Nutanix NCP-EUC Dumps

There are two types of Launchpads that exist in Frame: Application Launchpad and Desktop Launchpad2.

An Application Launchpad is a representation of the applications that are available for streaming. Users can launch any application they have access to from this Launchpad. An example of an Application Launchpad is shown below:

A Desktop Launchpad is a representation of the desktops that are available for streaming. Users can launch any desktop they have access to from this Launchpad. An example of a Desktop Launchpad is shown below:

ECC (Error Correcting Code) mode is a feature of some NVIDIA GPUs that provides error detection and correction for memory errors. However, ECC mode can interfere with vGPU functionality and prevent vGPU-enabled VMs from being created or started1. Therefore, two correct steps to resolve this issue are B (Disable ECC by running nvdia-smi -e 0) and D (Check if ECC Mode is turned on by running nvdia-smi -q | grep “ECC Mode” -A2).

The schedule has two rows: one for Weekdays and one for Tuesday and Thursday.

Each row has a column for Instances, which indicates how many instances should be running during that time range.

Each row also has a column for Time Range, which indicates the start and end time for running the instances.

The time range is expressed in 24-hour format, where 00:00 means midnight and 24:00 means midnight of the next day.

According to the exhibit, the schedule Dev has the following settings:

On Weekdays (Monday to Friday), five instances are running from 09:00 am till 05:00 pm.

On Tuesday and Thursday, five instances are running from 00:00 am till 24:00 pm.

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.

According to the Nutanix Network Configuration and RDMA guidelines, uniformity of the physical network layer is a strict requirement for enabling RDMA over Converged Ethernet (RoCE).

Specifically, Nutanix does not support mixing network cards with different speeds within the same cluster when RDMA is involved. If the cluster contains a mix of nodes where some are connected at 10 Gbps and others at 25 Gbps (or higher), the Prism interface will disable (grey out) the RDMA configuration options to prevent an unsupported or unstable fabric configuration. To resolve this and proceed with enabling RDMA network segmentation, the administrator must ensure that all RDMA-capable NICs across all nodes are operating at the same supported speed (typically 25 Gbps or higher).

Frame is a cloud-native desktop-as-a-service platform that allows you to deliver virtual desktops and applications from any cloud. Frame supports multiple public clouds, such as AWS, Azure, GCP, and Alibaba Cloud2. You can bring your own public cloud account and use Frame to provision and manage your virtual desktops on demand.

Frame also supports Nutanix private cloud model running AHV, which is a native hypervisor for Nutanix Enterprise Cloud Platform. You can use Frame to deliver virtual desktops and applications from your own data center using Nutanix AHV clusters3. You can benefit from the simplicity, scalability, and performance of Nutanix hyperconverged infrastructure.

To enable Secure Boot and vTPM on a Nutanix AHV cluster, specific VM configuration requirements must be met. According to the Nutanix AHV Administration and Security guides, Secure Boot prevents malicious code from loading during the boot process by ensuring that only signed drivers and OS loaders are used.

When configuring a VM for Secure Boot, the machine type must be set to q35. The standard legacy machine type (i440fx) does not support the necessary features for Secure Boot and vTPM operations in this context. Documentation for creating or updating a VM with these features via the Acropolis CLI (aCLI) explicitly includes the parameter machine_type=q35 in the command string (e.g., vm.create vm-name machine_type=q35 uefi_boot=true secure_boot=true virtual_tpm=true). Furthermore, if an administrator attempts to update an existing VM to enable Secure Boot without this machine type, the operation will fail or require the conversion, as Secure Boot and vTPM are supported specifically on the Q35 virtual hardware platform combined with UEFI boot mode.

Legacy BIOS (Option C) is explicitly unsupported for Secure Boot, as UEFI is a strict prerequisite. Hardware TPM pass-through (Option D) is not used; instead, AHV utilizes a software-based vTPM that keeps the crypto keys independent of the underlying hardware to allow for VM mobility.

Relevance of the video: The video provides a step-by-step visual guide on enabling Credential Guard and Secure Boot for Windows VMs on Nutanix AHV, which directly illustrates the configuration steps and requirements discussed in the question, including the necessary VM settings.

