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

The Plays dashboard in Prism Central provides a centralized view of all the Playbooks that have been executed across the clusters registered with Prism Central. It shows the status, duration, and output of each Playbook run, as well as the details of the triggers, targets, and actions involved. An administrator can use the Plays dashboard to troubleshoot why a Playbook failed to grow the memory of a VM by checking the error messages, logs, and output of the Playbook run. The other options are not the correct places to check for Playbook failures, as they do not provide the same level of information and visibility as the Plays dashboard. References: Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) v6.5, Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) 6 Exam, Nutanix Exam NCP-MCA Topic 4 Question 20 Discussion

According to the Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA) course, the recommended Prism Central VM size depends on the number of VMs that are managed by Calm and the number of concurrent users. For a large-scale environment with more than 5000 VMs and more than 100 concurrent users, the recommended size is 3 nodes Large - 10vCPU and 52GB Memory per node1. This size provides enough resources for the Prism Central cluster to handle the workload and performance requirements of Calm.

References:

Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA) course, Module 2: Nutanix Calm Installation and Configuration, Lesson 2: Nutanix Calm Installation and Configuration2

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) v6.5 Exam Blueprint Guide, Section 2: Deploy and Configure Self-service and Related Components, Objective 2.2: Identify required configuration settings for a Self-Service deployment3

Scaling out Prism Central | Nutanix Community1

To launch application deployments on any remote Prism Central (PC) from the PC hosting Calm Global, the administrator must create a Nutanix account for each remote PC on the local PC (the one hosting Calm Global) and add these accounts to the relevant project. This setup allows Calm to manage and orchestrate resources across multiple Prism Central instances.

References:

Nutanix Calm documentation on Multi-Cluster Management.

Nutanix Best Practices for Global Deployments.

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

 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

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.

To manage and optimize the performance of virtual machines (VMs) within a playbook, administrators often need to adjust the resources allocated to VMs. Here are the appropriate actions:

VM Add Memory Action: This action allows the administrator to increase the memory allocation to a VM, which can be essential for applications requiring more RAM.

VM Add CPU Action with limits: Adding CPUs with defined limits ensures that the VM receives the necessary CPU resources without exceeding the cluster's capacity.

These actions enable the dynamic scaling of resources, improving VM performance and ensuring resource availability.

References:

Nutanix documentation on Playbook Actions.

Nutanix Best Practices for Resource Allocation.

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

Alerts are a way of monitoring the health and performance of the Nutanix cluster and the VMs running on it. Alerts can be triggered by various metrics, such as CPU usage, memory usage, disk space, network traffic, etc. Alerts can also be configured to send notifications to the administrator or other recipients via email, Slack, PagerDuty, etc. To satisfy the request from the Accounting department, the administrator should create an Alert with the following settings:

Trigger: CPU Usage (%) > 90 OR Memory Usage (%) > 90

Scope: VM

Category: LOB:Accounting

Notification: Email to accounting@company.com This way, the Alert will only apply to the VMs that belong to the Accounting department, and will send an email notification to the Accounting department when any of their VMs exceed the specified thresholds. References: Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA), page 9; Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA), section 1; [Nutanix Prism Central Guide - Alerts]

Test Script is a feature of Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) Self-Service that allows users to test or validate scripts before deployment. Test Script enables users to run scripts on a VM without creating a blueprint or a runbook. Users can select a VM, choose a script type, enter the script content, and execute the script. The output of the script is displayed in the Test Script window. Test Script can be used to troubleshoot errors, verify functionality, or preview the results of a script before using it in a blueprint or a runbook. References: Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, page 14, section 3.1. Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA) course, module 3, lesson 4. Validate Your Nutanix Cloud Manager Self-Service Skills + Access Special Offer.

https://portal.nutanix.com/page/documents/details?targetId=Nutanix-Calm-Admin-Operations-Guide-v3_6_2:nuc-macros-variables-overview-c.html

An administrator can look to view a list of executed playbooks in two locations: Executions and Plays. The Executions page shows the status and details of all the playbooks that have been executed across all the projects. The Plays page shows the status and details of all the playbooks that have been executed within a specific project. The Lists page shows the predefined and custom lists that can be used as inputs for playbooks. The Dashboard page shows the overview and statistics of the X-Play service. References:

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) v6.5, Section 3 - Validate Blueprints, Runbooks, Playbooks, and Automation Settings, page 4

Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA), Module 5 - X-Play, Lesson 5.3 - Playbook Management, page 2

Nutanix Calm User Guide, X-Play, Executions

 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.

