NCP-EUC Nutanix Certified Professional - End User Computing (NCP-EUC) 6.10 Exam Questions and Answers

Nutanix AHV includes a native feature called VM High Availability (VMHA), which protects VMs in the event of a host failure (such as power loss).

When a host fails, the Acropolis High Availability service detects the failure. Built-in AHV policies automatically restart the affected VMs on the remaining healthy hosts in the cluster.

Live migration (Option D) is not possible because the host is already down (powered off), meaning the memory state cannot be transferred; the VMs must be restarted (booted) on new hosts. No manual policy creation (Option B) is required as this is a core default function of the AHV cluster, provided resources are available.

Nutanix's Shadow Clones feature is used to create linked clones or snapshots of base VMs, which can improve VM provisioning time and storage efficiency by reducing the amount of duplicated data.

If an administrator disables Shadow Clones within a company's VDI environment, it is likely that deployment times would increase as the number of deployed desktops increases. This is because linked clones or snapshots would no longer be used, so each new desktop deployment would require creating a full copy of the base VM.

Nutanix Shadow Clones allow for distributed caching of a particular disk or VM data, which are in a ‘multi-reader’ scenario. This can help in scenarios such as VDI or private clone boot storms, where VMs on multiple nodes read from the same set of base disks12

When migrating Machine Creation Services (MCS) non-persistent (pooled) environments to Nutanix, it is not efficient or recommended to migrate the individual worker VMs using migration tools like Nutanix Move. These VMs are ephemeral clones that are deleted or reset upon reboot.

The correct architectural procedure is to migrate the Master Image (Gold Image). The administrator should replicate the base image VM to the Nutanix cluster (using Nutanix Move or Data Protection replication), install the necessary Nutanix drivers (VirtIO) and the Citrix VDA, and then snapshot this migrated image. This snapshot is then used by the MCS service to redeploy a fresh catalog of worker VMs native to the Nutanix AHV infrastructure. This ensures all clones are properly linked to the new storage architecture and avoids the overhead of moving disposable data.

To install the NVIDIA GRID host driver (vGPU driver) on a Nutanix AHV cluster, the administrator must upload the driver file (typically an RPM) to a Controller VM (CVM). From the CVM, the correct procedure is to use the install_host_package command.

This specific Nutanix utility pushes the installation package to the AHV hosts and executes the installation process. The typical syntax is install_host_package -r , which ensures the driver is correctly applied to the hypervisor layer across the cluster nodes. allssh or hostssh commands with standard Linux package managers (like yum) are not the supported method for applying hypervisor-level drivers in AHV.

administrator can take to resolve the issue of performance for several full clone virtual desktops within Cluster01 by migrating them to Cluster02. 

a recovery plan is a set of steps that defines how to recover guest VMs from a disaster. A recovery plan can be used to migrate VMs between Nutanix clusters at the same or different availability zones1.

gpumodeswitch is a command-line tool that is used to switch supported NVIDIA GPUs between compute and graphics mode. Compute mode allows multiple VMs to share a GPU for CUDA workloads. Graphics mode allows a single VM to use a GPU for graphics workloads12. 

In a non-persistent VDI environment, changes to the operating system should only occur within the Golden Image (or Master Image), not on the individual provisioned VMs. If the Windows Update policy is set to Automatic within the Gold Image, the clones generated from that image will independently check for updates, download them, and attempt to install them during the user's session.

This behavior often triggers a "Restart Required" prompt to the end-user to finish installing the updates. To prevent this disruption and ensure version consistency, Nutanix and VDI best practices dictate that the Windows Update service should be disabled or set to Manual in the Gold Image. Updates should be applied administratively to the Gold Image during a maintenance window, followed by a recompose/update of the machine catalog.

