows the administrator to send an HTTP request to a specified URL, which can be used to trigger a PagerDuty incident via its REST API1. This action requires the least number of configurations compared to the other options, as it only needs the webhook URL, the HTTP method, and the payload. The other options would require additional steps, such as creating a custom action, configuring the IP address, or using the Nutanix v3 API, which is not designed for integrating with third-party services.

References:

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) v6.5, Section 3, Objective 3.3

Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA), Module 5, Lesson 5.2

Training Spotlight: Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA), Video 5.2

Process Automation | PagerDuty

Scaling VM replica settings allow you to specify the minimum, maximum, and default number of VMs that can be created from a blueprint service. The minimum and default values must be equal to or greater than the number of VMs needed at any time and at time of deployment, which is 2 in this case. The maximum value must be equal to or less than the project quota divided by the VM resources, which is 100/12 = 8 for vCPUs and 300/24 = 12 for memory. The lowest of these two values is the limit for the maximum value, which is 8. Therefore, the only option that meets all the requirements is B. MIN: 2, MAX: 7, Default: 2.

References:

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, page 10, Objective 3.1: Given a scenario, create a blueprint to deploy infrastructure and applications using Self-Service

Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA), Module 5: Self-Service, Lesson 5.2: Blueprint Design, slide 23: Scaling VM Replica Settings

Nutanix Certified Professional Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) 6 Exam, page 10, Objective 3.1: Given a scenario, create a blueprint to deploy infrastructure and applications using Self-Service

To trigger a series of actions (taking a snapshot, expanding the vDisk, and sending a Slack message) from a pipeline CI/CD, the appropriate trigger to use is "Webhook." Webhooks allow external systems, such as CI/CD pipelines, to trigger playbooks in Nutanix Calm via HTTP requests, making them suitable for integrating with CI/CD tools.

References:

Nutanix documentation on Webhook Triggers.

Nutanix Best Practices for CI/CD Integration.

To enable Calm, the administrator needs to log on to Prism Central with a local ADMIN account and click Services -> Calm -> Enable. This will install the Calm service on Prism Central and allow the administrator to access the Calm UI and features. The other options are incorrect because they either refer to Prism Element, which is not the correct platform for Calm, or they involve unnecessary or incorrect steps. References: [Enabling and Accessing Calm | Nutanix Community] (https://next.nutanix.com/installation-configuration-23/enabling-and-accessing-calm-40191); [Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide] (https://www.nutanix.com/content/dam/nutanix/resources/support/ds-ncp-mca.pdf), section 2.1.

The alert indicates that Calm Showback is unable to reach the Beam service. One possible cause mentioned is that there is no DNS configured in Prism Central. To resolve this issue, the administrator should ensure that DNS is properly configured in Prism Central to allow for name resolution and internet connectivity required to communicate with Beam services.

References:

Nutanix documentation on Configuring DNS in Prism Central.

Nutanix Best Practices for Calm and Beam Integration.

A post-create task is a task that runs after a blueprint or runbook deployment is completed. A post-create task can be used to perform additional configuration or automation on the deployed resources. An HTTP task is a task that executes an HTTP request to a specified URL, with optional headers, body, and authentication. An HTTP task can be used to trigger an API call to another system or service, such as creating a front end application. A predefined task is a task that uses a predefined script or command to perform a common operation, such as installing a package or running a service. A predefined task cannot be used to trigger an API call to another system or service. An eScript task is a task that executes a custom script written in JavaScript or Python. An eScript task can be used to perform complex logic or operations that are not available in predefined tasks. However, an eScript task requires more coding skills and testing than an HTTP task. A simple task is a task that executes a simple command or script on the target VM or host. A simple task cannot be used to trigger an API call to another system or service. References: 

https://www.nutanix.com/content/dam/nutanix/resources/support/ebg-ncp-mca-6.pdf

https://www.nutanix.com/support-services/training-certification/certifications/certification-details-nutanix-certified-professional-multicloud-automation-v6-5

When configuring Playbooks to automate the scaling of CPU and memory resources for VMs, the administrator should consider the following prerequisites:

CPU can be added to a powered on VM if the guest OS supports it. This is also known as hot-plug CPU. The administrator should check the compatibility of the guest OS and the hypervisor before enabling this feature. For example, Windows Server 2019 supports hot-plug CPU on AHV, ESXi, and Hyper-V, but not on XenServer1.

Memory can be removed from a powered on VM if the guest OS supports it. This is also known as hot-unplug memory. The administrator should check the compatibility of the guest OS and the hypervisor before enabling this feature. For example, Linux supports hot-unplug memory on AHV, ESXi, and XenServer, but not on Hyper-V2.

