NCP-MCA Questions and Answers

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 theapplication from Calm. References: Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, page 16, section 4.1.1. 

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

A Brownfield Application is a type of application that allows you to import and manage existing VMs that were not deployed by Calm. You can use a Brownfield Application to perform actions such as start, stop, restart, delete, or execute scripts on the imported VMs. You can also add services, credentials, variables, and policies to the Brownfield Application blueprint. To create a Brownfield Application, you need to select a multi-VM blueprint and then choose the VMs that you want to include in the application from the drop down list. You can also filter the VMs by name, cluster, or power state.

A Greenfield Application is a type of application that allows you to deploy new VMs from scratch using Calm. You can use a Greenfield Application to provision and configure VMs on different cloud platforms, such as Nutanix AHV, VMware ESXi, AWS, Azure, or GCP. You can also add services, credentials, variables, and policies to the Greenfield Application blueprint. To create a Greenfield Application, you need to select a single-VM or a multi-VM blueprint and then specify the VM properties, such as name, image, flavor, network, storage, etc.

References:

• Nutanix Calm DSL – Brownfield Apps the Easy Way
• Nutanix Support & Insights
• Getting started with Nutanix Calm

Nutanix provides a documented process to seed Github based scripts into the Calm Task Library, which allows users to import and use custom tasks from the Nutanix public Github repository or any other Github repository. This process is described in the Nutanix Calm DSL User Guide and the Nutanix Calm DSL Tutorial.

Nutanix also publishes official vetted blueprints and tasks to Nutanix’s public Github Calm repository, which is located at https://github.com/nutanix/blueprints . These blueprints and tasks are created and maintained by Nutanix engineers and can be used as reference or templates for building Calm applications. Some examples of these blueprints and tasks are:

• Kubernetes Cluster: A blueprint that deploys a Kubernetes cluster on Nutanix AHV using Calm.
• MySQL HA: A blueprint that deploys a MySQL cluster with high availability on Nutanix AHV using Calm.
• Windows Server: A blueprint that deploys a Windows Server 2019 VM on Nutanix AHV using Calm.
• [Install Python]: A task that installs Python on a Linux VM using Calm.

Calm’s public repository does not contain Nutanix-vetted custom scripts created and published by community members. These scripts are hosted in a separate repository called [Automation], which is a centralized repo for community driven Nutanix automation. These scripts are not officially supported or endorsed by Nutanix and may not be compatible with the latest versions of Calm or Nutanix products.

Nutanix does not provide documented processes to seed scripts from any source repository. Users can only import scripts from Github repositories using the Calm Task Library. Other source repositories are not supported by Calm.

References:

• Nutanix Calm DSL User Guide
• Nutanix Calm DSL Tutorial
• Nutanix Calm Blueprints
• Kubernetes Cluster
• MySQL HA
• Windows Server
• [Install Python]
• [Automation]

The error message “Authentication by failed” typically indicates an issue with the authentication credentials being used. Since the administrator is using SSH key-based credential to authenticate, it’s essential to ensure that the private key associated with this credential is correct and accessible. If there’s an issue with the private key, such as it being incorrect or inaccessible, authentication will fail. Increasing the retries or modifying the timeout will not help if the credential is invalid. Changing to password authentication credential may work, but it’s not the best option as it may compromise security and require additional configuration. References:

• Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) v6.5, Section 3 - Validate Blueprints, Runbooks, Playbooks, and Automation Settings, page 2
• Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA), Module 5 - X-Play, Lesson 5.2 - Credential Management, page 7
• Nutanix Calm User Guide, Credential Management, SSH Key-Based Authentication

 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.

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

The policy engine is a single VM setup for the single or scale-out Prism Central. When you enable the policy engine for your Calm instance, a new VM is created and deployed for the policy engine. All you need is an available IP address that belongs to the same network as that of your Prism Central VM for the policy engine VM. You do not need to provide any public or private keys, or any Prism Central virtual IP addresses for this task. References: Nutanix Support & Insights, Calm on ESXi Deployment | Nutanix Community

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

According to the Nutanix Calm documentation1, to scale out an existing Calm environment, the administrator needs to back up the data and create three Calm VMs from the Calm VM OVA template. The administrator then needs to configure the Calm VMs as a cluster and restore the data from the backup. The other options are incorrect because they either do not use the correct image format, do not create a cluster of Calm VMs, or destroy the existing Calm VM. References:

• 1 Nutanix Calm User Guide: Scaling Out the Calm Cluster2

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.

