How It works

 Hello. I have a question about the RF2 function.Currently, it is composed of 4 nodes and RF2 as a cluster.As far as I know, RF2 has 1 node fail.If so, shouldn't the Data Resiliency Status drop to Fail?However, although one node has failed, the Data Resiliency Status is still OK.In fact, the CPU, Memory, and Storage usage in the current cluster is low.Currently only 3 nodes are active CPU is 20% Memory is 40% Storage is 18.5%.Why is the Data Resiliency Status Ok?Is there any problem with the service even if one more node is currently turned off?Or will the cluster die if 1 more Node dies?If you don't die, I want to know why.

Hi.  Prism -> Data Protection -> EventGroups of Async DR run backups only once every Dawn.However, if check the event, I will see several messages per group.If there is a ‘Search’ group, several messages are generated for the 'Search' snapshot in the event.Each has a different time.(AM and PM). How can you explain this process? Thank you.

Hello All, I have three NUTNANIX Cluster with below AOS versions. Are any one below is End of life ? AOS                  (updated to version 5.15.2LTS) AOS                  (updated to version 5.10.11.1.LTS) AOS                  (updated to version 5.10.11.1.LTS)

Storage ContainersA storage container is a subset of available storage within a storage pool (see Creating a Storage Container). Storage containers are created within a storage pool to hold virtual disks (vDisks) used by virtual machines.CompressionYou can enable compression on a storage container. Compression can save physical storage space and improve I/O bandwidth and memory usage—which may have a positive impact on overall system performance.Inline compression will compress sequential streams of data or large I/O sizes (>64K) when written to the Extent Store (SSD + HDD).Offline compression will initially write the data as normal (in an un-compressed state) and then leverage the Curator framework to compress the data cluster wide. Below diagram explains how inline compression interacts with the DSF write I/O path:DeduplicationDeduplication reduces space usage by consolidating duplicate data blocks on Nutanix storage. You can enable either cache deduplication only or both cache an

Below are the top knowledge base articles for the month of October 2020.KB 7503 - NX Hardware [Memory] – G6, G7 platforms - DIMM Error handling and replacement policy KB 4116 - NX Hardware [Memory] – Alert - A1187, A1188 - ECCErrorsLast1Day, ECCErrorsLast10Days KB 1540 - What to do when /home partition or /home/nutanix directory on a Controller VM is full KB 4141 - Alert - A1046 - PowerSupplyDown KB 4158 - Alert - A1104 - PhysicalDiskBad KB 4409 - LCM: (LifeCycle Manager) Troubleshooting Guide KB 1113 - HDD/SSD Troubleshooting KB 6970 - PE-PC Connection Failure alerts KB 2090 - AHV | Host Networking KB 4519 - NCC Health Check: check_ntp KB 2473 - NCC Health Check: cvm_memory_usage_check KB 4272 - Alert - A6516 - Average CPU load on Controller VM is critically high KB 6945 - How Upgrades Work at Nutanix KB 7386 - NCC Health Check: power_supply_check KB 1863 - NCC Health Check: sufficient_disk_space_check KB 3523 - How to create a Phoenix ISO or AHV ISO from a CVM or Foundation VM KB 463

Below are new knowledge base articles published on the week of October 25-31, 2020.KB 10197 - Alert ID - A110260 - Remote replication of the protection domain snapshot is lagging KB 10201 - Network Validation Failing During Network Segmentation Setup KB 10211 - Shutdown token cannot be acquired on single-node Nutanix clusters KB 10217 - AHV hosts in cluster running AOS 5.18 or newer may become non-schedulable if bridge configuration across cluster nodes is not consistent KB 10218 - Imaging new nodes via Foundation may time out on nodes with many NICsNote: You may need to log in to the Support Portal to view some of these articles.

Nutanix platforms use a baseboard management controller (BMC) and basic input/output system (BIOS) to control the motherboard.The Nutanix BIOS contains optimized power management settings by default. Please do not change Power Management Configuration settings in the BIOS. Nutanix does not support custom power management configurations, and changing the power management settings in the BIOS can cause unpredictable behavior.Procedures updating the BMC and BIOS:1. Upgrade through LCM2. Manual UpgradeBMC: Nutanix BMC Manual Upgrade GuideBIOS: Nutanix BIOS Manual Upgrade GuideNote: Always upgrade BMC before BIOSRelease Notes: G6 And G7 Platforms

AHV hosts in cluster running AOS 5.18 or newer may become non-schedulable if bridge configuration across cluster nodes is not consistent. What is a non-schedulable node?A non-schedulable node is used to increase data storage on your Nutanix cluster and does not run any guest VMs on that node.To check if this situation exists on your cluster and to fix the issue, check KB-10217. 