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.

The error message in the exhibit indicates a mismatch between the number of network settings and the number of NICs on the VM. This is a common validation error when saving Calm Blueprints for VMware, where it is essential to ensure that these configurations match to avoid issues with VM deployment and operation1. References: 1: Nutanix NCP-MCA Certification Exam Sample Questions2

The most likely reason for this behavior is that the developer created a post-create task for reserving the IP address. A post-create task is executed after the VM is created and powered on, which means that the VM already obtained a DHCP IP address before the task is run. To reserve the IP address in IPAM as part of the deployment process, the developer should create a pre-create task instead. A pre-create task is executed before the VM is created and powered on, which allows the task to reserve the IP address in IPAM and assign it to the VM. References: Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, page 15; Nutanix NCP-MCA Questions, question 57.

To automate the task of growing vDisks on multiple classes of VMs using Nutanix Playbooks, the administrator should follow these steps:

Create a custom Alert Policy:

Create an alert policy that triggers when the server's disk usage reaches 85% or above. This ensures the playbook is triggered based on the specified threshold.

Select Alert as the trigger:

Set the alert created in step 1 as the trigger for the playbook. This ties the alert condition to the execution of the playbook.

Select Email Action with custom message:

Add an action to send an email notification. This email should be sent prior to any work being started, to inform relevant stakeholders about the impending vDisk growth operation.

Add Action to Grow vDisks:

Add the action to grow the vDisks on the VMs. This step should include the necessary script or task that performs the vDisk growth operation on the specified VMs.

Based on the requirements and steps, the playbook should be structured as follows:

Step 1: Create a custom Alert Policy

Define the alert policy with the condition that disk usage on the VMs reaches 85% or higher.

Step 2: Select Alert as the trigger

Use the alert policy created in Step 1 as the trigger for the playbook.

Step 3: Select Email Action with custom message

Add an email action to notify relevant stakeholders before the vDisk growth task is initiated.

Step 4: Add Action to Grow vDisks

Include the necessary action to grow the vDisks on the VMs as required.

This structure ensures that the playbook is dynamically responsive to changes in server usage, sends notifications prior to execution, and performs the required vDisk growth operation automatically.

The error message indicates that the project for the blueprint does not have any associated Nutanix account. This typically means that the new account added in Self-Service (formerly Calm) has not been verified. Account verification is required to ensure the account is properly configured and has the necessary permissions to be used within a Self-Service project.

References:

Nutanix Calm documentation on Account Management.

Nutanix Best Practices for Verifying Accounts.

 A macro is a placeholder for a value that is resolved at runtime. Macros can be used to reference various Calm objects, such as variables, secrets, credentials, tasks, and services. The correct syntax for using a macro within a Calm blueprint is @@{calm.object}(@@, where calm.object is the name of the object to be referenced. For example, @@{username}(@@ would resolve to the value of the username variable at runtime. The other options are incorrect syntaxes for macros and would not be resolved by Calm. References: Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) v6.5, Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) 6 Exam, Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation

In the Guest Customization section of a blueprint for an AHV Linux service, you can apply a Cloud-init script. Cloud-init is a widely used method for customizing cloud instances during boot time, allowing for automated configuration of the virtual machine's operating system.

References:

Nutanix Calm documentation on Guest Customization.

Nutanix Best Practices for Using Cloud-init.