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According to Nutanix LCM and NVIDIA vGPU operational best practices:

Live Migration Requirement: To keep a VM "online" during a host upgrade, the VM must be live-migrated (vMotioned) off the host entering maintenance mode.

vGPU Constraint: A VM configured with a vGPU profile cannot be live-migrated to a host that does not have a compatible physical GPU resource available.4 The destination host must have a GPU capable of hosting the specific vGPU profile.

The Solution: Since only one host currently has a GPU, there is no valid destination for the VM to migrate to. The administrator must install a GPU in a second host to create a valid migration target. This allows the VM to vMotion to the second host, keeping it online while the first host is upgraded.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract of Nutanix End User Computing documents:

Based on the provided exhibit and Nutanix Prism Central administration guides:

Interface Identification: The screenshot displays the Prism Central web console, indicated by the "Infrastructure" dropdown menu in the top navigation bar (Prism Element uses a different layout). The user is currently in the Images dashboard (Infrastructure > Compute > Images).

Updating Image Metadata: To rename an image (or modify its description/type) in Prism Central, the standard workflow is to select the target image (as shown with "Windows-11" selected) and use the Actions menu.

The "Update" Action: Within the Actions dropdown menu, the correct option to modify existing settings is Update. Clicking Actions -> Update opens the "Update Image" dialog box, where the Name field is editable.

Incorrect Options:

A & D (CLI): These are incorrect because image renaming is fully supported in the UI; the CLI (acli or ncli) is available but not mandatory ("must" is the error).

C (Clone): Cloning an image creates a duplicate copy. While this could result in a new image with a new name, it is an inefficient workaround rather than the direct solution for simply renaming an existing image.

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According to Nutanix Flow Network Security Guide:

Policy States: Security policies in Nutanix Flow have two primary operating modes: Monitor and Enforce.

Monitor Mode: In Monitor Mode (Option A), the policy rules are evaluated, and traffic that would have been blocked is logged, but the traffic is allowed to pass.

Use Case: This is explicitly designed for the scenario described: "testing the impact... before enforcing." It allows the administrator to visualize the flow logs (via the Visualizer) to ensure no legitimate traffic would be dropped, before switching the toggle to Enforce Mode (Option B) which actually blocks the traffic.

one of the possible ways to optimize the virtual desktop environment is to verify if VAAI plugin is running. VAAI (vStorage APIs for Array Integration) is a technology that enables VMware ESXi hosts to offload storage operations to Nutanix storage controllers. This can improve performance and efficiency of cloning, migrating, and snapshotting virtual machines234.

gold image is a term used to describe a template for a virtual machine (VM) that contains a preconfigured operating system and applications1. A gold image can be used to create multiple session hosts that share the same configuration1. However, a gold image needs to be properly prepared before being used as a template123.

One of the steps involved in preparing a gold image is to run sysprep on the VM. Sysprep is a tool that removes system-specific data such as computer name, security identifier (SID), and driver cache from Windows23. This allows the VM to be generalized and duplicated without causing conflicts or errors23.

One of the options that can be set when running sysprep is CopyProfile. CopyProfile is a setting that determines whether the user profile settings of the built-in administrator account are copied to the default user profile2. The default user profile is used as a template for creating new user profiles on Windows2. If CopyProfile is set to True, then any changes made by the administrator account (such as desktop wallpaper, screen saver, Start menu items, etc.) will be applied to all new user profiles2.

Therefore, if users are being disconnected from their sessions consistently after 10 minutes, it could be because the gold image has some incorrect settings in the default user profile that cause session timeout or termination. To resolve this issue, one possible solution is to sysprep the gold image with CopyProfile set to True, and make sure that there are no settings in the administrator account that could affect session stability (such as power saving options or Windows Store applications)2.

In Nutanix AHV networking, the default bond mode for a virtual switch is Active-Backup. In this mode, all traffic flows through a single active physical uplink, while other uplinks remain in standby mode to be used only in the event of a failure. This explains the observation that "only one of the physical NICs... is carrying VM traffic."