Enabling Credential Guard for AHV Windows VMs

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract of Nutanix End User Computing documents:

According to the latest Nutanix Security Guide (AOS 6.x and later) regarding SCMA (Security Configuration Management Automation):

OS Evolution: Modern Nutanix Controller VMs (CVMs) in current Long Term Support (LTS) releases (AOS 6.5 and above) utilize an operating system based on RHEL 8 / CentOS 8.

STIG Compliance: Consequently, the built-in SCMA policies are updated to check and enforce compliance against the RHEL 8 STIG (Security Technical Implementation Guide).

Correction Note: Older documentation (AOS 5.x) referenced the RHEL 7 STIG. However, per your request for "latest knowledge" applicable to current supported environments, the CVM is compliant with RHEL 8 STIGs. If this question appears on a legacy exam version, the answer might still be listed as C (RHEL 7), but B is the technically correct answer for modern Nutanix software.

To install the NVIDIA GRID host driver (vGPU driver) on a Nutanix AHV cluster, the administrator must upload the driver file (typically an RPM) to a Controller VM (CVM). From the CVM, the correct procedure is to use the install_host_package command.

This specific Nutanix utility pushes the installation package to the AHV hosts and executes the installation process. The typical syntax is install_host_package -r , which ensures the driver is correctly applied to the hypervisor layer across the cluster nodes. allssh or hostssh commands with standard Linux package managers (like yum) are not the supported method for applying hypervisor-level drivers in AHV.

Citrix Studio is the primary management console for the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops (or Citrix DaaS) site.7 It is explicitly designed with wizards to guide administrators through deployment scenarios, such as creating Machine Catalogs (provisioning VMs) and Delivery Groups.

It is specifically within the Delivery Groups wizard in Citrix Studio that an administrator configures the publishing of resources (such as applications and desktops) and assigns them to users.8 While Prism Central manages the underlying Nutanix infrastructure (VMs, networking), it does not handle the session brokering or the specific definition of "published resources" for the VDI users.

The default load balancing configuration in Nutanix AHV is Balance-SLB (Source Load Balancing). This setting utilizes all available uplinks by assigning VM traffic to specific uplinks based on source MAC address hashing. To optimize bandwidth usage, the Balance-SLB algorithm periodically evaluates link utilization and may rebalance traffic by moving a VM's assignment from one uplink to another.

According to Nutanix AHV Networking documentation, this rebalancing action involves sending a gratuitous ARP (RARP) to update the physical switch. During this split-second transition, real-time sensitive traffic—such as streaming video or VoIP—may experience dropped packets or out-of-order delivery, resulting in symptoms like "hung/frozen display frames." For environments prioritizing connection consistency over aggregate bandwidth for single VMs (like VDI with streaming requirements), Active-Backup is often recommended to eliminate the potential for rebalancing interruptions. (Note: Option A is a VMware ESXi terminology, not AHV).

In a Nutanix-hosted Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops environment, proper network port configuration is essential for component communication. The Citrix License Server is a critical infrastructure component that manages product licensing.

According to Nutanix Validated Designs and Citrix reference architectures for traffic flow, TCP port 27000 is the default port required for inbound communication to the License Server. This port is used by the License Server Manager (lmadmin or lmgrd) to receive communication from Citrix products (such as the Delivery Controller) requesting licenses.

The specific port breakdown for the License Server is:

Port 27000 (TCP): The License Server Manager port (Inbound communication). This is the primary entry point.

Port 7279 (TCP): The Vendor Daemon port.

Port 8082/8083 (TCP): The Administration Console web port (used for management, not licensing requests).

Therefore, to ensure successful inbound communication for licensing operations within the Nutanix infrastructure, the firewall must allow traffic on Port 27000.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract of Nutanix End User Computing documents:

According to Nutanix Storage Best Practices for Citrix/VDI:

Workload Type: The question specifies Persistent VDI, which typically uses Full Clones.

Deduplication: For Full Clones/Persistent Desktops, the data (OS and Apps) is identical across many VMs but stored independently. Deduplication (specifically Capacity Tier Deduplication) is Enabled to eliminate these redundant blocks and save significant capacity.

Compression: Inline Compression is Enabled by default and recommended for all VDI workloads to improve performance and capacity usage.

Erasure Coding (EC-X): Nutanix documentation explicitly states that Erasure Coding is Disabled for active VDI workloads. EC-X provides capacity savings for "write-cold" data (like backups or archives) but introduces a performance penalty (parity calculation overhead) on random writes, which are common in persistent desktop usage.