Playbooks are a collection of tasks that can be executed on demand or based on a trigger. There are two types of triggers available for executing Playbooks: manual and alert. A manual trigger allows you to run a Playbook on demand from the Prism Central UI or the Calm API. An alert trigger allows you to run a Playbook automatically when a specific alert is generated by Prism Central or a third-party system. Report and audit are not valid trigger types for Playbooks. References: Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA), page 9; Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA), section 1.

You can upgrade Nutanix Calm or Epsilon (the orchestration engine used by Nutanix Calm) by using the Life Cycle Manager (LCM) from the Prism Central. LCM allows you to upgrade Calm or Epsilon independently or simultaneously. You can also select the version that you want to upgrade to and perform the update from the Options list. For more information, see the Nutanix Calm Upgrades section in the Nutanix Calm Admin and Operations Guide1 and the Performing Inventory and Upgrading Calm with Life Cycle Manager article2. References:

Nutanix Calm Admin and Operations Guide1

Performing Inventory and Upgrading Calm with Life Cycle Manager2

A variable can be updated during a Runbook execution only if it is marked as runtime editable. This setting allows the variable to be modified during the execution of the Runbook, providing flexibility and dynamic behavior based on runtime conditions.

References:

Nutanix Calm documentation on Runtime Editable Variables.

Nutanix Best Practices for Runbook Variables.

When a Blueprint is launched via Marketplace, it uses the credential that is configured in the Project Environment. If the credential is invalid, the Blueprint deployment will fail with a check login error. To fix this issue, the developer needs to verify and update the credential in the Project Environment and ensure that it has the required permissions to access the target infrastructure and applications. References: Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA), page 29-30; [Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide] (https://www.nutanix.com/content/dam/nutanix/resources/support/ncp-mca-ebg.pdf), section 3.1.

When scripts are not specified under the Stop service-level actions, the system does not generate orchestration edges automatically. To prevent this issue, the administrator should manually update all system-defined actions. This involves defining the necessary scripts or actions to ensure proper orchestration and dependencies are in place.

References:

Nutanix documentation on Service-Level Actions.

Nutanix Best Practices for Orchestration Management.

To automate the creation of a new user in GitLab for every new development environment, the administrator should perform the following tasks within a Calm blueprint:

Create an HTTP pre-create task to create the user in GitLab via REST API. This task will send an HTTP request to the GitLab server with the user information and credentials, and receive a response with the user ID and status. The administrator can use the response to verify the user creation and store the user ID as a variable for later use.

Create runtime-editable variables for user and password in the blueprint. These variables will allow the administrator to specify the user name and password for the new GitLab user at the time of launching the blueprint. The variables can be passed as parameters to the HTTP pre-create task and used in the REST API call.

The other two options are not correct because:

Adding a task within the service to ask for user and password at runtime is redundant and unnecessary, as the runtime-editable variables can already provide this functionality.

Creating a task script to login with ssh to GitLab and create a random user and password is not a good practice, as it exposes the GitLab server to security risks and does not use the REST API that GitLab provides for user management. References:

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) 6.5 Exam, page 17

Nutanix Calm User Guide, section “HTTP Task”

GitLab API Documentation, section “Create user”

The administrator should assign the VMs to an Inactive:VM category as an action and trigger a playbook on alert with the Inactive VM alert policy. By doing this, they can create a custom category to group and identify the inactive VMs and use a custom alert policy to trigger a playbook that can perform automated actions on them, such as powering them off, deleting them, or sending notifications. This is based on the general practices in managing VMs in a multicloud environment, as well as the specific features and requirements of Nutanix X-Play and Nutanix Calm. References:

How to create custom categories | Prism central | Nutanix Community

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) v6.5 Exam Blueprint Guide, Section 1: Describe and Differentiate Automation Concepts and Principles, Objective 1.4: List how to implement categories for the appropriate use cases

Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA) course, Module 3: Nutanix X-Play, Lesson 2: Nutanix X-Play Playbooks

Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA) course, Module 4: Nutanix Calm Governance, Lesson 2: Nutanix Calm Alerts

A Prism Admin or Super Admin role can perform the following operations related to X-Play and Nutanix Calm12:

Create, read, update, or delete an action template in the action gallery

Create, read, update, delete, enable, and run playbooks

Create, read, update, delete, enable, and run blueprints and runbooks

Manage applications and projects

Configure endpoints and plug-ins

Access the library and categories Option A is incorrect because the action gallery does not support automation of action templates. Option C is incorrect because only a Prism Admin or Super Admin role can enable and run playbooks, not a Prism User role3. References:

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) v6.5

Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA)

Prism user permissions – what are the options?