To utilize multiple physical uplinks simultaneously and balance the traffic, the administrator must change the bond mode to an Active-Active configuration. In AHV, this is achieved by configuring the bond mode to Balance-SLB (Source Load Balancing) or Balance-TCP (LACP). These modes distribute VM traffic across all available physical interfaces in the bond, thereby balancing the load.

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According to Nutanix Storage Best Practices for Full Clone VDI:

Full Clone Characteristics: Full Clones are independent copies of the virtual machine, meaning they contain 100% duplicate data (OS, binaries, applications) across every VM in the pool.

Deduplication Benefit: Because the data is identical across all clones, enabling Deduplication (specifically Capacity Tier Deduplication) provides massive space savings by eliminating these redundant blocks. Nutanix documentation explicitly recommends Deduplication for "Full Clones" and "Persistent Desktops".

Compression Synergy: Compression (Inline) is recommended for all workloads. Combining Deduplication (to remove duplicate blocks) with Compression (to shrink the unique blocks) yields the "most efficient space savings" possible for this specific workload type.

Contrast: For Linked Clones (which already share a base disk), Deduplication is turned off (Answer C), but for Full Clones, Answer A is the standard best practice.

one of the possible causes of slower logon and application load times for VMware Horizon-based virtual desktop users is Failed to create Native clone errors. This error occurs when there is a problem with cloning virtual machines using Nutanix Native Clones technology. To troubleshoot this issue, you can check the following:

The Nutanix cluster has enough free space to create clones

The Nutanix cluster has enough CPU and memory resources to handle cloning operations

The Nutanix cluster is running a compatible version of AOS and AHV with VMware Horizon

The VMware Horizon environment is configured correctly to use Nutanix Native Clones

The VMware Horizon agent is installed and updated on the master image

https://www.nutanix.com/support-services/training-certification/certifications/certification-details-nutanix-certified-professional-ncp-euc-v6

https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/1008360

Sysprep is a Microsoft tool that prepares a Windows installation for cloning, auditing, and customer delivery23. The Frame Sysprep Helper Tool is designed to simplify the Microsoft Sysprep process by parsing errors reported by sysprep and immediately repairing them when possible1. Therefore, the tool that the administrator can use to prepare the Sysprep of the sandbox with error parsing is A (Frame Sysprep Helper Tool).

The charts provided display a scenario typical of a VDI Boot Storm or login storm, characterized by a massive spike in Read IOPS (top chart) while maintaining extremely low Read I/O Latency (bottom chart).

This behavior is best described by Data Locality (specifically leveraged through a mechanism often called Shadow Clones in VDI contexts).

The Scenario: During VDI logins, hundreds or thousands of VMs simultaneously read from the same base "Golden Image" or replica disk.

The Mechanism: Nutanix Data Locality ensures that VM data is served locally from the node where the VM is running. In the specific case of multi-reader VDI workloads, the Nutanix Distributed Storage Fabric detects that the same vDisk is being read by VMs across multiple nodes. It automatically caches this vDisk (Shadow Clone) on the local SSD/RAM of every node.

The Result: As shown in the graphs, the cluster delivers very high Read IOPS because every node is serving its own VMs from local cache, preventing network congestion. Consequently, the latency remains flat and near-zero, rather than spiking as it would in a traditional centralized storage architecture where all reads traverse the network to a single controller.

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According to the Nutanix Files Guide regarding Data Replication and VDI solutions:

VDI Sync Functionality: VDI Sync is the specific feature designed to replicate VDI user profiles and data across file servers in different locations (active-active). It ensures that user profile data (like FSLogix or UPM containers) is synchronized in near real-time, allowing users to roam between sites and access their data locally at either location.

Smart DR distinction: Smart DR (Option C) is primarily a Disaster Recovery solution (Active-Standby) used for share-level replication and failover in the event of an outage. It is not designed for the active-active, bi-directional roaming of user profiles required by the question.

Use Case: For a distributed VDI environment where a user might log in to Site A today and Site B tomorrow and needs their profile immediately available and writable in both, VDI Sync is the mandatory component.