Correction: While option D suggests enabling everything, the specific best practice table for "Citrix MCS: Full Clone" lists Erasure Coding as Disabled to maintain optimal user experience.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract of Nutanix End User Computing documents:

According to the Nutanix Files Guide regarding Data Replication and VDI solutions:

VDI Sync Functionality: VDI Sync is the specific feature designed to replicate VDI user profiles and data across file servers in different locations (active-active). It ensures that user profile data (like FSLogix or UPM containers) is synchronized in near real-time, allowing users to roam between sites and access their data locally at either location.

Smart DR distinction: Smart DR (Option C) is primarily a Disaster Recovery solution (Active-Standby) used for share-level replication and failover in the event of an outage. It is not designed for the active-active, bi-directional roaming of user profiles required by the question.

Use Case: For a distributed VDI environment where a user might log in to Site A today and Site B tomorrow and needs their profile immediately available and writable in both, VDI Sync is the mandatory component.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract of Nutanix and Citrix DaaS documents:

According to Citrix Cloud and Nutanix DR best practices:

High Availability Requirement: Citrix strongly recommends and practically enforces a requirement of at least two (2) Cloud Connectors per Resource Location (RL).

Reasoning: Cloud Connectors are "evergreen" components that update automatically from the cloud. During an update, a connector may reboot. If only one connector exists (Option A), the Resource Location would go offline, severing connectivity for the DR site.

Production vs. DR: A Disaster Recovery (DR) site is treated as a production Resource Location because it must be ready to accept user connections instantly during a failover. Therefore, the minimum N+1 redundancy rule applies, requiring 2 connectors.

A cloud-based DR service that allows customers to protect their Nutanix workloads in a Nutanix-owned cloud platform6. Xi Leap eliminates the need for multiple products and provides end-to-end security, automation, and SLA compliance6.

In a Nutanix AHV environment integrated with Citrix Provisioning (PVS), the XenDesktop Setup Wizard (or Citrix Virtual Desktops Setup Wizard) is responsible for creating the Write Cache disk for target VMs during the provisioning process.

According to Nutanix Knowledge Base articles regarding PVS on AHV, a common cause for the failure of the write-cache disk creation is the presence of an attached virtual disk on the snapshot used as the template. The wizard expects to create and attach the write-cache disk itself. If the template snapshot already has a hard disk attached (other than the potential CD-ROM, which is generally supported if single), the wizard's logic for disk slot assignment or disk creation conflicts with the existing disk, causing the "creation of the VM's write-cache disk failed" error. The supported procedure explicitly states that the VM template snapshot must be created without any hard disks attached.

non-persistent VDI machines are deleted when they are rebooted, logged off, or shut down. Therefore, Windows Update policy should be configured to prevent automatic updates that may trigger a restart on these machines1.

Storage Efficiency features that will provide better storage efficiency and performance improvement for a mix of full clones and non-persistent desktops deployed via Citrix MCS on a three-node cluster are Compression and Deduplication. Compression is a technology that reduces the size of data blocks by removing redundant information. Deduplication is a technology that eliminates duplicate blocks of data and reduces storage consumption. Both Compression and Deduplication can be enabled on a per-container basis and can provide significant savings for Citrix virtual desktop deployments that use cloning technologies such as MCS2.

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.

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. 

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract of Nutanix End User Computing documents:

According to Citrix App Layering on Nutanix reference architectures:

Minimizing Storage: Citrix App Layering allows an administrator to capture applications in separate virtual disks ("App Layers") that are stored once and then dynamically merged with a base OS layer to create layered images.2 This avoids the storage bloat of installing every application into a single "Gold Image" or creating dozens of unique images for every department.

ELM Role: The Enterprise Layer Manager (ELM) is the virtual appliance required to manage this layering environment.3 It orchestrates the creation of layers and the publishing of images.

Targeting User Groups: By using Elastic Layering (a feature of App Layering), specific app layers can be delivered to users based on their Active Directory group membership at login, fulfilling the requirement to deploy "different applications to different user groups" without installing them permanently in the base image.

In the Citrix Studio workflow, before a Machine Catalog can be created for a specific infrastructure, a Hosting Connection (or Host Connection) must be established. This connection links the Citrix control plane to the specific hypervisor (Nutanix AHV) and defines the resources (such as storage containers and networks) available for provisioning.

