Practice Exam NCA: Nutanix Certified Associate

Question bank: 100 · timed mock exam: 90 min

Official exam page on the vendor's site (opens in a new tab) Official exam guide (opens in a new tab) Official prep course (opens in a new tab)

Compare: NCA vs NCP-MCI

  • Recognize Nutanix Solutions and Tools 26 questions
  • Describe Cluster Configuration and Maintenance 26 questions
  • Describe Nutanix Platform Administration 24 questions
  • Demonstrate and Understand of Platform Health and Monitoring 24 questions
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How to prepare for Nutanix Certified Associate (NCA) with InfraPrep

The 100 questions cover 4 domains: Recognize Nutanix Solutions and Tools, Describe Cluster Configuration and Maintenance, Describe Nutanix Platform Administration, Demonstrate and Understand of Platform Health and Monitoring. 25 of them are free, without an account.

Study mode

Answer at your pace: each answer is corrected straight away, with an explanation and the link to the documentation it relies on.

Exam mode

A timed exam of 90 minutes, with a question map to flag and come back to questions before you submit.

Results by domain

Your score is broken down by domain, so you know what to review first.

Original questions

Every question is written from the public documentation, never copied from the exam. You can contest an answer from study mode.

10 free sample questions

Question 1 Recognize Nutanix Solutions and Tools

A customer plans a four-node AHV cluster, which will grow over time, for a site with high data protection requirements. They want every storage container to keep three copies of the data. What should the architect tell them?

  1. Use replication factor 1 on the containers, which Nutanix recommends for high protection requirements
  2. Four nodes are enough: 1N&1D fault tolerance runs replication factor 3 on any cluster of three nodes or more
  3. Replication factor 3 keeps the original data plus one copy, so four nodes are enough
  4. Replication factor 3 is right, but four nodes are not enough: 1N&1D needs exactly three, 2N/2D at least five
Show the answer and the explanation

Correct answer: D

Replication factor 3 is supported with two cluster fault tolerance levels. With 1N&1D, the minimum and the maximum number of nodes are the same, three. With 2N/2D, the minimum is five nodes. A four-node cluster that will grow therefore needs at least five nodes.

Source: official documentation

Question 2 Describe Nutanix Platform Administration

A running VM on AHV has 2 vCPUs, 1 core per vCPU and 8 GB of memory. The application owner asks for 4 vCPUs, 16 GB of memory and 2 cores per vCPU, with as little downtime as possible. Which statement is correct?

  1. The vCPUs and the memory can be increased while the VM is powered on, but the cores per vCPU can be changed only when the VM is powered off
  2. None of these changes can be made while the VM is powered on
  3. Only the memory can be increased while the VM is powered on; the vCPUs and the cores per vCPU need a power off
  4. All three changes can be made while the VM is powered on
Show the answer and the explanation

Correct answer: A

In the VM update settings, the number of vCPUs and the memory allocation can be increased while the VM is powered on (hot-plug). The number of cores per vCPU can be changed only when the VM is powered off.

Source: official documentation

Question 3 Describe Cluster Configuration and Maintenance

An AHV cluster is joined to an Active Directory domain. The two domain controllers synchronize their time with reliable external sources. The Windows team suggests configuring these two domain controllers as the only NTP servers of the Nutanix cluster. What does Nutanix recommend?

  1. Use the two domain controllers plus one public NTP source, since three sources give full redundancy
  2. Use one single high-accuracy stratum 1 server to avoid conflicts between sources
  3. Bypass the domain controllers: give the DCs and the cluster a shared list of five non-Windows NTP sources
  4. Use the two domain controllers, since they already synchronize with reliable sources
Show the answer and the explanation

Correct answer: C

Nutanix recommends not synchronizing a cluster with Windows time sources. In an AD domain, the best practice is to bypass the domain controllers and use a common list of at least five reliable non-Windows NTP sources for both the DCs and the cluster.

Source: official documentation

Question 4 Demonstrate and Understand of Platform Health and Monitoring

In the Prism Element Analysis dashboard, an administrator wants one chart that shows the CPU usage, the memory usage and the IOPS of one specific VM. What should he create?

  1. Three alert policies, one per metric
  2. A new metric chart that includes the three metrics
  3. A new entity chart for this VM with the three metrics
  4. One metric chart per metric, each including every VM of the cluster
Show the answer and the explanation

Correct answer: C

An entity chart tracks one or more metrics for a single entity, here one VM with three metrics.

Source: official documentation

Question 5 Recognize Nutanix Solutions and Tools

A retail company deploys two-node AHV clusters in its shops. The storage team wants to reduce capacity usage on these clusters and asks which of deduplication, compression and erasure coding they can enable. What do you answer?

