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Exam Information
Official specifications published by Nutanix
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NCA Exam Topics and Domains
NCA is organized into 4 weighted domains. Expect to work with AOS, Prism Central, Prism Element, AHV, and more.
Describe Lifecycle Management
Describe Life Cycle Manager (LCM)
- Understand LCM architecture and components
- Identify prerequisites for upgrades
- Describe the upgrade process flow
Monitor LCM software and firmware upgrades
- Monitor upgrade progress through Prism
- Identify and troubleshoot upgrade issues
- Understand rollback procedures
Describe Nutanix Basic Administration
Describe how to perform basic VM tasks
- Create and configure virtual machines
- Manage VM lifecycle operations
- Configure VM storage and networking
Identify cluster-level settings
- Configure cluster-level settings
- Manage storage configuration
- Understand cluster networking
Determine cluster license level
- Understand license levels and features
- Apply and manage licenses
- Monitor license compliance
Maintain the Environmental Health of a Nutanix cluster environment
Perform and interpret a health check
- Execute and interpret health checks
- Monitor system performance
- Identify potential issues proactively
Administer alerts, events and policies
- Configure and manage alerts
- Analyze system events
- Create and manage policies
Create a support ticket
- Navigate support portal effectively
- Create and manage support cases
- Configure Pulse for proactive support
Describe Cluster Configuration Options
Determine and describe redundancy/replication factors
- Understand redundancy factors
- Configure data protection
- Plan for failure scenarios
Identify storage components
- Understand storage architecture
- Configure storage components
- Manage storage capacity
Identify storage optimization
- Configure storage optimization features
- Calculate space savings
- Choose appropriate optimization methods
Identify the supported hypervisors
- Compare hypervisor options
- Understand AHV architecture
- Plan hypervisor deployment
Identify basic AHV networking
- Configure AHV networking
- Manage virtual networks
- Configure physical uplinks
Determine use cases for Nutanix products and services
- Match products to use cases
- Understand cloud integration options
- Plan solution deployment
How do I earn this certification?
Passing NCA earns the Nutanix Certified Associate certification. It sits in the Multicloud Infrastructure track.
- NCP-MCI-6.10 - Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Infrastructure
- NCP-DB-6.5 - Nutanix Certified Professional - Database Automation
- NCS-Core - Nutanix Certified Specialist - Core
- NCP-US - Nutanix Certified Professional - Unified Storage Specialize in Nutanix Files and Objects storage solutions
- NCP-EUC - Nutanix Certified Professional - End User Computing Focus on VDI and desktop virtualization
- NCS-Core - Nutanix Certified Specialist - Core Deep dive into core Nutanix platform capabilities
Practice with Precision
The PlanetCert Simulator mirrors the real exam environment with authentic questions and timed pressure.
How to study for this exam?
The most effective way to prepare for NCA is by using the PlanetCert Simulator to practice questions and review detailed explanations.
What's changed on this exam?
- ACTIVE
- Last content update: 2024-12-10
- Announcement date: 2024-11-15
- Prism Central pc2024.2 Updated UI and new features included in NCA 6.10 • Release date: 2024-11-01
- Life Cycle Manager 2.8 New dark site capabilities and improved inventory management • Release date: 2024-10-15
- AHV 20240301 Enhanced networking features and GPU support • Release date: 2024-10-01
Who should take this exam?
This exam is typically taken by Systems Administrators and Junior Engineers.
- 6-12 months of holistic IT infrastructure experience
- 3-6 months of Nutanix virtualization experience
- Completion of Nutanix Hybrid Cloud Fundamentals (NHCF) course
- Experience with systems administration or IT operations