Why Study with PlanetCert?
The Latest Questions
Practice questions and exam topics aligned with the current exam objectives.
Detailed Explanations
Go beyond the answer. Master the material with comprehensive learning and professional explanations for every concept.
AI-Powered Insights
Personalized preparation guidance that adapts to your performance and identifies weak spots automatically.
Exam Information
Official specifications published by Nutanix
Exam Format
Registration
Validity
Skills this practice test covers
- Run an LCM inventory and follow software and firmware upgrades in Prism.
- Create, clone and power VMs, and manage their disks and networks.
- Find the cluster's license level and the features that come with it.
- Run NCC health checks and act on alerts, events and alert policies.
- Explain RF2 and RF3 data protection and the storage components of a Nutanix cluster.
- Choose between compression, deduplication and erasure coding for a workload.
Explore related topics
NCA exam content
4 domains · 14 topics · 289 of 293 questions sorted by domain
Describe Lifecycle Management38 questions
This section covers Life Cycle Manager (LCM), which updates software and firmware across a cluster. Candidates describe how LCM works, what an upgrade needs first, and how to follow its progress in Prism and deal with a failed step.
Skills tested
- Run an LCM inventory to see which software and firmware updates are available.
- Check the prerequisites before an AOS or firmware upgrade.
- Follow upgrade progress in Prism and find out why an upgrade stopped.
Questions by topic
- Describe Life Cycle Manager (LCM)21
- Monitor LCM software and firmware upgrades17
Describe Nutanix Basic Administration70 questions
This section is routine work in Prism. Candidates create and manage VMs, check cluster-level settings such as NTP and DNS, and find the cluster's license level.
Skills tested
- Create a VM, add its disks and network, and run power operations on it.
- Check cluster-level settings such as the cluster name, NTP and DNS.
- Find the license level and apply licenses through the license portal.
Questions by topic
- Describe how to perform basic VM tasks31
- Determine cluster license level20
- Identify cluster-level settings19
Maintain the Environmental Health of a Nutanix cluster environment77 questions
This section keeps a running cluster healthy. Candidates run and read health checks, manage alerts, events and alert policies, and open a support case. Pulse sends health data to Nutanix so that support can act early.
Skills tested
- Run NCC health checks and read their results.
- Set alert policies and email notifications, and resolve alerts.
- Collect a log bundle and open a support case on the Nutanix portal.
- Configure Pulse so that Nutanix receives cluster health data for proactive support.
Questions by topic
- Administer alerts, events and policies27
- Perform and interpret a health check34
- Create a support ticket16
Describe Cluster Configuration Options104 questions
This section covers the design choices inside a cluster. Candidates explain redundancy and replication factors, storage containers and pools, and the savings from compression, deduplication and erasure coding. They also identify the supported hypervisors, basic AHV networking and where each Nutanix product fits.
Skills tested
- Explain how RF2 and RF3 protect data and what each one costs in capacity.
- Match compression, deduplication or erasure coding to a workload.
- Compare AHV with the other supported hypervisors, such as Microsoft Hyper-V.
- Configure AHV virtual networks, bonds and uplinks on Open vSwitch.
- Pick the Nutanix product, such as Files, Objects or NC2, that fits a use case.
Questions by topic
- Determine and describe redundancy/replication factors19
- Identify basic AHV networking21
- Determine use cases for Nutanix products and services21
- Identify storage optimization13
- Identify storage components12
- Identify the supported hypervisors18
Requirements
- No formal prerequisites: anyone can book the exam.
- Recommended: six to twelve months of broad IT infrastructure experience and three to six months with Nutanix virtualization.
- Recommended: complete the Nutanix Hybrid Cloud Fundamentals (NHCF) course first.
About the NCA exam
NCA checks that an administrator can run a Nutanix cluster's daily tasks from the Prism console: VMs, health checks, alerts and upgrades. Nutanix aims it at systems administrators, IT operators and junior engineers with a few months of hands-on Nutanix virtualization. Its four sections cover Life Cycle Manager (LCM) upgrades, basic administration, cluster health, and the configuration choices behind a cluster, such as the redundancy factor and storage optimization. Passing earns the Nutanix Certified Associate certification at the start of the Multicloud Infrastructure track.
