Nutanix NCP-MCI study plan

Explain the Prism Element and Prism Central architectural roles and where each configuration task belongs

Describe the cluster deployment workflow from Foundation imaging through AOS and AHV installation and initial configuration

Identify the prerequisites checked before deployment: IP ranges, CVM and host network requirements, DNS/NTP, and timezone alignment

Configure a new cluster's initial settings in a lab, including cluster name, virtual IP, and container defaults

Explain how a Nutanix storage pool is composed of physical disks and how containers present storage to workloads

Describe the difference between RF2 and RF3, and calculate usable capacity for a given raw capacity and resiliency factor

Configure a container with deduplication, compression, and erasure coding settings, and state when each is appropriate

Verify capacity and resiliency state from Prism and interpret what a degraded resiliency status means for available capacity

Describe the AHV network model: virtual switches, bridges, VLAN-backed networks, and how guest VMs attach to them

Configure a VLAN-backed network and attach a test VM to it, then confirm connectivity from another subnet

Explain the role of the controller VM network versus the host management network and why they are separated

Troubleshoot a VM with no network connectivity by checking bridge membership, VLAN tag, and IP configuration in order

Create, clone, and template VMs in AHV, and explain when to use a template versus a clone

Describe how Prism Central categorizes and searches objects, and build categories that support VM grouping

Read the main Prism dashboards and identify which alert and health indicators require action versus monitoring

Configure a VM with the correct resources for its workload type and validate it boots and is reachable

Explain how protection domains and snapshots differ, and when each is the right recovery tool

Configure a snapshot schedule and a replication target, then state what RPO the schedule produces

Describe how to restore a VM from a snapshot and what happens to the original VM during the restore

Explain how Nutanix handles data locality and how a node failure is absorbed without data loss under RF2

Use NCC health checks and interpret their output to distinguish warnings from failures

Identify the common causes of a cluster running in a degraded state and the first diagnostic step for each

Explain how to read CVM logs and the Prism alert stream when investigating a cluster issue

Describe the process for putting a node into maintenance mode and what it requires of cluster capacity

Describe what Prism Central enables beyond Prism Element, including multi-cluster management and centralized categories

Explain how Nutanix Clusters or a cloud-based deployment extends the same operational model to public cloud infrastructure

Compare the operational responsibilities Nutanix manages versus what the customer manages in a cloud deployment

Configure a Prism Central registration of a cluster and verify the cluster appears in centralized management

Re-derive each domain's key configuration decisions from memory and identify the two weakest areas

Re-run the lab tasks for your weakest domains without referring to notes

Complete timed practice sets weighted toward the heaviest domains and review every missed item to its root cause

Write a short summary of the operational reasoning behind resiliency, snapshot, and network design choices