Nutanix 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.
Core architecture rules
- AOS provides distributed storage and cluster services; AHV is the native hypervisor, while ESXi and Hyper-V are also supported hypervisors.
- Every node runs a Controller VM (CVM). CVMs communicate over the cluster network and present storage to the hypervisor.
- Prism Element manages one cluster; Prism Central provides multi-cluster management and broader services.
- Replication Factor (RF) defines copies of data. RF2 tolerates one component failure; RF3 tolerates two. RF is not RAID.
- The I/O path is guest VM to hypervisor to CVM, then to local disk or to the CVM that owns the data. Data locality keeps reads local when possible.
Worked example
A VM on node A writes a block. AHV passes the I/O to the local CVM; that CVM writes a local copy and sends a replica to another CVM under RF2. If the remote node fails, the local copy and metadata still allow access and later rebuild. The VM stays available because RF2 has one surviving copy, not because Prism Central is in the data path.
Traps that cost marks
Do not place Prism Central in the storage I/O path. Do not treat the CVM as a guest VM store; it is the storage controller. Do not equate RF2 with RAID1, and do not assume data locality means no replication. Read the question for whether it asks about availability, capacity, or performance.