Nutanix NCP-MCI key terms

The per-cluster web console and management plane in Nutanix, used to configure storage, networking, and VMs for a single cluster and to view its health, alerts, and tasks.

A multi-cluster management appliance that registers many Prism Element clusters, providing centralized dashboards, categories, policies, and services such as Calm, Flow, and Objects across the environment.

A group of Nutanix nodes running AOS that pool local disks and compute into one distributed system presenting a single namespace, managed through Prism Element and optionally Prism Central.

A virtual machine running on every Nutanix node that owns the node's local disks and serves storage I/O for all guest VMs, participating in the distributed storage fabric across the cluster.

The AOS software layer that aggregates local disks from all nodes into a single pooled datastore, handling data placement, replication, tiering, and I/O routing without external SAN storage.

A logical grouping of physical disks across cluster nodes from which storage containers are carved; pools define the failure domain and are typically organized by hardware generation or disk type.

A logical datastore presented to hypervisors and VMs, created within a storage pool, that carries its own replication factor, compression, deduplication, and reservation settings.

The number of copies of each data extent the cluster keeps, commonly RF2 or RF3; it determines how many component failures the data can survive and how much usable capacity remains.

The level of component failure a cluster or VM can absorb while continuing to serve data, expressed in nodes or disks and tied to replication factor and cluster size.

The background process that recreates missing data replicas on surviving nodes after a disk or node failure, restoring the configured replication factor and fault tolerance.

The AOS service, running in the Controller VM, that acts as the storage I/O entry point, routing read and write requests and coordinating data placement with other services.

The AOS background service that scans and rebalances data across the cluster, performs disk balancing, handles garbage collection of deleted extents, and drives rebuild activity.

The AOS service responsible for cluster formation, node discovery, and initial configuration, including IP assignment and services that must run before the cluster is fully operational.

The bootstrap process that forms a Nutanix cluster from bare nodes, assigning CVM and hypervisor IPs, setting the cluster virtual IP, and validating network and disk readiness.

A single floating IP address assigned to a cluster that always points to the CVM currently leading the cluster, giving administrators and Prism Central a stable management endpoint.

Nutanix Acropolis Hypervisor, the native KVM-based hypervisor included with AOS, managed through Prism and supporting live migration, HA, and Nutanix-specific storage integration.

The AOS component that provides the virtualization management layer, exposing VM lifecycle, scheduling, HA, and hypervisor abstraction APIs used by Prism and AHV.

A cluster feature that detects host failure and automatically restarts affected VMs on surviving nodes, subject to configured reservation and admission-control capacity.

Moving a running VM between hosts with no downtime, used for maintenance, balancing, and evacuation; it requires shared storage visibility and compatible CPU features.

A host state that evacuates VMs and storage data away from a node so it can be serviced safely, then allows the node to rejoin and rebalance when taken out of the state.

Key-value metadata labels applied to VMs, hosts, or other entities in Prism Central, used to group resources for policies, reporting, and scoped operations across clusters.

A named set of VMs and volume groups grouped for consistent snapshot and replication scheduling, defining what data is protected together and where it is sent.

A point-in-time, space-efficient copy of a VM or volume group's data used for rollback, cloning, or replication; it captures state without duplicating unchanged blocks.

A destination cluster registered for replication, receiving scheduled snapshots from a protection domain so data can be recovered after loss of the primary site.

Copying snapshots to a remote site on a schedule rather than continuously, trading a possible recovery point gap for lower bandwidth needs and simpler operations.

The maximum acceptable amount of data loss measured in time; for snapshot replication it is bounded by the interval between successful snapshot transfers to the remote site.

A recoverable snapshot instance retained on a local or remote cluster that can be used to restore a VM or volume group to an earlier state.

Dividing cluster traffic into separate VLANs or subnets so management, storage replication, VM, and backup traffic do not contend or expose one another.

A tagged Layer 2 broadcast domain used on Nutanix hosts to isolate traffic types and guest networks; the correct VLAN ID must match the physical switch configuration.

The software bridge on an AHV host that connects VM virtual NICs to physical uplinks and carries VLAN tags, bonding, and traffic policies configured in Prism.

Bonding multiple physical NICs into one logical uplink for increased bandwidth and redundancy; the bond mode must be consistent with the switch's port-channel configuration.

A dedicated high-speed network, often 10GbE or higher, used for CVM-to-CVM storage replication and metadata traffic, separate from management and guest networks.

Nutanix Cluster Check, a diagnostic framework that runs scheduled and on-demand checks against cluster components and produces findings with severity and remediation guidance.

The log collection utility in AOS that gathers logs from CVMs and hosts into a bundle for support analysis or troubleshooting, optionally scoped to a time window.

The optional telemetry service that periodically sends health and configuration data from a cluster to Nutanix support, enabling proactive case creation and insights.

The Prism Central service for application lifecycle management, letting administrators define blueprints that deploy and scale multi-tier workloads across registered clusters.

The Prism Central network security service that enforces distributed firewall rules between VM groups, using categories to define policy scope across clusters.

A software-defined, S3-compatible object storage service deployed on a Nutanix cluster, managed through Prism Central for buckets, policies, and access keys.

The Nutanix migration tool used to move VMs from other hypervisors or cloud environments onto AHV, with planning, cutover, and post-migration validation phases.

Life Cycle Manager, the Prism Element and Prism Central framework used to inventory components and apply firmware, AOS, hypervisor, and software updates in a controlled order.