  1. All three, as long as a Witness VM is registered
  2. Compression only
  3. Erasure coding only, because two nodes cannot keep two copies of the data
  4. Deduplication and compression, but not erasure coding
Show the answer and the explanation

Correct answer: B

On a two-node cluster, deduplication and erasure coding are listed as unsupported features, while compression is supported.

Source: official documentation

Question 6 Describe Nutanix Platform Administration

You create a VM on AHV with UEFI boot and Secure Boot enabled, and you attach an installation ISO as a CD-ROM. Which bus type must you select for the CD-ROM?

  1. IDE
  2. SCSI
  3. SATA
  4. PCI
Show the answer and the explanation

Correct answer: C

A CD-ROM can use only the IDE or SATA bus type, and IDE is not supported for a CD-ROM when Secure Boot is enabled. SATA is the only remaining choice.

Source: official documentation

Question 7 Describe Cluster Configuration and Maintenance

Cluster lockdown is configured in Prism Element: the Enable Remote Login with Password checkbox is cleared and two user SSH keys are configured. A security engineer wants to delete both keys because their owners have left the company. What happens if he deletes the two keys without changing anything else, and what should he do?

  1. Password-based SSH login is re-enabled automatically when the last key is deleted, so no extra step is needed
  2. SSH access to the cluster is locked down; he should first select the Enable Remote Login with Password checkbox
  3. Nothing changes: the nutanix and admin accounts keep their default SSH keys
  4. Login to the Prism Element web console is disabled for all users; he should first create a local admin account
Show the answer and the explanation

Correct answer: B

With remote password login disabled, deleting all user SSH keys locks down SSH access to the cluster. The procedure asks you to select Enable Remote Login with Password before deleting all user SSH keys.

Source: official documentation

Question 8 Demonstrate and Understand of Platform Health and Monitoring

A cluster uses rack as its configured fault tolerance domain. After a hardware failure, Prism Element shows that the cluster can no longer tolerate a rack failure, but can still tolerate a node failure. Which fault tolerance state is displayed?

  1. Informational
  2. Critical
  3. OK, because the cluster still tolerates a node failure
  4. Warning
Show the answer and the explanation

Correct answer: D

The Warning state is displayed when the cluster is no longer fault tolerant at the configured domain (rack) but still is at a lower domain (node).

Source: official documentation

Question 9 Recognize Nutanix Solutions and Tools

A company runs Oracle databases, licensed per CPU core, on a Nutanix AHV cluster. It needs more CPU and memory for the database VMs and does not want to pay database licenses for cores that a Controller VM would use. Which type of node should it add?

  1. Storage-only (SO) nodes
  2. Standard HCI nodes with a larger CVM
  3. Compute-only (CO) nodes
  4. Standard HCI nodes that use replication factor 1 containers
Show the answer and the explanation

Correct answer: C

CO nodes add CPU and memory and do not run a CVM, so all their licensed cores go to application VMs. This maximizes the return on per-core database licenses such as Oracle.

Source: official documentation

Question 10 Describe Nutanix Platform Administration

In Prism Element, an administrator created a basic VLAN subnet for the guest VMs of the finance team with VLAN ID 21 instead of 20. Ten VMs already have a vNIC on this subnet. The VMs must now use VLAN 20. What should the administrator do?

  1. Create a basic VLAN subnet with VLAN ID 20, then change the subnet of each vNIC to the new subnet
  2. Create a basic VLAN subnet with VLAN ID 20, then delete each vNIC and create a new one, because a vNIC cannot change network
  3. Edit the existing subnet in the Update Subnet dialog box and change its VLAN ID to 20
  4. Add VLAN 20 to the existing subnet so that it trunks VLANs 20 and 21
Show the answer and the explanation

Correct answer: A

The VLAN ID of a basic VLAN subnet cannot be updated, so a new subnet with VLAN ID 20 is needed. The virtual network of a vNIC can then be changed without deleting and recreating the vNIC.

Source: official documentation

Frequently asked questions

Are there free questions, and do I need an account?

Yes. 25 questions of this certification are free in study mode, across all its domains, without a subscription and without registration. The account is created when you subscribe, at checkout.

How does the subscription work, and can I cancel?

One monthly subscription covers all certifications and the timed practice exams. There is no minimum period. You cancel online, at any time, with the "Cancel your contract" function in My account; cancellation takes effect at the end of the month already paid, and no further payment is taken.

Where do the questions come from?

Every question is original, written from the vendor's public documentation. Each answer comes with an explanation and a link to the documentation page it relies on. InfraPrep is not affiliated with the vendors, and certification names belong to their owners.

In which language are the questions?

The questions are written in English, also on the French version of the site.

Is the catalog updated?

Yes, the catalog changes over time: new certifications and new questions are added.