Zombie VMs and overprovisioned VMs are two types of inefficient VMs that can waste resources and increase costs in a Nutanix environment. Zombie VMs are VMs that are powered on but have no activity or utilization for a long period of time. Overprovisioned VMs are VMs that have more resources allocated than they actually need or use. Both types of VMs can be identified by adding predefined views to a report in Prism Central.

A predefined view is a template that defines what data is displayed and how that data is represented in a report. Prism Central provides several predefined views for different purposes, such as capacity planning, performance analysis, anomaly detection, and efficiency optimization.To add a predefined view to a report, go to Operations > Reports > New Report and select the desired view from the list1.

The Zombie VMs List view shows the list of zombie VMs in the environment based on the CPU usage, memory usage, disk IOPS, and network throughput metrics.The view also shows the amount of resources wasted by these VMs and the potential savings that can be achieved by deleting or resizing them2.

The Overprovisioned VMs List view shows the list of overprovisioned VMs in the environment based on the CPU usage, memory usage, disk IOPS, and network throughput metrics.The view also shows the amount of resources wasted by these VMs and the potential savings that can be achieved by resizing them3.

By adding these two views to a report, an administrator can identify inefficient VMs and take appropriate actions to optimize resource utilization and reduce costs.

In Nutanix AHV, when creating a virtual switch and trying to add network interfaces (NICs) to it, the NICs must be connected to the network before they can be selected and assigned to the switch. If the interfaces are showing as disconnected, the system will not allow them to be added to a virtual switch because it cannot verify their operational status or the presence of a live network connection.

It is a standard requirement for the interfaces to have physical connectivity (i.e., network cables plugged in and connected to a live switch port) so that the AHV host can detect the link status as up. Once the interfaces are connected and recognized by the host, they can then be added to a virtual switch in the Nutanix AHV.

It's important to note that while the command-line interface (CLI) is indeed a powerful tool for managing network configurations on AHV hosts, and some configurations do indeed require CLI, the inability to select disconnected interfaces is not specifically a limitation that requires the use of CLI to overcome. The focus should be on ensuring that the physical connectivity is established for the interfaces in question.

This behavior is consistent with networking best practices and Nutanix's network configuration guidelines, as detailed in the Nutanix AHV Networking Guide. This guide explains the requirements and procedures for configuring virtual switches and managing NICs in a Nutanix AHV environment.

Flow Networking is a feature that enables software-defined networking for AHV clusters. It allows users to create and manage virtual private clouds (VPCs), subnets, and network services such as NAT, DHCP, routing, and VPN. Flow Networking also supports service insertion and chaining, which enables integration with third-party network functions such as firewalls and load balancers. Flow Networking is built on top of the microservices infrastructure (MSP) in Prism Central, which provides the platform for running various Nutanix services such as Calm, Karbon, and Objects.Therefore, to enable Flow Networking, the MSP must be enabled first on Prism Central1.The MSP can be enabled from the Prism Central settings page or from the command line interface (CLI) of the Prism Central VM2. Enabling the MSP will also enable Flow Microsegmentation, which is another feature that provides network security and visibility for AHV clusters.

A storage policy can be associated with a VM. A storage policy is a set of rules that define how data objects are stored and protected. It specifies the characteristics of storage, data protection, and data placement for virtual disks that are assigned to a VM. Subnets, catalogs, and categories are not associated with storage policies.https://portal.nutanix.com/page/documents/details?targetId=Prism-Central-Guide-vpc_2022_6:mul-cluster-storage-policy-summary-view-pc-r.html

Fault tolerance (FT) is the ability of a cluster to withstand node failures and maintain data availability. FT is determined by the replication factor (RF) of the data, which is the number of copies of each data block stored on different nodes. FT = RF - 1, meaning that the cluster can tolerate as many node failures as one less than the RF. Block awareness is a feature that enhances fault tolerance by ensuring that data copies are distributed across different blocks, which are groups of nodes that share a power source and network switch. Block awareness requires a minimum of three blocks and a minimum of six nodes in the cluster.

In this scenario, the administrator has been asked to enable block awareness and increase the fault tolerance to FT2 on a Nutanix AHV cluster with the following configuration: Four blocks, One node per block. The administrator will not be able to accomplish these tasks because:

To enable block awareness, the cluster needs at least six nodes, but it only has four nodes.

To increase the fault tolerance to FT2, the cluster needs at least five nodes per RF3 or seven nodes per RF4, but it only has four nodes.

Therefore, the administrator will need to add more nodes to the cluster before enabling block awareness and increasing the fault tolerance to FT2.