NCA-6.5: Nutanix Certified Associate v6.5

Network segmentation is the best feature or configuration for securing network traffic between the management and storage replication environments. Network segmentation is the practice of dividing a computer network into subnets, each serving a different purpose or function. By dividing the network into different segments, it is possible to control and monitor the flow of traffic between the different segments, and to implement different security policies for each segment.

For example, the management environment could be segmented from the storage replication environment, and only specific traffic, such as management traffic, would be allowed to flow between the two segments. This can help to protect the management environment from potential security threats that may originate from the storage replication environment.

Other options like firewall rules, VM anti-affinity rules, and different storage containers can also help to secure network traffic, but network segmentation provides a more comprehensive and granular way to secure the traffic between different environments.

You can find more information on this topic in the Nutanix Security Configuration Guide, which is available on the Nutanix support website:

https://portal.nutanix.com/#/page/docs/details?targetId=Security-Guide-v5_24:Security-Guidev5_24

To configure Replication Factor 1 (RF1), the cluster must have at least three nodes. In RF1, data is replicated to two other nodes within the cluster, so having at least three nodes is necessary to ensure that the data is replicated. Moreover, when you configure RF1, the cluster must have a minimum of three nodes to ensure that the data is accessible even if one of the nodes goes down.

Reference: https://portal.nutanix.com/page/documents/details?targetId=Prism-Admin-Guidev5_6:pr-data-protection-replication-factor-c.html

Anti-affinity rules are used to ensure that virtual machines are not running on the same physical host. This can be useful in situations where the administrator wants to ensure that virtual machines are running on different hosts for high availability and to minimize the impact of a host failure. By creating an anti-affinity rule via CLI, the administrator can ensure that the SQL Server VMs are running on different hosts while still leveraging high availability in case of host failure. Reference:

https://portal.nutanix.com/page/documents/details?targetId=Web-Console-Guide-Prism-v5_11:wcaffinity-anti-affinity-rules_wc-affinity-anti-affinity-rules.html

The Redfish Protocol and Lifecycle Manager (LCM) provide the biggest benefit of allowing BMC and BIOS updates to be done twice as quickly as before. This is because Redfish and LCM allow for updates to be done in parallel, rather than serially, which reduces the amount of time it takes for an update to be completed.

Reference: https://portal.nutanix.com/page/documents/details?targetId=Platform-Administrator-Guide-v5_7:pag-redfish-lcm-c.html

In Prism Central, Image Placement Policies can be used to map images to target clusters using categories. An Image Placement Policy is a set of rules that determine where an image should be placed on the Nutanix cluster. These rules are based on categories, such as the image's OS type, the target cluster's hardware type, and other factors. By creating image placement policies, you can ensure that images are placed on the appropriate clusters, and that they are compatible with the hardware and software requirements of those clusters.

For example, you could create a placement policy that specifies that all Windows images should be placed on a specific cluster, and that all Linux images should be placed on another cluster. You can also set image replication policies on image placement policies, to ensure that images are replicated to multiple clusters for disaster recovery purposes.