When configuring Link Aggregation Groups (LAG) or Active-Active NIC bonding (such as balance-tcp with LACP) on Nutanix AHV, there is a strict requirement regarding link negotiation. All interfaces in a bond must run at the same speed.

If the second node has physical NICs that have negotiated different speeds (e.g., one link at 10 Gbps and another at 1 Gbps due to a cabling issue or switch misconfiguration), the bond creation command will fail for that specific node. While identical hardware (Option A) is preferred, it is the actual operating speed of the links that determines whether the OVS bond can successfully form.

Based on the given information, the administrator is deploying 1000 instant clone virtual desktops, 500 full clone virtual desktops, and 150 applications. To support these workloads, the Nutanix solution will need multiple storage containers.

According to the Nutanix Certified Professional - End User Computing (NCP-EUC) v6 guide, for VDI workloads, it is recommended to create a separate storage container for each type of desktop (e.g. instant clone, full clone) and another container for AppStacks. It is also recommended to have at least one container for metadata and one container for replicas.

Therefore, for this scenario, a total of 3 storage containers should be created:

One container for 1000 instant clone virtual desktops

One container for 500 full clone virtual desktops

One container for 150 applications delivered via AppStacks

So the answer is C. 3.

Frame is a cloud-native desktop-as-a-service platform that delivers virtual apps and desktops from multiple public clouds1. Frame allows administrators to manage various components of their cloud accounts easily from the Frame console1.

A cloud account is a logical grouping of resources that are associated with a specific cloud provider (such as AWS, Azure, or Google) and region1. A cloud account can have multiple virtual networks, master images, and instance types that can be used to create and run virtual apps and desktops1.

To configure AWS, Azure, and Google accounts within Frame, an administrator needs to go to the Cloud Accounts section of the Frame console1. There, the administrator can add new cloud accounts or edit existing ones by providing the required credentials and settings for each cloud provider12.

https://docs.frame.nutanix.com/platform/infrastructure/byo/cloud-accounts/

In a Nutanix AHV environment integrated with Citrix Provisioning (PVS), the XenDesktop Setup Wizard (or Citrix Virtual Desktops Setup Wizard) is responsible for creating the Write Cache disk for target VMs during the provisioning process.

According to Nutanix Knowledge Base articles regarding PVS on AHV, a common cause for the failure of the write-cache disk creation is the presence of an attached virtual disk on the snapshot used as the template. The wizard expects to create and attach the write-cache disk itself. If the template snapshot already has a hard disk attached (other than the potential CD-ROM, which is generally supported if single), the wizard's logic for disk slot assignment or disk creation conflicts with the existing disk, causing the "creation of the VM's write-cache disk failed" error. The supported procedure explicitly states that the VM template snapshot must be created without any hard disks attached.

Users may expect some level of personalization and consistency across their virtual desktop sessions, even if they do not save any changes1. To customize this user experience, administrators can use different solutions that manage user profiles and settings1.

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According to Nutanix AOS storage documentation and best practices regarding Data Efficiency:

Default Behavior (AOS 5.18+): Starting with AOS 5.18, Inline Compression is enabled by default on all newly created storage containers.2 The system configures this with a compression delay of 0, meaning data is compressed immediately as it is written to the extent store.3

Performance Impact: Enabling inline compression by default is designed to improve performance and increase effective storage capacity without significant overhead.4 Nutanix recommends keeping this default setting for most workloads, including VDI and general server virtualization, as it reduces the amount of physical data written to the SSD tier.5

Other Mechanisms:

Deduplication is not enabled by default.6 It is typically reserved for specific use cases (like full clones or persistent desktops) and requires enabling both cache and capacity deduplication manually.

Erasure Coding (EC-X) is not enabled by default. It is a post-process feature that must be manually turned on for containers where data is "write cold" (not frequently overwritten), such as archives or backups.

