Nutanix Exam Cheat Sheet 2026

The 30 highest-yield Nutanix Exam facts, distilled from real exam questions. Print it, save it as a PDF, or study it here — free, no sign-up.

1. An organization wants to reduce the risk of configuration drift across multiple Nutanix clusters. Which Prism Central feature BEST addresses this? → Policy-based management and compliance dashboards
2. ISO/IEC 27017 extends ISO 27001 with cloud-specific controls. Which Nutanix deployment scenario would require adherence to ISO 27017? → A Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) deployment on AWS providing managed services to customers
3. Which report in Nutanix Prism Central provides a breakdown of VM resource consumption grouped by Nutanix category tags? → Chargeback/Showback Report
4. How does Nutanix's Acropolis Dynamic Scheduler (ADS) contribute to workload quality? → It live-migrates VMs to balance CPU and memory load across hosts without downtime
5. What does the Nutanix 'Expand Cluster' operation allow administrators to do? → Add new nodes to an existing cluster to increase capacity linearly
6. In a Nutanix cluster, what happens to storage access if the Controller VM (CVM) on a node fails? → VMs on that node transparently access storage through CVMs on other nodes
7. A Nutanix cluster expansion project is delayed because hardware shipment is two weeks late. This is an example of which type of project constraint? → External dependency constraint
8. In Nutanix, which tool provides proactive risk identification by monitoring cluster health, performance, and configuration against best practices? → Nutanix Insights (formerly Pulse)
9. A Nutanix Prism Central upgrade is planned as part of a larger infrastructure project. Why should this task be placed on the critical path? → Because downstream cluster management tasks depend on its completion
10. Which metric best measures the financial efficiency of a Nutanix cluster compared to the workloads it supports? → Cost per VM or cost per workload running on the cluster
11. Which Earned Value metric indicates whether a Nutanix deployment project is behind schedule when its value is less than 1.0? → Schedule Performance Index (SPI)
12. What is the minimum number of nodes required to form a production Nutanix cluster? → 3
13. How does Nutanix handle data deduplication for DR replicated data at the remote site? → The remote site also deduplicates data, saving space on the replication target
14. A company replaces a $2M traditional infrastructure with a $1.2M Nutanix HCI solution. Ignoring other factors, what is the upfront capital savings? → $800K
15. When a Nutanix-certified engineer notices a critical security vulnerability in a customer's environment, what is their ethical obligation? → Notify the customer immediately and provide remediation guidance
16. A company uses Nutanix across multiple departments and wants to allocate costs fairly without actually billing departments. Which financial model applies? → Showback—reporting consumption costs without transferring funds
17. What is the minimum number of nodes required to form a Nutanix cluster? → 3
18. In Nutanix Prism Central, which feature allows administrators to apply consistent policies—such as security rules and QoS settings—across multiple clusters? → Categories
19. In a Nutanix TCO model, what does 'soft cost savings' typically refer to? → Reductions in administrator time, training, and operational complexity
20. A Nutanix administrator needs to communicate a planned maintenance window to business stakeholders. Which approach is most effective? → Provide a plain-language summary with business impact, timing, and contact information
21. Which Nutanix feature uses machine learning to establish baseline behavior and alert on deviations in VM performance metrics? → Prism Pro Anomaly Detection
22. What is the Nutanix Distributed Storage Fabric (DSF) primarily designed to replace? → Traditional SAN/NAS storage
23. Under HIPAA's Breach Notification Rule, if a Nutanix cluster containing ePHI is compromised, covered entities must notify affected individuals within: → 60 calendar days of discovery
24. What is the purpose of a communication plan in Nutanix Exam project management? → To define what information is shared, with whom, when, and through which channels
25. In a Nutanix cluster, what happens to cluster operations if a single node loses power unexpectedly? → The cluster continues operating using data replicas on surviving nodes
26. Which Nutanix Calm feature directly supports project execution by automating repeatable infrastructure provisioning tasks? → Blueprints
27. Which financial model is most appropriate when a business needs to align IT infrastructure costs with actual workload usage on a per-project basis? → Showback or chargeback model tied to resource consumption metrics
28. Which Nutanix feature enables administrators to set I/O performance guarantees for specific VMs or storage containers? → Storage QoS (Quality of Service) policies
29. How should a Nutanix professional handle personally identifiable information (PII) encountered during a support engagement? → Access only what is necessary and discard or anonymize it when done
30. What is the primary purpose of Nutanix Era? → Database-as-a-service for provisioning and lifecycle management of databases