To ensure that checks can be implemented in a single task while creating an application using NDB (Nutanix Database Service), the administrator should run an eScript task. eScript tasks allow for more complex scripting and logic to be executed, including performing checks, handling conditions, and interacting with APIs.

References:

Nutanix Calm documentation on eScript Tasks.

Nutanix Best Practices for Automating Database Management.

Nutanix Calm is a cloud-agnostic automation and orchestration solution that can be deployed on Nutanix AHV or any public cloud platform, such as AWS, Azure, or GCP. Calm can also manage applications across multiple cloud environments, including hybrid clouds. Calm cannot be deployed on vSphere Essential Edition or VMware ESXi, as these are not supported hypervisors for Calm. However, Calm can manage existing VMs on vSphere or ESXi clusters through the VMware provider. References:

Nutanix Calm Configuration and Training1

Nutanix Calm Admin and Operations Guide2

A category is a key-value pair that can be assigned to an entity in Prism Central to simplify daily operations and management. Categories can be used to filter, search, and group entities based on common attributes. Categories can also be used to define policies and permissions for different entities. A category can be assigned to a cluster, a VM, an image, a network, a blueprint, an application, or a project. A category cannot be assigned to a hypervisor, a protection domain, or a storage container, as these are not entities in Prism Central. References: Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, page 12; Nutanix Prism Central Guide, section 4.1.

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

The options for adding pre-create tasks and installing packages in the VM are grayed out because there are no credentials added yet. Nutanix Calm requires VM credentials to perform package installations and pre/post tasks, as these actions need access to the VM to execute the necessary commands and scripts.

References:

Nutanix Calm documentation on Managing VM Credentials.

Nutanix Best Practices for Blueprint Configuration.

In Nutanix, Categories can be assigned to various entities to help organize and manage resources. The two entities that can be assigned categories are:

Hosts: Categories can be used to tag and manage hosts within the infrastructure.

VMs: Categories can also be assigned to virtual machines, allowing for better organization and management based on specific attributes or requirements.

References:

Nutanix documentation on Category Management.

Nutanix Best Practices for Using Categories.

An X-Play Trigger is a condition that initiates a Playbook. There are four types of X-Play Triggers: Alert, Audit, Event, and Time1. An Alert Trigger is based on a Prism alert, such as a VM power state change or a disk failure. An Audit Trigger is based on a Prism audit entry, such as a user login or a cluster operation. An Event Trigger is based on a Prism event, such as a VM creation or deletion. A Time Trigger is based on a schedule, such as daily, weekly, or monthly2. In this scenario, the administrator needs to create a Playbook to be notified when VMs are deleted. Therefore, the appropriate X-Play Trigger would be an Event Trigger, since VM deletion is a Prism event. References: 1: Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, page 42: Getting Started with Nutanix X-Play – Nutanix.dev

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

 The styx.log file contains the logs related to blueprint packaging and deployment. It can be accessed by SSHing to Prism Central and navigating to the /home/calm/log directory. The other options are not relevant for blueprint package failures, as they show the application status, audit events, or service logs. References: Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) 6.5 Exam Blueprint Guide, page 9; Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA), section 3; NCP-MCA Exam Dumps - Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud …, question 63.

The error message "A specified logon session does not exist. It may already have been terminated" is often caused by the lack of CredSSP (Credential Security Support Provider) being enabled on the Windows Operating System. CredSSP is necessary for certain remote operations, including executing PowerShell scripts remotely.

References:

Microsoft documentation on Enabling CredSSP.