Post-Process Compression was the historical default in older AOS versions (configured with a 60-minute delay) but has been superseded by Inline Compression as the standard default for new containers.

Summary: When an administrator creates a new container in a modern Nutanix environment, the system automatically checks the box for Compression and sets the delay to 0 minutes (Inline).7

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According to Microsoft RDS and Nutanix Best Practices:

GPO Configuration: The specific Group Policy Object (GPO) setting used to define which license servers an RD Session Host should contact is titled "Use the specified remote desktop license servers".

Redundancy: In this policy setting, the administrator can input a list of multiple license servers (IP addresses or FQDNs). If the first server in the list is unreachable (due to a cluster failure or maintenance), the host automatically attempts to contact the subsequent servers, thereby achieving the required redundancy.

This is because this option will enable the administrator to add a Nutanix cluster as a new connection by installing and registering the plugin on the Delivery Controllers that manage the connection type menu.

https://portal.nutanix.com/page/documents/solutions/details?targetId=BP-2079-Citrix-Virtual-Apps-and-Desktops:BP-2079-Citrix-Virtual-Apps-and-Desktops

According to the Nutanix Hardware Administration Guide and Product Mixing Restrictions, mixing nodes from different hardware vendors (OEMs) in the same cluster is not supported.

Specifically, a cluster must contain nodes from a single vendor (e.g., all Nutanix NX, all Dell XC, or all Cisco UCS). Mixing Nutanix NX nodes with Cisco UCS nodes within the same cluster is explicitly listed as an unsupported configuration due to differences in hardware lifecycle management, firmware updates, and foundation processes.

Therefore, the administrator must create a new, separate cluster for the Cisco UCS nodes. They can then leverage features like Cluster-to-Cluster replication or a multi-cluster VDI broker configuration to manage the environment, but the nodes cannot be merged into the existing NX cluster.

In Nutanix Prism Central, the reporting feature allows administrators to schedule and generate custom reports. To manage storage and database capacity, Prism Central enforces a retention limit on these generated report instances.

According to the Prism Central Guide, "By default, Prism Central retains 25 instances of each report."

In the scenario described:

The administrator had 22 reports.

Over the next week (7 days), 7 new reports were generated (22 + 7 = 29 total potential instances).

Because the total (29) exceeds the hard default limit of 25, the system automatically rotated out (deleted) the 4 oldest copies to maintain the count at 25. This explains why reports are missing despite the expectation of seeing 29.

According to Nutanix "Omnissa Horizon on Nutanix Best Practices" (formerly VMware Horizon), Windows system services that create excessive background I/O must be optimized for VDI environments. Specifically, the Windows Search (Indexing) Service is a common cause of high CPU and disk I/O. In a non-persistent environment, if the indexing service is active, it continuously attempts to crawl the file system and update the index database during the user session. This generates a large number of small, random writes (IOPS) which land in the Flash Tier (Hot Tier/Oplog).

The behavior described—usage ramping up during business hours (as users create data/emails) and coming down during off-hours—aligns with the Curator process. Curator scans the cluster periodically (typically every 6 hours or during low load) to perform Tiering (moving cold data from SSD to HDD) and cleanup. If indexing is enabled, the "hot" index data fills the SSD tier during the day; Curator then destages this data or consolidates it during the scan. To resolve the performance impact and unnecessary flash consumption, the administrator must disable the Windows Search service or configure it correctly in the Golden Image.

The Nutanix AHV MCS Plug-in is a tool that enables Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops Delivery Controllers (also called Brokers) to create and manage Citrix-provisioned VMs in a Nutanix AHV infrastructure environment. The plug-in is based on the Citrix-defined plug-in framework2.

To install the Nutanix AHV MCS Plug-in, you need to meet some prerequisites, such as:

The Delivery Controller version must be 7.15 LTSR CU3 or later.

The Delivery Controller must be able to communicate with Prism Element (PE) using HTTPS port 9440.

