NCP-EUC Nutanix Certified Professional - End User Computing (NCP-EUC) v6 Exam Question and Answers

one of the possible causes of poor performance in a VDI deployment is power management, which can affect CPU frequency and performance. Therefore, it is recommended to disable any power saving features on the BIOS level, such as C-states and P-states.

Another possible cause of poor performance is network configuration, which can affect network throughput and latency. Therefore, it is recommended to update network drivers and firmware on the Dell XC nodes with ESXi23, and ensure that they are compatible with Nutanix software.

persistent virtual desktops are virtual desktops that retain their state and configuration across sessions.

This means that users can customize their virtual desktops with their own applications, settings, and data, and have them available every time they log on.

Persistent virtual desktops are suitable for users who need a consistent and personalized experience, such as developers.

According to Nutanix best practices2, one of the recommended migration paths for persistent virtual desktops is to convert the physical computers to virtual desktops.

This can be done by using a tool such as VMware Converter or Microsoft Disk2vhd to create a virtual disk image of the physical computer’s hard drive.

Then, this image can be imported into Nutanix Cloud Platform and used as a base image for creating persistent virtual desktops.

This migration path can preserve the existing applications, settings, and data of the physical computers and minimize the disruption for the users.

non-persistent VDI is a type of virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) that does not save any changes made by the user on the virtual machine (VM) across sessions. Non-persistent VDI uses a master image to create and delete VMs as needed.

Therefore, if the administrator needs to manage a non-persistent deployment, they should avoid any requirements that involve modifying or installing applications on the VMs, as those changes would not be saved.

https://www.nutanix.com/support-services/training-certification/certifications/certification-details-nutanix-certified-professional-ncp-euc-v6

View Composer API for Array Integration (VCAI) is a feature of VMware Horizon that leverages the native cloning abilities in the storage array to offload storage operations within a VMware View environment12. This feature allows customers to offload the creation of linked clones to the storage array3.

The feature in Nutanix that would be used to complete the task of deploying virtual desktops to a Hyper-V Nutanix cluster with writable differencing disks using a read-only master image with clones that link back to the image is Shadow Clones. Shadow Clones allow for the creation of a snapshot or a clone of a VM that uses the original VM's disks as read-only, and only writes changes to a separate differencing disk. This is useful when deploying virtual desktops as it can reduce storage requirements and improve performance.

Nutanix shadow clones are a feature that enables distributed caching of virtual disks (vDisks) that are in a multi-reader scenario. This can improve performance and reduce network traffic for scenarios such as VDI or private clone boot storms1

This is because this option will enable the administrator to add a Nutanix cluster as a new connection by installing and registering the plugin on the Delivery Controllers that manage the connection type menu.

https://portal.nutanix.com/page/documents/solutions/details?targetId=BP-2079-Citrix-Virtual-Apps-and-Desktops:BP-2079-Citrix-Virtual-Apps-and-Desktops

gold image is a term used to describe a template for a virtual machine (VM) that contains a preconfigured operating system and applications1. A gold image can be used to create multiple session hosts that share the same configuration1. However, a gold image needs to be properly prepared before being used as a template123.

One of the steps involved in preparing a gold image is to run sysprep on the VM. Sysprep is a tool that removes system-specific data such as computer name, security identifier (SID), and driver cache from Windows23. This allows the VM to be generalized and duplicated without causing conflicts or errors23.

One of the options that can be set when running sysprep is CopyProfile. CopyProfile is a setting that determines whether the user profile settings of the built-in administrator account are copied to the default user profile2. The default user profile is used as a template for creating new user profiles on Windows2. If CopyProfile is set to True, then any changes made by the administrator account (such as desktop wallpaper, screen saver, Start menu items, etc.) will be applied to all new user profiles2.

Therefore, if users are being disconnected from their sessions consistently after 10 minutes, it could be because the gold image has some incorrect settings in the default user profile that cause session timeout or termination. To resolve this issue, one possible solution is to sysprep the gold image with CopyProfile set to True, and make sure that there are no settings in the administrator account that could affect session stability (such as power saving options or Windows Store applications)2.

vCenter can execute approximately 640 concurrent operations before incoming requests are queued, and can support up to 2,000 concurrent sessions1. VMware Horizon 8 can support up to 120,000 active sessions in a Cloud Pod Architecture pod federation23. Therefore, if the environment has 10,000 virtual desktops, one vCenter instance might not be enough to handle all the operations and sessions efficiently. The recommended number of vCenter instances in this configuration is B (2).

Writable AppVolumes are a feature of VMware App Volumes that provides users with a dedicated virtual disk for storing user profile data and user-installed applications1. Writable AppVolumes are stored as VMDK files on a datastore2.

To protect Writable AppVolumes during a disaster in a Nutanix environment, one possible solution is to use asynchronous DR between two sites. Asynchronous DRallows you to replicate VMs and their associated data from one site to another at regular intervals using protection domains and remote sites3.

https://www.nutanix.com/blog/vmware-app-volumes-on-nutanix

This is because having too many snapshots can cause serialization or deserialization errors when using the JSON serializer5

https://next.nutanix.com/product-updates/ahv-plug-in-for-citrix-director-1-1-4-0-released-39682

 Nutanix recommends using separate containers for persistent and non-persistent VMS. For persistent VMS, enable compression and deduplication. For non-persistent VMS, enable compression only1

According to Nutanix documentation, it is recommended to use multiple containers, with each container representing an individual performance workload. This allows for better performance isolation and easier management. For example, one container could be used for VDI workloads, while another container could be used for general-purpose workloads.

