Nutanix Enterprise Cloud Administration (ECA)

Course Outline

1: Getting Started with a Nutanix cluster

• Understand three-tier and HCI 

• Understand the Nutanix product portfolio

• Understand nodes, blocks, clusters, and cluster services

• Get started with Prism Central and Prism Element

• Understand when to use Prism Central and Prism Element

Hands-on-Labs

• Connecting to and exploring Prism Element

• Adding data services IP, an NTP server, and a name server in Prism Element

• Connecting to, exploring and configuring Prism Central

2: Configuring Cluster Networking

• Understand AHV networking terminology

• Use Prism Central to monitor cluster networks

• Use Prism Element to explore the Network Visualizer

• Create and update subnets and virtual switches

• Understand subnet extension and network segmentation

Hands-on Labs

• Creating unmanaged and managed networks

• Exploring the AHV network configuration

• Viewing virtual switches from Prism Element

3: Managing Images

• Understand the image service

• Use Prism Central to monitor, upload, import, and manage images

Hands-on Labs

• Uploading and importing images to Prism Central

• Configuring an image placement policy

4: Creating VMs

• Use Prism Central to create VMs

• Use Prism Central self-service capabilities to create VM templates

• Use Projects in Prism Central

• Install and enable Nutanix Guest Tools

Hands-on Labs

• Creating Windows and Linux VMs

• Installing Windows and Linux operating systems

• Installing Nutanix Guest Tools on Windows and Linux

• Creating a project

• Exploring the Self-Service dashboard in Prism Central

5: Managing VMs

• Update, clone, customize, export, and apply placement rules to VMs

• Create and apply storage policies to VMs

• Create playbooks to automate common VM administrative tasks

Hands-on Labs

• Updating a VM

• Assigning categories to a VM

• Creating a snapshot and restoring a VM

• Creating a template and a clone

• Exporting a VM as an Open Virtual Appliance (OVA) file

• Creating and running a playbook

6: Configuring and Managing Cluster Storage

• Understand AOS storage

• Understand key storage concepts such as storage pools, storage containers, redundancy factor, replication factor, capacity reservation, and snapshots

• Understand fault tolerance and failure handling mechanisms

• Create and update storage containers

• Create and update volume groups

• Use various capacity optimization features

Hands-on Labs

• Exploring the Storage dashboard

• Creating containers with and without compression

• Comparing data in a compressed vs uncompressed container

• Configuring volume groups

• Migrating vdisks between storage containers

7: Data Protection and Disaster Recovery

• Understand data protection terms and concepts

• Understand synchronous and asynchronous replication capabilities

• Create snapshots and recovery points

• Use Prism Element to configure local and remote backup and disaster recovery

• Use Nutanix disaster recovery to create protection policies and recovery plans

• Backup and restore Prism Central

Hands-on Labs

• Backing up and restoring Prism Central

• Configuring Self-Service Restore

• Creating protection domains and local VM restore

• Creating containers for replication

• Configuring remote sites and creating protection domains

• Performing VM migration and migrating back to primary

8: Securing a Nutanix Cluster

• Understand the Nutanix approach to security

• Use the Security dashboard in Prism Central

• Use Prism Central to configure authentication, users and RBAC

• Implement hardening features for AHV and the CVM

• Understand policies in Flow Network Security

• Understand data-at-rest encryption

Hands-on-Labs

• Exploring the Security dashboard

• Adding a local user

• Adding Active Directory authentication

• Configuring Role Mapping

• Verifying a new user account

• Cluster lockdown

9: Migrating Workloads with Nutanix Move

• Understand, install and upgrade Nutanix Move

• Use Move to migrate VMs

• Download Move logs

Hands-on Labs

• Preparing a VM for migration

• Deploying a Move VM

• Configuring Move and a migration plan

10: Monitoring Cluster Performance

• Understand performance monitoring features in Prism Central

• Create sessions, charts and reports

• View and manage project resource utilization

• Create custom dashboards in Prism Central

• Resource planning and capacity runway

Hands-on Labs

• Creating a Prism Central performance monitoring dashboard

• Creating charts to analyze metrics using Prism Central

• Creating and managing reports

11: Monitoring Cluster Health

• Understand health monitoring features in Prism Central and Prism Element

• Get summarized and detailed health information from Prism

• Use Nutanix Cluster Check

• Collect and forward logs

Hands-on Labs

• Using Nutanix Cluster Check health checks

• Collecting logs for Support

• Verifying cluster health

12: Maintaining and Upgrading a Cluster

• Perform a health check

• Use node-maintenance mode

• Understand hardware upgrade and replacement tasks

• Start and stop nodes and clusters

• Add and remove nodes

• Understand and explore Life Cycle Manager (LCM)

• Use LCM to perform inventory and upgrades

Hands-on Labs

• Using node maintenance mode

• Performing upgrades with LCM (with and without internet access)

13: Investigating and Remediating Performance Issues

• Understand alerts and events and the associated dashboards in Prism Central

• Troubleshoot issues with protection policies, LCM, security, and performance

• Identify problematic or inefficient VMs

• Explore potential methods of remediating problematic VMs

Hands-on Labs

• Working with Alerts

• Exploring Events