Nutanix Enterprise Cloud Fundamentals
What the domain tests
The Enterprise Cloud Fundamentals domain checks whether you can explain Nutanix's core proposition: a software-defined, scale-out platform that converges compute, storage, and virtualization on commodity x86 nodes. Expect questions on Nutanix Cloud Platform components, HCI benefits, deployment models, and licensing boundaries.
Core rules
- HCI replaces the traditional compute-SAN-storage-network stack with a distributed system running on every node.
- Nutanix software is not tied to AHV. AOS can run on AHV, VMware ESXi, or Microsoft Hyper-V; AHV is the native, included hypervisor.
- A cluster is the unit of scale: add nodes to add CPU, memory, and storage together. There is no separate storage array to expand.
- Prism Element manages one cluster; Prism Central manages many clusters and adds categories, RBAC, and centralized operations.
- Nutanix Cloud Platform spans infrastructure (NCI), management (NCM), databases (NDB), unified storage (Files, Volumes, Objects), and hybrid cloud (NC2).
Worked example
A customer has four nodes with 8 TB raw capacity each. With RF2, the cluster keeps two copies of data, so usable capacity is roughly half of raw: 32 TB raw becomes about 16 TB usable before overhead. If they need to survive two simultaneous failures, they choose RF3, which requires more nodes and capacity. The reasoning: resiliency is a policy choice that consumes physical capacity; it is not free.
Traps
Do not assume a Nutanix cluster requires a SAN. Do not assume AHV is mandatory. Do not confuse Prism Element with Prism Central. Do not treat raw capacity as usable capacity.