If the administrator is setting up a "new cluster" and attempts to create a catalog but finds that "no resources were found," it indicates that either no Hosting Connection exists for that new cluster, or the existing connection does not include the storage/network resources of the new cluster. Therefore, the immediate resolution is to create a new hosting connection in Citrix Studio that points to the new AHV cluster, ensuring the appropriate networks and containers are selected as available resources.

Nutanix and Citrix provide a turnkey validated VDI infrastructure solution that allows 10x faster deployments, cuts management time by 70% and significantly reduces the number of support calls. Nutanix eliminates the complexity of managing discrete storage, servers and separate virtualization and networking stacks.

The error code displayed in the exhibit, NET::ERR_CERT_AUTHORITY_INVALID, explicitly indicates that the browser does not trust the Certificate Authority (CA) that signed the SSL certificate presented by Prism Central.

According to the Nutanix Security Guide and Prism Central documentation regarding Security Certificate Management:

By default, Nutanix clusters and Prism Central use a self-signed certificate.

When an administrator accesses Prism via a web browser using these default certificates, the browser will display a security warning (such as "Your connection is not private") because the self-signed certificate authority is not in the browser's or operating system's Trusted Root Certification Authorities store.

To resolve this behavior, the administrator must either import the self-signed root certificate into the client's trusted store or replace the default certificate with one signed by a commercial or internal CA that the browser already trusts.

If the issue were related to the hostname missing (Option C), the error code would be NET::ERR_CERT_COMMON_NAME_INVALID. Since the error is specifically "Authority Invalid," the cause is the lack of trust in the issuer (CA).

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.

In Nutanix Prism Central, the Capacity Runway scenario provides details on the available capacity for the next 12 months based on the current usage pattern. This feature can help the administrator to plan and prepare the budget for the next fiscal year. The administrator can use this information to decide whether more resources need to be added to the Nutanix cluster or if the existing resources are sufficient.

Prism Central planning tools can help you estimate the capacity runway of your cluster by considering the storage, CPU, and memory capacity. However, you need to have at least 21 days of data from a cluster to calculate the baseline runway estimates4.

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).

According to standard VDI image preparation best practices (including those for testing with tools like LoginVSI), the foundational step before any benchmarking can occur is to Install and patch the Operating System.

A benchmark is invalid if it is run on an incomplete or vulnerable OS. The standard workflow is:

Install OS and standard runtimes.

Patch fully (to represent a realistic production state).

Optimize (OSOT).

Option A represents the critical mandatory "Action" required to build the base image for the test.

According to the certification details1, one of the objectives is to “Configure and manage security features such as role-based access control (RBAC), SSL certificates, encryption at rest, and data protection.”

This answer seems to align with the security team’s feedback and the objective of managing security features using Nutanix technologies.

A snapshot is a point-in-time copy of a virtual machine that can be used as a template for creating new machines. A Citrix optimized Windows 10 image is a Windows 10 image that has been configured with best practices and optimizations for Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops.

Using a snapshot of a Citrix optimized Windows 10 image can ensure that the persistent desktops have consistent performance, security, and user experience. It can also simplify the image management process by allowing you to update the snapshot with new patches or applications using Calm.

Calm is a tool that automates application lifecycle management across different environments. Calm can integrate with Citrix MCS to create, update, and delete virtual machines based on blueprints that define the configuration and dependencies of an application.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract of Nutanix End User Computing documents:

According to the Nutanix AHV Administration Guide and Cluster Expansion prerequisites for environments with non-default virtual switches:

Manual Bridge Configuration: When a cluster has multiple virtual switches (e.g., vs1, vs2) configured, these correspond to specific OVS bridges (e.g., br1, br2) on the AHV hosts. Before adding new nodes to such a cluster, the administrator must manually configure these additional bridges on the new nodes to match the existing cluster configuration.

Consistency Requirement: The documentation states that virtual bridges used for a virtual switch (VS) on all nodes must have the same specification (name, MTU, uplink bond type). If vs1 is mapped to br1 on existing nodes, it must be mapped to br1 on the new nodes before they are added to the cluster.

Expansion Failure/Warning: Failure to configure these bridges prior to expansion can result in the new nodes being unable to join the configured networks properly or the expansion process failing checks related to network uniformity.