As for compression and deduplication, it is recommended to enable them for all VMs. Compression reduces the amount of storage space required and increases the performance of the system, while deduplication reduces the amount of duplicate data stored on the system. Erasure coding can also be used as an alternative to replication for data protection.

According to Nutanix Support & Insights3, you need to install the Nutanix AHV plugin for Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops on Delivery Controllers (also called the MCS plugin SDK) to create and manage Citrix-provisioned VMs in a Nutanix AHV infrastructure environment. 

Nutanix's Shadow Clones feature is used to create linked clones or snapshots of base VMs, which can improve VM provisioning time and storage efficiency by reducing the amount of duplicated data.

If an administrator disables Shadow Clones within a company's VDI environment, it is likely that deployment times would increase as the number of deployed desktops increases. This is because linked clones or snapshots would no longer be used, so each new desktop deployment would require creating a full copy of the base VM.

Nutanix Shadow Clones allow for distributed caching of a particular disk or VM data, which are in a ‘multi-reader’ scenario. This can help in scenarios such as VDI or private clone boot storms, where VMs on multiple nodes read from the same set of base disks12

Nutanix Frame allows administrators to configure capacity settings for their virtual machines (VMs) that run virtual apps and desktops.

Capacity settings include:

• Default capacity, which defines how many VMs are turned on when there is no user activity on the account. This setting helps reduce costs by turning off unused VMs.
• Active capacity, which defines how many VMs are turned on when there is user activity on the account. This setting helps improve performance by ensuring enough VMs are available for user sessions.
• Quick Publish, which defines how many VMs are updated with the latest changes when publishing a new version of an app or desktop. This setting helps speed up the publishing process by updating only a subset of VMs instead of all of them.

According to Nutanix Frame documentation1, Quick Publish value should be equal to or less than the active capacity value for each instance type.

If Quick Publish value is set higher than active capacity value, then Frame will ignore Quick Publish value and perform regular publishing instead.

https://docs.frame.nutanix.com/platform/admin/capacity/

gpumodeswitch is a command-line tool that is used to switch supported NVIDIA GPUs between compute and graphics mode. Compute mode allows multiple VMs to share a GPU for CUDA workloads. Graphics mode allows a single VM to use a GPU for graphics workloads12. 

The Nutanix AHV MCS Plug-in is a tool that enables Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops Delivery Controllers (also called Brokers) to create and manage Citrix-provisioned VMs in a Nutanix AHV infrastructure environment. The plug-in is based on the Citrix-defined plug-in framework2.

To install the Nutanix AHV MCS Plug-in, you need to meet some prerequisites, such as:

• The Delivery Controller version must be 7.15 LTSR CU3 or later.
• The Delivery Controller must be able to communicate with Prism Element (PE) using HTTPS port 9440.
• The Delivery Controller must have PowerShell 5.1 or later installed.
• The user running the installer must have administrator privileges on the Delivery Controller2.

https://portal.nutanix.com/page/documents/solutions/details?targetId=RA-2020-Citrix-Virtual-Apps-and-Desktops-AMD-MCS-Windows-10:RA-2020-Citrix-Virtual-Apps-and-Desktops-AMD-MCS-Windows-10

Based on the given information, the administrator is deploying 1000 instant clone virtual desktops, 500 full clone virtual desktops, and 150 applications. To support these workloads, the Nutanix solution will need multiple storage containers.

According to the Nutanix Certified Professional - End User Computing (NCP-EUC) v6 guide, for VDI workloads, it is recommended to create a separate storage container for each type of desktop (e.g. instant clone, full clone) and another container for AppStacks. It is also recommended to have at least one container for metadata and one container for replicas.

Therefore, for this scenario, a total of 3 storage containers should be created:

• One container for 1000 instant clone virtual desktops
• One container for 500 full clone virtual desktops
• One container for 150 applications delivered via AppStacks

So the answer is C. 3.

Users may expect some level of personalization and consistency across their virtual desktop sessions, even if they do not save any changes1. To customize this user experience, administrators can use different solutions that manage user profiles and settings1.

The CPU usage percentage indicates how much of the allocated CPU resources the virtual desktop is consuming.

A high CPU usage percentage means that the virtual desktop is using a lot of CPU resources, which can affect the performance of other virtual desktops on the same host or cluster.

According to Nutanix best practices, the recommended CPU usage percentage for virtual desktops is less than 80%.

• VM-0001 (99%)
• VM-0002 (98%)
• VM-0003 (97%)
• VM-0004 (96%)
• VM-0005 (95%)
• VM-0010 (85%)
• VM-0016 (81%)

These virtual desktops are likely contributing to the performance issue by consuming too much CPU resources and starving other virtual desktops from performing adequately.

https://docs.frame.nutanix.com/platform/admin/account-creation/

The Public Network option provides access to the Frame environment over the public internet, while the Private Network with VPN option allows for a secure connection to the Frame environment over a private network using a VPN.