VM must be powered off to add CPU if the guest OS does not support hot-plug CPU. This is also known as cold-plug CPU. The administrator should plan for the downtime required to power off and power on the VM after adding CPU.

VM must be powered off to reduce memory if the guest OS does not support hot-unplug memory. This is also known as cold-unplug memory. The administrator should plan for the downtime required to power off and power on the VM after reducing memory. References: Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA), page 10; Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA), section 3; Nutanix Support Portal - Guest OS Compatibility Matrix

The Calm SaaS API key consists of two components: name and token. The name component is analogous to the ID or username you provide when you configure your Calm tunnel client VM to establish the tunnel connection. The token component is analogous to the password portion of the HTTP basic authentication. The Calm SaaS API key is used along with the Calm APIs and Calm DSL to access Calm. The API key file that you download will have the name and token components in the JSON format. References: Nutanix Support & Insights

According to the Nutanix Calm documentation1, the Snapshots tab allows the administrator to view, create, and restore snapshots of the VMs that are part of a blueprint. The Manage tab only shows the status and actions of the blueprint, and the Recovery tab is used for disaster recovery operations2. References:

1 Nutanix Calm: Introducing Snapshot and Restore Actions3

2 Nutanix Calm User Guide: Blueprint Operations

When creating a Category in Nutanix, the "Purpose" field is optional. The mandatory fields are "Name" and "Value". The "Purpose" field is used to provide a description or context for the category but is not required for the category creation.

References:

Nutanix documentation on Category Management.

Nutanix Best Practices for Defining Categories.

 The easiest way to satisfy the request is to add an Email action to the end of the existing playbook and use the {{action[index] .stdout}} parameter in the Message field. This way, the administrator does not need to modify the script or create a file to store the output. The {{action[index] .stdout}} parameter will capture the standard output of the previous action, which is the VM SSH action that executes the script. The Email action will then send the output as the message body to the specified recipients. References: You can find more information about this topic in the following sources:

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, Section 3 - Validate Blueprints, Runbooks, Playbooks, and Automation Settings, page 10

Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA), Module 4 - X-Play, Lesson 2 - Playbooks, page 4-11

Calm can be deployed as a VM on ESXi or AHV hypervisors and leverage calm functionality without the Nutanix infrastructure. Calm can also be enabled inside of Prism Central, which is a VM that can run on any Nutanix supported hypervisor, including ESXi and AHV. However, Calm cannot be enabled inside of Prism Element, which is the management interface for each Nutanix cluster. Calm also cannot be deployed as a VM on Hyper-V, as this is not a supported hypervisor for Calm. References: Nutanix Calm Configuration and Training, Calm on ESXi Deployment | Nutanix Community, Nutanix Support & Insights

The default connection timeout value for an HTTP endpoint in Nutanix Calm is 60 seconds. This timeout defines how long the system will wait for a connection to be established before timing out.

References:

Nutanix Calm documentation on HTTP Endpoints.

Nutanix Best Practices for Configuring Endpoints.

 In order to enable the developer to complete the requested task, AWS and Azure Providers need to be created (Option A). This is because, in the context of Nutanix Calm, providers are integrations with public and private cloud infrastructures. The developer is trying to deploy an application on AWS and Azure clouds but currently only has Nutanix as a configured provider. After creating the providers, they need to be added to the project (Option B) so that applications can be deployed on them. Option C is incorrect because environments are not required for multicloud deployments. Option D is also incorrect because Calm version 3.2.x is not relevant to the question.

References: The information can be verified from Nutanix official training and certification documents available at Nutanix Training & Certification. You can also check out the Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) 6.5 Exam guide for more details on the exam objectives and format. Additionally, you can watch the Nutanix Calm - Multicloud Automation playlist on YouTube for some video tutorials on Nutanix Calm features and functionalities.

Runtime variables are variables that can be modified by the Consumer during the deployment of a Blueprint or after the deployment is complete. They allow the Consumer to customize the attributes of the infrastructure and applications according to their needs. Runtime variables can be defined in the Blueprint settings or in the Blueprint YAML file. They can also be used in the Blueprint tasks to pass dynamic values to the scripts or commands. Runtime variables can be of different types, such as text, number, boolean, list, or password. They can also have default values, constraints, and descriptions to guide the Consumer.

References:

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, Section 2, Objective 2.1

Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA) Course, Module 4, Lesson 4.3

Nutanix Calm User Guide, Chapter 4, Section 4.2

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.