Nutanix Frame has several session settings that can affect the user experience and resource utilization. One of these settings is Max session duration, which defines how long a user can stay connected to a Frame session before it is automatically terminated1. If this setting is too low, users might experience random disconnections and lose their applications and files. Therefore, the configuration setting that must be modified in order to resolve this issue is A (Max session duration).

Blast Extreme is the proprietary display protocol developed by Omnissa (formerly VMware) for Horizon.

A key feature of Blast Extreme is its use of Adaptive Transport. This technology allows the protocol to dynamically switch between UDP (for high performance and lossy networks) and TCP (as a fallback for reliability) based on real-time network conditions. This adaptability ensures the best possible user experience regardless of bandwidth or latency constraints. (PCoIP primarily relies on UDP, and RDP is traditionally TCP-heavy, while HDX is a Citrix protocol).

regarding replicating AppStacks between Nutanix clusters, it is likely that the correct answer would involve configuring some form of replication or disaster recovery technology on the Nutanix clusters themselves.

The Prism Citrix Cloud integration feature allows you to configure the Citrix Cloud settings in Prism Central and connect your Nutanix cluster as a resource location in Citrix Cloud4. This enables you to use Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service to deliver applications and desktops to your end users.

To use this feature, you need to meet some prerequisites, such as:

The Prism Central version must be 2020.11 or later.

The AOS version must be 5.15 LTSR or later.

The hypervisor must be AHV or ESXi.

You must have a valid Citrix Cloud account with access to Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service4.

One of the steps for configuring the Prism Citrix Cloud integration is to establish the connection to Citrix Cloud. To do this, you need to provide three pieces of information:

Customer ID: This is a unique identifier for your Citrix Cloud account that can be found in your profile settings2.

Client ID: This is a unique identifier for an API client that can access your Citrix Cloud account. You can create an API client in your identity and access management settings2.

Secret Key: This is a secret string that authenticates the API client. You can generate a secret key when you create an API client2.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract of Nutanix End User Computing documents:

According to the Prism Central User Guide (Analysis and Planning):

Analysis Sessions: Prism Central includes a feature called "Analysis" (or Performance Analysis). It allows administrators to create "Sessions" which are essentially saved workspaces.

Workflow: An administrator can select a specific metric (like Storage Controller IOPS), click "Add to Analysis," and save it to a new or existing session. This allows them to "quickly review... at a later date" by simply opening the saved Analysis Session, which retrieves the data dynamically, rather than relying on static exports or reports.

Nutanix Prism Central includes Behavioral Learning and Efficiency reporting tools designed to identify inefficient resource usage.7

To verify if VMs are "using less than their configured memory" (wasted resources), the administrator should view the Over-provisioned VMs list within the Efficiency widget. Nutanix defines an "Over-provisioned VM" as one that is sized with more resources (CPU/Memory) than it actually consumes based on historical performance data.8 This list explicitly identifies these VMs, allowing the administrator to right-size them and reclaim cluster resources, whereas Task Manager (Option A) is manual/individual, and Capacity Runway (Option D) focuses on global cluster storage/resource exhaustion time rather than individual VM efficiency.

Nutanix leverages the Security Configuration Management Automation (SCMA) framework to ensure that services are constantly inspected for variance to the security policy. This framework checks multiple security entities for both Nutanix storage and AHV, automatically reporting log inconsistencies and reverting them to the baseline where applicable.

To prevent these continuous inspections from negatively affecting the cluster's operation, the Nutanix Security Guide specifies that STIG (Security Technical Implementation Guide) scans have the lowest system priority within the virtual storage controller. This design ensures that security checks do not interfere with platform performance or user workloads, regardless of whether the schedule is set to run hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly.

Nutanix Files is a software-defined, scale-out file storage solution that provides a repository for unstructured data, such as home directories, user profiles, departmental shares, application logs, backups, and archives1. Nutanix Files also provides high availability and a unified single namespace for easy management2.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract of Nutanix End User Computing documents:

According to Nutanix Validated Designs (NVD) for Citrix DaaS:

Control Plane: The requirement to "reduce brokering infrastructure footprint" dictates the use of Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Cloud), which offloads the Delivery Controllers and SQL databases to the Citrix cloud service, leaving only the lightweight Cloud Connectors on-premises.

Placement: In a large multisite architecture using the standard "Block and Pod" design, Nutanix recommends separating Management/Infrastructure functions from Workload functions.