Nutanix documentation on Troubleshooting PowerShell Scripts.

When creating a Runbook in Nutanix Calm, the "Default Endpoint" field is optional. Essential fields such as Name, Project, and Task Name are required to define the Runbook's structure and execution parameters. The Default Endpoint can be specified if there is a preferred initial endpoint for executing tasks, but it is not mandatory.

References:

Nutanix Calm documentation on Runbook Creation.

Nutanix Best Practices for Runbook Management.

To reduce the CPU and RAM memory allocation on a VM using playbooks, the VM must be powered off. This is because the operation of reducing CPU and memory allocation cannot be performed on a running VM without causing instability or potential crashes.

References:

Nutanix documentation on VM Management.

Nutanix Best Practices for Resource Allocation.

In Approval Policies within Nutanix Calm, "Conditions" are used to set the criteria for an approval to be triggered. Conditions define the specific circumstances under which an approval process should be initiated, such as specific actions or threshold limits.

References:

Nutanix Calm documentation on Approval Policies.

Nutanix Best Practices for Defining Conditions.

 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

The Policy Engine is a Calm feature that allows you to define and enforce policies for your projects, such as quotas, approvals, and actions. You can use the Policy Engine to set project quotas for the ESXi hypervisor, such as the number of VMs, CPU cores, memory, and storage that can be provisioned by the project. This helps you to control the resource consumption and allocation of your ESXi clusters. References:

Nutanix Support & Insights: This is the official Nutanix documentation for Calm on ESXi, where you can find information about the Policy Engine and how to configure it for your projects.

Nutanix Exam NCP-MCA Topic 2 Question 28 Discussion: This is a forum where you can find discussions and explanations for Nutanix certification exam questions, including question 28 from topic 2, which is similar to your question.

Calm on ESXi Deployment: This is a Nutanix community post where you can learn more about how to deploy and use Calm on ESXi.

In the context of deploying an application with Calm, if a customer receives an error for a Linux VM, it could be due to the absence of network adapters selected for the Address box in the Connection section within the blueprint. This means that there is no specified network connection for the VM, leading to a failure in script execution. 

Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide: This is the official exam blueprint guide that covers the objectives, topics, and skills required for the certification. It also provides some sample questions and answers. The question you asked is similar to the one in section 3.1.1.

Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA): This is a training course that teaches you the skills needed to install, configure, operate, and manage Nutanix X-Play and Nutanix Calm. It includes topics such as blueprint creation, connection configuration, and script execution.

Nutanix Calm User Guide: This is a user guide that explains how to use Nutanix Calm to automate the deployment and management of applications across different environments. It includes topics such as connection settings, blueprint validation, and error handling.

When integrating with an IP Address Management (IPAM) solution within Nutanix Calm, an administrator would use a 'Pre-create' task to request a static IP address. This task is performed before the actual creation of the VM, ensuring that the IP address is allocated and can be assigned during the VM's creation process. Profiles (A) are used to define deployment environments, Guest Customization (C) is used for configuring the OS settings, and Create (D) is typically the task for provisioning the actual VM, not for requesting an IP.

To run a blueprint deployment and tasks in a different Prism Central instance than the one running Self-Service (formerly Calm), the administrator should add the remote Prism Central instance as an account. This configuration allows Self-Service to interact with multiple Prism Central instances, enabling the management and deployment of blueprints across different environments.

References:

Nutanix documentation on Managing Accounts in Calm.

Nutanix Best Practices for Multi-Cluster Management.

The image is unavailable for deployment on the cluster because the cluster and the image do not have the proper categories assigned for the placement policy. A placement policy is a set of rules that determines which clusters and images are available for VM deployment based on the categories and values assigned to them. If the cluster and the image do not match the placement policy criteria, they will not be shown as options for VM deployment. Therefore, the administrator needs to assign the appropriate categories and values to the cluster and the image to make them compatible with the placement policy. References: Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, page 12; Nutanix NCP-MCA Questions, question 111.

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 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

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.