The Delivery Controller must have PowerShell 5.1 or later installed.

The user running the installer must have administrator privileges on the Delivery Controller2.

https://portal.nutanix.com/page/documents/solutions/details?targetId=RA-2020-Citrix-Virtual-Apps-and-Desktops-AMD-MCS-Windows-10:RA-2020-Citrix-Virtual-Apps-and-Desktops-AMD-MCS-Windows-10

Nutanix Security Guide documentation on Data-at-Rest Encryption (DARE) specifies strict hardware compatibility rules. For Hardware Encryption, the cluster must exclusively use Self-Encrypting Drives (SEDs). The documentation states that you cannot mix SEDs and non-SEDs (standard drives) within the same cluster if you intend to use hardware-based encryption.

However, Software Encryption (AOS Software Encryption) is hardware-agnostic. It uses the CPU (leveraging AES-NI instructions) to encrypt data before writing it to the disk. Software encryption supports any drive type and is the only supported method for clusters containing a mix of SEDs and standard drives. Therefore, the administrator must use cluster-level software encryption.

A Mandatory Profile is a read-only user profile (.man) that is pre-configured by an administrator.9 When a user logs in, the system copies this profile to create the session environment.

Crucially, any changes the user makes during the session (such as wallpaper, icons, or settings) are discarded when the user logs off. This ensures that every time the user logs in, they receive the exact same standard user configuration ("at the beginning of each session"), preventing configuration drift. Roaming and Container profiles are designed to retain user settings, which contradicts the requirement for a standardized start state.

When using Nutanix IPAM (Managed Network) for DHCP, the built-in DHCP service has limitations regarding UEFI PXE boot support (specifically regarding the dynamic delivery of architecture-specific boot files like bootx64.efi vs undionly.kpxe).

To successfully provision UEFI VMs in this scenario—particularly for Citrix Provisioning Services (PVS)—the BDM (Boot Device Manager) ISO (referred to here as SDM boot ISO due to common industry acronym variance in exam banks) is required. The BDM ISO allows the VM to boot directly from a virtual CD-ROM that contains the bootstrap information needed to contact the provisioning server, bypassing the limitations of the IPAM PXE implementation for UEFI workloads.

The feature in Nutanix that would be used to complete the task of deploying virtual desktops to a Hyper-V Nutanix cluster with writable differencing disks using a read-only master image with clones that link back to the image is Shadow Clones. Shadow Clones allow for the creation of a snapshot or a clone of a VM that uses the original VM's disks as read-only, and only writes changes to a separate differencing disk. This is useful when deploying virtual desktops as it can reduce storage requirements and improve performance.

Nutanix shadow clones are a feature that enables distributed caching of virtual disks (vDisks) that are in a multi-reader scenario. This can improve performance and reduce network traffic for scenarios such as VDI or private clone boot storms1

Nutanix Prism defines alert severity levels as follows:

Critical: An issue that requires immediate attention; the system or service is likely down or data is at risk.

Warning: An actionable issue has been detected. The system is currently functioning, but user intervention is required to prevent the issue from escalating. As the prompt states, "a more serious issue may develop if this is not resolved soon."

Info: System events that are for tracking purposes only (e.g., power on/off).

Therefore, the scenario describes a Warning level alert.

The performance issue is caused by Host CPU overcommitment, specifically regarding CPU scheduling (Ready Time) rather than total utilization.

While the Host CPU utilization is below 80% (meaning the processor has idle cycles), the configuration of 8 vCPUs per VM combined with a high 9:1 vCPU-to-pCPU ratio creates a bottleneck known as "Co-stop" or high "CPU Ready" time. The hypervisor scheduler must wait until 8 physical cores are available simultaneously to execute a single clock cycle for one VM. In a dense VDI environment, finding 8 free cores at the exact same moment is difficult, causing the VMs to pause (freeze) while waiting for the scheduler, even if the overall CPU usage of the host appears moderate. Reducing the vCPU count per VM would likely resolve the performance issues.

vCenter can execute approximately 640 concurrent operations before incoming requests are queued, and can support up to 2,000 concurrent sessions1. VMware Horizon 8 can support up to 120,000 active sessions in a Cloud Pod Architecture pod federation23. Therefore, if the environment has 10,000 virtual desktops, one vCenter instance might not be enough to handle all the operations and sessions efficiently. The recommended number of vCenter instances in this configuration is B (2).