Within a Calm blueprint, an administrator can apply two actions to a Service under the Guest Customization section: Apply a Cloudinit Script and Apply a Sysprep file. These actions allow the administrator to customize the configuration and behavior of the virtual machines that are provisioned from the blueprint. A Cloudinit Script is a set of commands or scripts that run on Linux-based virtual machines during the boot process. A Sysprep file is a configuration file that specifies the Windows settings and options for the virtual machines. These actions can be used to perform tasks such as setting the hostname, network configuration, user accounts, software installation, and more. References:

• Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) v6.5, Section 2 - Deploy and Configure Nutanix Calm and Related Components, page 3
• Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA), Module 2 - Nutanix Calm, Lesson 2.2 - Blueprint Management, page 9
• Nutanix Calm User Guide, Blueprint, Guest Customization

A Developer permission level grants access to create, update, delete, and duplicate blueprints in Nutanix Calm12. A Developer can also launch, manage, and delete applications from blueprints, as well as create, update, delete, and duplicate runbooks2. A Consumer can only launch and manage applications from blueprints, but cannot modify them2. An Operator can launch, manage, and delete applications from blueprints, as well as run and manage runbooks, but cannot create or modify them2. A Domain Admin can perform all the actions of a Developer and an Operator, as well as manage projects, categories, and endpoints2. References:

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

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

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. References: Ifound some references from Nutanix Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Learning documents or resources that might be helpful for you:

• 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.

 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

Nutanix Calm supports various providers to manage and orchestrate applications across different cloud environments. Providers are the cloud platforms or services that host the VMs or containers that run the application components. Calm supports the following providers12:

• Nutanix AHV
• VMware vSphere
• AWS
• Azure
• GCP
• Kubernetes
• Bare Metal
• OpenStack
• Cloud-Init
• Terraform

Among the options given, only Kubernetes and GCP are supported providers in Calm. Oracle Cloud and IBM Cloud are not supported providers in Calm. References:

• 1: Nutanix Calm Admin and Operations Guide3
• 2: Nutanix Calm Configuration and Training4

An HTTP task is a type of task that can be added to a blueprint or a runbook to perform REST API calls to external systems. An HTTP task can be used to reserve an IP address in the IPAM system before deploying a VM or an application, by sending a POST request with the required parameters and headers. The HTTP task can also capture the response from the IPAM system and store it as a variable for later use. This is the simplest and most efficient way to integrate with an IPAM system, as it does not require any additional configuration or scripting.

References:

• Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA) Course, Module 2: Self-Service, Lesson 2.4: Creating and Managing Blueprints, Slide 23: HTTP Task
• Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, Section 2: Deploy and Configure Self-service and Related Components, Objective 2.1: Given a scenario, create a blueprint to deploy infrastructure and applications using Self-Service

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 anew 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

 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.

The correct method to result in unique names per VM when scaling out a Service in a Calm Blueprint is to use the macro variable @@{calm_array_index}@@ in the Service VM Name field (Option B). This variable will append a unique index number to each VM name based on the scale-out count. For example, if the Service VM Name is MyAppVM-@@{calm_array_index}@@ and the scale-out count is 3, the resulting VM names will be MyAppVM-0, MyAppVM-1, and MyAppVM-2. Option A is incorrect because the tag in the sysprep file will only affect the hostname of the guest OS, not the VM name in the cloud provider. Option C is incorrect because calling an external Python eScript to register the VM name in DNS will not change the VM name in the cloudprovider either. Option D is incorrect because setting the VM Name field to allow user edits at launch will require manual input from the user for each VM, which is not scalable or automated.

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.

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?

The image shows a failed status for an SSH_VM_Task, which is manually triggered. Since the task involves SSH, it’s likely that the IP Address SSH action has a timeout of 5 minutes, causing the playbook to fail if it cannot complete within this time frame. The IP Address SSH action is used to execute commands on a remote VM using SSH. It requires the IP address, username, password, and command to run as inputs. The timeout parameter specifies how long the action will wait for the command to finish before aborting. If the timeout is too short, the action may fail due to network latency, slow execution, or other factors. References:

• Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) 6.5 Exam, page 16, section 1.3.2.2: “Playbooks”
• [Nutanix University: NCP-MCA 6.5 Exam Prep - Playbooks], video 4: “Playbooks”

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.

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

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

 The 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

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

Substrates are the components of a blueprint that define the cloud resources and configurations for deploying VMs or applications. Substrates can be associated with different cloud accounts, such as AWS, Azure, GCP, or Nutanix, to enable multicloud deployments. By using substrates, an administrator can create a blueprint that can deploy VMs to multiple clouds, depending on the availability, cost, or performance requirements.

References:

• Nutanix Multicloud Automation Administration (NMCAA) course, Module 3: Blueprints, Lesson 3.2: Substrates1
• Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Automation (NCP-MCA) Exam Blueprint Guide, Section 2.1: Create a blueprint to deploy infrastructure and applications using Nutanix Calm2

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

The hercules.log file is the log file for the Calm service, which is responsible for managing the integration with various cloud providers, including Azure. The administrator can check this log file to troubleshoot any issues related to the Azure integration, such as authentication, configuration, or communication errors. The other log files are not relevant for the Azure integration. The sytx.log file is the log file for the Sytx service, which is responsible for managing the Calm UI and API. The durga.log file is the log file for the Durga service, which is responsible for managing the Calm Marketplace and blueprints. The arjun.log file is the log file for the Arjun service, which is responsible for managing the Calm runbooks and playbooks.

References:

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