Best Practice: Cloud Connectors are critical infrastructure components. They should be deployed on the AHV Infrastructure Clusters (Management Clusters) in each resource location, rather than the Workload clusters, to ensure they are protected from resource contention caused by user desktops and to maintain a clean separation of duties.

Nutanix Prism defines alert severity levels as follows:

Critical: An issue that requires immediate attention; the system or service is likely down or data is at risk.

Warning: An actionable issue has been detected. The system is currently functioning, but user intervention is required to prevent the issue from escalating. As the prompt states, "a more serious issue may develop if this is not resolved soon."

Info: System events that are for tracking purposes only (e.g., power on/off).

Therefore, the scenario describes a Warning level alert.

A high CPU Ready time means that the vCPU is waiting too long for the pCPU, which can result in poor performance and slow responsiveness of the virtual machine (VM).

According to Nutanix best practices2, one of the factors that can affect CPU Ready time is the host power policy. The host power policy determines how aggressively the host will try to save power by reducing the frequency or voltage of the pCPUs.

The recommended host power policy for Nutanix clusters is High Performance, which disables any power saving features and ensures that the pCPUs run at their maximum frequency and voltage.

This answer seems to explain why desktops on one host are running slower and have higher CPU Ready times than on other hosts, as they may be suffering from reduced pCPU performance due to a lower host power policy.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract of Nutanix End User Computing documents:

According to Nutanix Move and Citrix/VDI Master Image Preparation guides:

The Process: When Nutanix Move migrates a VM from ESXi to AHV, it installs Nutanix Guest Tools (NGT) (including VirtIO drivers) on the target VM to ensure it boots and functions correctly on the AHV hypervisor.

The Issue: If this migrated VM is intended to be a Base Image (Gold Image) for a non-persistent pool (MCS/PVS), the NGT instance installed by Move contains specific identity information (VM UUIDs/communication certificates) unique to that single VM.

The Requirement: If you clone this image without cleaning up, every clone will attempt to use the same NGT identity, causing communication conflicts with the cluster.

The Solution: The administrator must Remove NGT (or run the NGT cleanup interaction) after the conversion (once the VM is on AHV) and before reprovisioning (before sealing the image and creating clones). This ensures the clones can register as unique entities.

Prism Central Image Service allows you to upload and manage images through Prism Central by using the v3 API. You can also choose where your images will be available across different clusters123

The Citrix Optimizer tool is used to prepare Windows operating system images for use in a virtual desktop environment. Some of the actions that it takes to improve the gold image creation process include:

Optimizes user environments for better performance: The tool removes unnecessary or redundant services, features, and applications from the image, which can improve performance and reduce resource usage.

Uses built-in templates to perform optimizations: The tool comes with pre-configured templates that are optimized for specific environments, such as virtual desktops or server workloads. These templates can be customized based on the specific needs of the organization.

According to Nutanix "Omnissa Horizon on Nutanix Best Practices" (formerly VMware Horizon), Windows system services that create excessive background I/O must be optimized for VDI environments. Specifically, the Windows Search (Indexing) Service is a common cause of high CPU and disk I/O. In a non-persistent environment, if the indexing service is active, it continuously attempts to crawl the file system and update the index database during the user session. This generates a large number of small, random writes (IOPS) which land in the Flash Tier (Hot Tier/Oplog).

The behavior described—usage ramping up during business hours (as users create data/emails) and coming down during off-hours—aligns with the Curator process. Curator scans the cluster periodically (typically every 6 hours or during low load) to perform Tiering (moving cold data from SSD to HDD) and cleanup. If indexing is enabled, the "hot" index data fills the SSD tier during the day; Curator then destages this data or consolidates it during the scan. To resolve the performance impact and unnecessary flash consumption, the administrator must disable the Windows Search service or configure it correctly in the Golden Image.

When creating the OS Layer for Citrix App Layering on Nutanix AHV, it is a strict requirement to include the Nutanix VirtIO Drivers.

The OS Layer is the foundational disk image used to generate the layered desktop. Because Nutanix AHV uses paravirtualized storage (SCSI) and network drivers for performance, the Windows OS within the layer must have the VirtIO drivers installed to successfully boot and communicate with the AHV hypervisor platform. Without these drivers in the OS layer, the resulting layered image will fail to boot on Nutanix infrastructure. (The Citrix VDA is typically placed in the Platform Layer or a separate App Layer, not strictly the OS layer).