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According to Nutanix EUC Troubleshooting Guides:

Tool Capabilities: RDAnalyzer (Remote Display Analyzer) is the specific tool recommended to view real-time statistics regarding the Display Protocol (Blast/ICA/PCoIP), Frames Per Second (FPS), Bandwidth, Network Latency, and GPU Utilization in a single overlay window.

Why not GPUView? NVIDIA GPUView (Option D) is a deep-dive performance trace tool used for analyzing complex rendering pipelines and driver lag (DPCs/ISRs). It does not provide a live dashboard of "Network Latency" or "Bandwidth" for the display protocol, nor is it used for quick "real-time" monitoring by administrators in the same way RDAnalyzer is.

Note on Exam Key: While some older exam dumps might incorrectly flag D, RDAnalyzer is the only tool in the list that provides the protocol-specific network metrics (bandwidth/latency) requested in the scenario.

This issue is caused by the NVIDIA vGPU scheduling policy. On many NVIDIA GRID/vGPU architectures (prior to latest MIG capabilities), you cannot mix different vGPU profile sizes (e.g., 2Q and 4Q) on the same physical GPU.

Current State (Breadth Mode): The scheduler is likely distributing the "2Q" VMs evenly across all available GPUs. This means every physical GPU has at least one "2Q" profile active, "tainting" the GPU so it can only accept other "2Q" VMs.

The Fix (Depth Mode): By changing the allocation policy to Depth-First, the scheduler will fill up the first physical GPU with "2Q" VMs until it is full before moving to the next. This consolidates the "2Q" workloads onto fewer cards, leaving other physical GPUs completely empty. These empty GPUs can then accept the "4Q" profile type, allowing both profiles to co-exist on the same host (though on different physical cards).

When creating the OS Layer for Citrix App Layering on Nutanix AHV, it is a strict requirement to include the Nutanix VirtIO Drivers.

The OS Layer is the foundational disk image used to generate the layered desktop. Because Nutanix AHV uses paravirtualized storage (SCSI) and network drivers for performance, the Windows OS within the layer must have the VirtIO drivers installed to successfully boot and communicate with the AHV hypervisor platform. Without these drivers in the OS layer, the resulting layered image will fail to boot on Nutanix infrastructure. (The Citrix VDA is typically placed in the Platform Layer or a separate App Layer, not strictly the OS layer).

Nutanix Files Smart DR allows administrators to configure replication policies between file servers managed by different Prism Central (PC) instances (Multi-PC).4

According to the Nutanix Files Guide and Disaster Recovery documentation, a strict prerequisite for this configuration is that both Prism Central clusters must be in an availability zone (AZ) pair.5 This pairing establishes the trust and replication channel required for the Files Manager to coordinate the disaster recovery policies between the source and target file servers across the different PC domains.

According to the "Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops on Nutanix" best practices guide, the recommended storage container configuration depends on the provisioning method. For Citrix MCS (Machine Creation Services) Non-persistent workloads, the following settings are explicitly recommended in the Nutanix storage table:

Compression: Enabled (Inline compression is recommended for all workloads to improve capacity and performance).

Deduplication: Disabled (For non-persistent MCS, the write-heavy differencing disks are deleted upon reboot, making post-process capacity deduplication ineffective. While performance deduplication can help with reads, Nutanix Shadow Clones automatically handle caching of the base image on AHV, rendering deduplication largely redundant and an unnecessary overhead for this specific use case).

