Virtual Machine Management Flashcards

What is AHV in Nutanix?

Answer: Acropolis Hypervisor

AHV stands for Acropolis Hypervisor, which is Nutanix's native, enterprise-grade hypervisor. It is based on KVM and is deeply integrated with the Nutanix software stack, providing a highly efficient and secure virtualization platform for running virtual machines directly on Nutanix nodes. AHV simplifies the infrastructure by eliminating the need for a separate hypervisor license.

Which tool is used to manage VMs in Nutanix?

Answer: Prism

Prism (both Prism Element and Prism Central) is the primary management interface for Nutanix environments. It provides a unified console for creating, managing, monitoring, and operating virtual machines, regardless of the underlying hypervisor (AHV, ESXi, or Hyper-V). Administrators use Prism to configure VM resources, network settings, and storage policies.

What is a virtual NIC used for in VM creation?

Answer: Provides network connectivity

A virtual NIC (vNIC) is a virtual network adapter assigned to a virtual machine. Its fundamental purpose is to provide network connectivity, enabling the VM to communicate with other virtual machines, physical servers, and external networks. Without a vNIC, a VM cannot participate in any network communications.

Which feature helps clone VMs quickly?

Answer: VM Cloning

VM cloning is a feature that allows you to create an exact copy of an existing virtual machine quickly and efficiently. In Nutanix, this process is highly optimized due to the distributed file system's ability to leverage features like redirect-on-write, which avoids copying all data blocks. This makes cloning ideal for rapid deployment of multiple identical VMs.

What resource must be allocated to a VM?

Answer: CPU, memory, storage

For a virtual machine to function correctly, it requires fundamental compute and storage resources. These essential resources include CPU (processing power), memory (RAM), and disk space (storage) for its operating system and applications. These resources are allocated from the underlying Nutanix cluster's pooled capacity.

Which operation moves a VM without downtime?

Answer: Live migration

Live migration is a crucial virtualization feature that enables a running virtual machine to be moved from one physical host to another within the cluster without any downtime or interruption to its services. This capability is essential for performing host maintenance, balancing workloads, and ensuring high availability of applications.

How can a VM be backed up?

Answer: Take a snapshot

Taking a snapshot of a VM creates a point-in-time copy of its state and data, allowing for quick recovery to a previous configuration. While not a full backup solution on its own, snapshots are often a foundational element in a backup strategy, enabling rapid restoration or serving as a source for replication to a dedicated backup target.

Where are VM images stored?

Answer: Image Configuration

In Nutanix, VM images, such as ISO files for operating system installations or disk images for cloning, are managed and stored within the 'Image Configuration' section of Prism. This central repository allows administrators to upload, store, and make these images readily available for use when creating or provisioning new virtual machines.

What is needed to connect a VM to a network?

Answer: Attach to a network

To enable a virtual machine to communicate with other devices and networks, it must be attached to a virtual network. This involves configuring a virtual NIC (vNIC) for the VM and connecting it to a specific virtual network segment, such as a VLAN or virtual switch, defined within the hypervisor environment.