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract of Nutanix End User Computing documents:

According to Nutanix and Microsoft Best Practices for Non-Persistent VDI images:

Policy Setting: The Group Policy setting "Allow Automatic Updates immediate installation" should be set to Disabled.

Reasoning: In a non-persistent environment, desktops revert to their base state upon reboot. Allowing automatic updates to install immediately during a user session consumes system resources (CPU/IOPS) and any changes made are discarded when the user logs off and the VM reboots.

Correct Management: Updates should be applied solely to the Master/Gold Image during a maintenance window. Once the master image is updated and sealed, it is redeployed to the pool. Disabling immediate installation prevents the "Windows Update" service from attempting to patch transient clones unnecessarily.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract of Nutanix End User Computing documents:

According to Nutanix storage best practices for Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), the optimal configuration for Linked Clones is Compression Only.

Linked Clones and Data Efficiency: In a Linked Clone environment, the Virtual Machines (VMs) already share a common base image (replica disk) at the hypervisor level. Because the identical operating system data is already shared via the cloning technology, the Nutanix Distributed Storage Fabric (DSF) manages this duplicate data efficiently without needing the Deduplication feature enabled on the container.

Redundancy of Deduplication: Nutanix technical documentation explicitly states that for Linked Clones or Nutanix VAAI clones, deduplication provides no additional benefit because the data is already single-instanced. Enabling deduplication in this scenario would introduce unnecessary metadata overhead without delivering significant capacity savings.

Role of Compression: Inline Compression is recommended for almost all workloads, including VDI. It effectively reduces the size of the unique data written to the delta disks (user data, temp files, and logs) associated with non-persistent desktops, maximizing storage efficiency without the performance cost of deduplication.

Shadow Clones: For the read-heavy workload of 2000 desktops accessing the same base image, Nutanix utilizes Shadow Clones (enabled by default) to cache the "hot" replica disk locally on every node, ensuring high performance during boot storms, rendering the need for "performance tier deduplication" redundant for linked clones.

Summary of Best Practice:

Full Clones / Persistent Desktops: Compression + Deduplication.

Linked Clones / Non-Persistent Desktops: Compression Only.

In Nutanix AHV networking, the default bond mode for a virtual switch is Active-Backup. In this mode, all traffic flows through a single active physical uplink, while other uplinks remain in standby mode to be used only in the event of a failure. This explains the observation that "only one of the physical NICs... is carrying VM traffic."

To utilize multiple physical uplinks simultaneously and balance the traffic, the administrator must change the bond mode to an Active-Active configuration. In AHV, this is achieved by configuring the bond mode to Balance-SLB (Source Load Balancing) or Balance-TCP (LACP). These modes distribute VM traffic across all available physical interfaces in the bond, thereby balancing the load.

alert policies are rules that define the conditions for generating alerts on Nutanix clusters1. You can create custom alert policies based on your specific needs and preferences2Playbooks are automated workflows that perform actions based on triggers such as alerts3. You can create playbooks using predefined alerts or alerts matching criteria3.

To ensure that the vice president of IT infrastructure has the best possible experience and to be notified if any CPU resource constraints on the virtual desktop, one possible solution is to create a new alert policy to alert if the CPU on the virtual desktop is over a certain threshold (for example, 80%) and configure a playbook to send a notification (for example, via email or Slack) to the administrator23. This way, the administrator can monitor the performance of the virtual desktop and take appropriate actions if needed.

This issue is caused by the NVIDIA vGPU scheduling policy. On many NVIDIA GRID/vGPU architectures (prior to latest MIG capabilities), you cannot mix different vGPU profile sizes (e.g., 2Q and 4Q) on the same physical GPU.

Current State (Breadth Mode): The scheduler is likely distributing the "2Q" VMs evenly across all available GPUs. This means every physical GPU has at least one "2Q" profile active, "tainting" the GPU so it can only accept other "2Q" VMs.

The Fix (Depth Mode): By changing the allocation policy to Depth-First, the scheduler will fill up the first physical GPU with "2Q" VMs until it is full before moving to the next. This consolidates the "2Q" workloads onto fewer cards, leaving other physical GPUs completely empty. These empty GPUs can then accept the "4Q" profile type, allowing both profiles to co-exist on the same host (though on different physical cards).