Erasure Coding: Disabled (Erasure coding is not suitable for the random write patterns and "hot" data associated with active VDI desktops; it is designed for cold, archive data).

Therefore, the correct configuration is Compression Enabled, Deduplication Disabled, and Erasure Coding Disabled.

Here are the 100% verified answers and detailed explanations based on the latest Nutanix End User Computing and Best Practices documentation.

According to Nutanix documentation, to use more than two monitors with Frame, you need to deploy the Frame App. The Frame App provides multi-monitor support, whereas using Frame through web browsers is currently limited to two monitors.

Frame App is a native application that provides a better user experience for accessing Frame desktops and applications than a web browser1. Frame App supports the Frame multi-monitor feature automatically. If an end user has more than one monitor attached to their device, Frame App prompts the user if they want to use all of their monitors1. Frame Administrators do not have to enable explicitly multi-monitor support for Frame App users1.

one of the possible causes of poor performance in a VDI deployment is power management, which can affect CPU frequency and performance. Therefore, it is recommended to disable any power saving features on the BIOS level, such as C-states and P-states.

Another possible cause of poor performance is network configuration, which can affect network throughput and latency. Therefore, it is recommended to update network drivers and firmware on the Dell XC nodes with ESXi23, and ensure that they are compatible with Nutanix software.

To meet the requirement of a single desktop image without "installing apps in the image and hiding them" (which excludes Application Masking, Option D), and avoiding "double-hop sessions" (which excludes Application Publishing, Option B), the correct solution is Application Layering.

Application Layering (such as Citrix App Layering or similar technologies supported on Nutanix) allows applications to be packaged into separate virtual disks (layers). These layers are attached to the OS at runtime based on user identity or group membership. This keeps the base image clean and generic while delivering specific apps to specific users, satisfying all conditions in the scenario.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract of Nutanix End User Computing documents:

According to Nutanix AHV Best Practices for Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI):

Power Management: The most critical "optimal" configuration for latency-sensitive EUC workloads is to ensure the host power management policy is set to High Performance. This prevents the CPU from entering power-saving states (C-states/P-states) which can introduce latency during user interaction.

Memory Configuration: While Nutanix AHV typically disables memory overcommit by default (or does not use it in the same way as other hypervisors for VDI), the active configuration step required by an administrator to guarantee optimal performance is the Power Management setting. Memory reservation should generally be 100% (not 50%) to avoid swapping, and CPU/Memory shares are usually left at default unless there is specific contention, but Power Management is the baseline requirement for EUC optimization.

Why not D? While memory overcommit should be disabled for VDI, in many AHV versions this is the default behavior or inherent architecture. "High performance power management" represents the specific tuning parameter that administrators must validate or configure (often in the BIOS or via AHV command) to ensure the environment is "optimized" for desktop workloads.

According to standard VDI image preparation best practices (including those for testing with tools like LoginVSI), the foundational step before any benchmarking can occur is to Install and patch the Operating System.

A benchmark is invalid if it is run on an incomplete or vulnerable OS. The standard workflow is:

Install OS and standard runtimes.

Patch fully (to represent a realistic production state).

Optimize (OSOT).

Option A represents the critical mandatory "Action" required to build the base image for the test.

https://docs.frame.nutanix.com/platform/admin/account-creation/

The Public Network option provides access to the Frame environment over the public internet, while the Private Network with VPN option allows for a secure connection to the Frame environment over a private network using a VPN.

There are two types of Launchpads that exist in Frame: Application Launchpad and Desktop Launchpad2.

An Application Launchpad is a representation of the applications that are available for streaming. Users can launch any application they have access to from this Launchpad. An example of an Application Launchpad is shown below:

A Desktop Launchpad is a representation of the desktops that are available for streaming. Users can launch any desktop they have access to from this Launchpad. An example of a Desktop Launchpad is shown below:

https://www.nutanix.com/blog/work-from-home-anywhere-in-five-easy-steps