Questions on cluster configuration options make up the largest part of the PlanetCert practice test, from AHV networking to the use cases of Nutanix products. Several terms sound alike, such as the redundancy factor of a cluster and the replication factor of a storage container, and the explanations keep them apart. Study Mode suits the health section, where a Nutanix Cluster Check (NCC) result or an alert has to be read before the next step is clear. Brainy AI Assistant can explain what a failed NCC check means or how RF3 changes usable capacity.
How to earn the certification
- Earns
- Nutanix Certified Associate (NCA)Associate
Nutanix certifications stay valid for three years.
- After
- NCP-MCI-6-10 Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Infrastructure
The professional exam on deploying, running and troubleshooting Nutanix clusters, and the next step on the track.
- NCP-MCI-6-10 Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Infrastructure
How to prepare for NCA
- 1
Get hands-on time in Prism
Use any lab or test cluster and work through Prism Element and Prism Central until each menu is familiar. All four sections of the exam assume this console.
- 2
Walk one upgrade through LCM
Run an LCM inventory, read which updates it offers, and note the prerequisites for each one. If an upgrade is possible, follow its progress in Prism and read the task details.
- 3
Compare RF2 and RF3 on paper
Cluster configuration options have the most practice questions. Work out how many failures each setting survives and how much usable capacity it leaves, then note which data suits compression, deduplication or erasure coding.
- 4
Read NCC output and alerts
Run NCC health checks and sort the results by severity. Then create an alert policy with an email notification, and collect a log bundle as if for a support case.
- 5
Finish with a Timed Mode run
Take the NCA practice test in Timed Mode once the four sections are covered. For each miss, ask Brainy AI Assistant which Prism screen or setting the question is about.
Start a timed NCArun
Nutanix recommends its Nutanix Hybrid Cloud Fundamentals (NHCF) course before the exam.
Who NCA is for
- Systems administrators who run VMs and clusters on Nutanix.
- IT operators who watch cluster health, alerts and upgrades.
- Infrastructure and cloud administrators who are new to Nutanix.
Typical job titles: Systems administrator · IT operator · Infrastructure engineer · Virtualization administrator · Cloud administrator
NCA glossary
17 terms from the exam objectives and the vendor's official material, each defined in a sentence.
- Active-backup
- The default AHV bond mode, in which one uplink carries all traffic and the other waits as a standby.
- AHV
- The Nutanix hypervisor, based on KVM, which is included with AOS.
- AOS
- The Nutanix operating system that runs on each node and provides the cluster's distributed storage.
- Block awareness
- Placing data copies in different blocks, so that a whole block can fail without data loss.
- CVM
- The Controller VM that runs on every node and serves storage to the hypervisor and its VMs.
- Deduplication
- Storing repeated blocks of data only once, to save capacity.
- Erasure coding
- A storage saving method that replaces full data copies with parity, which cuts the capacity used by cold data.
- Inline compression
- Compression applied as data is written, before it reaches the disks.
- Life Cycle Manager
- The Nutanix tool that finds and applies software and firmware updates across a cluster.
- NC2
- Nutanix Cloud Clusters: the Nutanix software stack running on bare-metal servers in AWS or Azure.
- NCC
- Nutanix Cluster Check: the tool that runs health checks on a cluster and reports what it finds.
- Open vSwitch
- The virtual switch that AHV uses to connect VMs to each other and to the physical network.
- Post-process compression
- Compression applied after data has been written and has gone cold, so that writes are not slowed.
- Prism Central
- The Nutanix console that manages and monitors many clusters from one place.
- Prism Element
- The management interface built into each Nutanix cluster, used for that one cluster's settings and monitoring.
- Pulse
- A feature that sends cluster health and usage data to Nutanix, so that Nutanix Support can spot problems early.
- Redundancy factor
- The cluster setting for how many component failures the cluster can survive. Redundancy factor 2 survives one failure, and 3 survives two.