NCS-Core study guide
NCS-Core · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
The Nutanix Certified Services Core (NCS-Core) is a certification aimed at customer-facing delivery professionals: implementation consultants, professional services engineers, and partner field engineers who install, configure, and hand over Nutanix environments rather than simply administer them day to day. It validates that you can take a cluster from bare hardware through configuration, validation, and a clean customer handover while following delivery methodology and documentation standards. The NCS-Core study guide has 8 sections and about 2,248 words.
01Nutanix Platform Fundamentals and Architecture
This section covers Nutanix Platform Fundamentals and Architecture: how AOS, AHV, the Controller VM, Prism Element, Prism Central, and the Distributed Storage Fabric fit together, and what the exam asks about resilience, I/O flow, and cluster services. AOS provides distributed storage and cluster services; AHV is the native hypervisor, while ESXi and Hyper-V are also supported hypervisors.
320 words, about 2 min02Cluster Deployment, Installation, and Configuration
This section covers Cluster Deployment, Installation, and Configuration: Foundation imaging, IP planning, CVM and hypervisor addressing, cluster creation, initial Prism configuration, and the checks that make a cluster supportable. Foundation discovers nodes, often via IPMI or MAC, and images the hypervisor and AOS.
302 words, about 2 min03Networking, Storage, and Data Protection Services
This section covers Networking, Storage, and Data Protection Services: AHV virtual networking, VLANs and bonds, storage pools and containers, replication factors, erasure coding, snapshots, protection domains, and replication for DR. AHV uses virtual switches with uplinks and bonds.
300 words, about 2 min04Prism, Lifecycle Management, and Operational Tasks
This section covers Prism, Lifecycle Management, and Operational Tasks: using Prism Element and Prism Central for monitoring and administration, managing tasks and alerts, and using LCM for inventory, firmware, and software lifecycle operations. Prism Element is the per-cluster UI and API surface; Prism Central aggregates clusters and adds multi-cluster functions.
275 words, about 1 min05Health Monitoring, Troubleshooting, and Support Escalation
This section covers Health Monitoring, Troubleshooting, and Support Escalation: NCC checks, alert triage, log collection, Pulse, support case preparation, and the difference between local remediation and vendor escalation. NCC runs health checks across AOS, AHV, storage, networking, and cluster services.
269 words, about 1 min06Upgrades, Expansion, and Cluster Maintenance
This section covers Upgrades, Expansion, and Cluster Maintenance: upgrade planning and compatibility, adding and removing nodes, maintenance mode, rebalancing, and safe cluster changes. Check compatibility and upgrade paths before moving AOS, AHV, firmware, or Prism Central versions.
262 words, about 1 min07Security, Access Control, and Compliance
This section covers Security, Access Control, and Compliance: authentication, RBAC roles, local and directory users, cluster lockdown, encryption, certificates, and audit evidence. Prism supports local users and directory authentication such as Active Directory or LDAP.
258 words, about 1 min08Automation, APIs, and Scripting for Service Delivery
This section covers Automation, APIs, and Scripting for Service Delivery: Prism APIs, API versioning, task polling, authentication, and scripting practices for repeatable operations. Prism exposes REST APIs; Prism Element and Prism Central have different endpoints and API versions.
262 words, about 1 min