Nutanix NCP-CI-AWS study plan

Diagram the NC2 on AWS reference architecture from memory: Prism Central, the NC2 management plane, the AWS-hosted cluster nodes, and the AWS account/VPC boundary, labeling each component's role.

Explain the division of responsibility between Nutanix and the customer across the NC2 stack, and list at least five tasks that remain the customer's even though Nutanix runs the control plane.

List the AWS prerequisites an NC2 cluster requires (VPC and subnets, IAM permissions, service-linked roles, supported instance families, capacity reservations) and note why each one exists.

Walk through the end-to-end NC2 cluster creation sequence and identify the points where a deployment most commonly stalls or fails.

Compare the NC2 deployment topologies (single-region, multi-region, stretched/multi-AZ) and state which availability requirement each one actually satisfies.

Map each NC2 cluster component to its AWS counterpart (EC2 instance types, EBS volumes, placement groups, AZ selection) and explain the sizing implications of each choice.

Describe how NC2 cluster scaling, node addition, and node replacement work, and what happens to running workloads during each operation.

Identify the AWS service quotas and limits that constrain an NC2 deployment and explain how to check current values in a given account.

Design a VPC layout for NC2 that separates management, workload, and backup traffic, and justify the subnet and route table decisions.

Configure and validate security groups and network ACLs so that Prism, CVM, and guest VM traffic flows as required while unnecessary ports stay closed.

Explain how NC2 traffic egresses to AWS services and to the internet (NAT gateway, VPC endpoints, transit gateway) and when each option is appropriate.

Describe hybrid connectivity options (Site-to-Site VPN, Direct Connect, transit gateway attachments) and match each to a latency and bandwidth profile.

Trace a packet path from an on-premises VM to an NC2 guest VM across the hybrid connection and identify every hop where routing or security policy could drop it.

Configure Prism Central authentication against an external identity source (Active Directory or LDAP) and verify role assignment behaves as expected for a test user.

Map Nutanix roles and AWS IAM roles to a least-privilege access model for three personas: platform admin, workload operator, and read-only auditor.

Explain how encryption works at rest and in transit across the NC2 stack, including which layer (AWS KMS, EBS encryption, Nutanix data-at-rest encryption) covers which data.

Harden an NC2 environment by applying a checklist covering key management, audit logging, network exposure, and privileged access, and record the rationale for each item.

Set up Prism monitoring and alerting for an NC2 cluster, choosing thresholds for capacity, latency, and component health that would surface a real problem early.

Interpret the key Prism and NCC health-check outputs and distinguish a benign warning from one that requires action.

Describe the NC2 lifecycle operations (upgrades of AOS, Prism Central, and the NC2 management plane) and the order in which they should be performed.

Design a backup strategy for NC2 workloads using Nutanix-native protection domains and snapshots, and explain how the AWS-side storage and retention behave.

Compare replication targets for NC2 (another NC2 cluster, on-premises, or AWS-native storage) and select one for a stated RPO/RTO scenario with justification.

Walk through a failover and a failback runbook for an NC2 environment, naming the decision points and the checks that confirm each stage succeeded.

Describe the migration paths into and out of NC2 (Nutanix Move, native replication, image import) and state the constraints of each.

Build a troubleshooting decision tree for the five most common NC2 failure classes: cluster creation failure, connectivity loss, Prism unavailability, performance degradation, and backup/replication failure.

Identify which logs and diagnostic bundles to collect for each failure class and where each is found (Prism, NCC, AWS CloudTrail, VPC flow logs, EC2 console).

Explain the escalation path to Nutanix support, including what information to gather before opening a case and how log collection is performed for NC2.

Practice reading VPC flow logs and CloudTrail events to distinguish an application problem from a network or IAM problem.

Re-derive the NC2 architecture and networking design from a blank page, then diff it against your week 1 and week 3 deliverables to find gaps.

Complete a timed full-length practice set and categorize every missed question by domain and by root cause (knowledge gap, misread, or unfamiliar terminology).

Re-teach the three weakest topics aloud or in writing without notes, and correct any point where the explanation breaks down.

Review the DR runbook and troubleshooting playbook one final time, confirming each step is still accurate against current documentation.