Create3 new hard drive in PVS. Trying to boot via PVS and system boots directly to hard drive. Doesn’t use PVS even though the BDM iso points to PVS.  Anyone have any ideas.  Using Citrix LTSR 1912 ThanksDave 

Manual license selection allows the customer to select specific licenses available in the customer account and apply the selected licenses to the cluster. This feature can be used when: Mixing license types (e.g., Life-of-Device and Capacity Based Licensing) in a single cluster Selecting term licenses with specific expiration dates Selecting licenses tagged for specific use cases (e.g., owned by a particular organization) Manual license selection is available as an option to license products on Prism Element and Prism Central.  Where is the Manual License selection option?You see it on the portal’s ‘Manage licenses’ page displayed after .csf file from Prism (PC or PE appropriately) is uploaded. When ‘Select License’  is selected on each card, The pop-up has a ‘manually manage licenses’ option.How to access ‘manually manage licenses’ option on licensing workflow on portal:In the support portal navigate to Products--->Licenses--->manage licenses Manage licenses page: Here ‘Choo

To troubleshoot LCM issues related to DELL we need to go through PTAgent logs. They are located in following directions depending on version dellaum.logDell specific log to track firmware. These logs are located on the host. AHV Host:/var/log/dell/dellaum.logESXi Host:/scratch/log/dell/dellaum.log PowerTools.logDell's specific log to track interaction with the Dell Update Manager. The logs are located on the host. AHV Host:/var/log/dell/PowerTools.logESXi Host:/scratch/log/dell.PowerTools.log PTAgent.config Dell PTAgent configuration. Logs locations differ between the hypervisors.AHV:PTA 1.7.x:/opt/dell/DellPTAgent/bin/PTAgent.configPTA 1.8:/opt/dell/DellPTAgent/cfg/PTAgent.configESX:Pre-PTA 1.7-4.x:/scratch/dell/DellPTAgent/bin/PTAgent.configPTA 1.7.4+:/scratch/dell/config/PTAgent.config For details please refer following article:DELL_logs_location

Below are new knowledge base articles published on the week of October 18-24, 2020.KB 10119 - Alert ID - A130114 - WitnessNotConfigured KB 10120 - Alert ID - A1163 - Volume Group Action Error KB 10134 - File Analytics deployment fails with error: "Cannot connect to File Analytics VM from Prism. Please verify that network details for the VM are correct and the IP is reachable from Prism" KB 10158 - NGT installation fails with the following error message: The system cannot find the file specified. cmd.exe /c net start "Nutanix Self Service Restore Gateway" KB 10166 - Language setting cannot be changed in Prism if logged in as Domain Administrator KB 10179 - Create Image task failed uploading file from URL using FTP protocolNote: You may need to log in to the Support Portal to view some of these articles.

Nutanix provides a suite of utilities for cluster maintenance, including tools and scripts that help you use CVM and Prism resources more efficiently.Latest Version of Cluster Maintenance Utilities is CMU 2.0.3Procedural Notes:Update CMU with the Life Cycle Manager, starting with LCM version 2.3.4. Nutanix supports CMU with AOS 5.10 and later, and with both Prism Central and Prism Element.New Features:Beginning of update Support for CMU Scavenger tool for Cluster Cleanup (Scavenger is not a cluster-level service. It operates per VM)CMU 2.0.3 Release Notes

In VMware vCenter, when a new cluster created, the default  HA configuration is disabled: When opening the HA configuration for this cluster (Select cluster in inventory -> "Configure" tab -> vSphere Availability section -> "Edit" button for vSphere HA) we can see that HA is disabled and the response for "Datastore with PDL" and "Datastore with APD" is pre-defined as "Power off and restart VMs".  While this new cluster is still empty, if vShere HA is turned on from this configuration window, it unlocksconfiguration sections for PDL/APD response: If the response under "Datastore with APD" was not changed to "Disabled" before adding host(s) to the cluster then, later when freshly imaged ESXi host(s) (with Misc.APDhandlingEnable = 0 set by foundation process) are added to cluster, the APD response configuration section is locked and cannot be changed to "Disabled" according our recommendations for standalone clusters. As a result, attempting to enable HA on this cluster fails wit

Nutanix presents us with many management interfaces like HTML5(Prism), REST API, acli and ncli for managing and troubleshooting and maintaining work infrastructure.  We will look into how to access the Nutanix Command line Interface and what the capabilities and purpose of acli and ncli command-lets areaCLI: Acropolis Command Line Interface  Utility to create, modify and manage VMs in AHV. Provides extra abilities(commands) to manage AHV host networking, manual snapshot etc Cannot manage Nutanix Cluster and so we have ncli nCLI:  Nutanix Command Line Interface Utility to manage the entire Nutanix cluster operations. Ncli is more extensive and complex command set To access the CLI, You can install it on your local machine Check out how to install ncli on your local machine here. From any Controller VM SSH to any CVM as a nutanix user and type ncli and hit return to enter the ncli command shell and will be the same process for acli.Once inside the shell, you can view the list o

What is vNUMA?vNUMA (virtual non-uniform memory access) is a memory-access optimization method for VMware virtual machines (VMs) that helps prevent memory-bandwidth bottlenecks.The primary purpose of vNUMA is to give large virtual machines (or wide VMs) the best possible performance. vNUMA helps the wide VMs create multiple vNUMA nodes. Each vNUMA node has virtual CPUs and virtual RAM. Pinning a vNUMA node to a physical NUMA node ensures that virtual CPUs accessing virtual memory can get the expected NUMA behaviorBefore enabling vNUMA on Virtual Machines, see AHV Best Practices Guide.To enable vNUMA on your Virtual Machines, check this guide.

Here are simple steps in order to license the newly added node/nodes to the existing cluster:1. Generate a new cluster summary file from Prism element (cluster)2. Upload this file in the support portal under “manage licenses”.{Menu-->Licenses-->manage licenses}3. Next click on “manually manage licenses” option in blue.4. You will see your previously used up licenses , now you need to select licenses for the new node (click on dropdowns and put a check mark)5. Once you have selected all licenses you will get an option “save” and then “Next” on the bottom right.6. Next page will show you list of licenses which would be consumed, click on “confirm”.7. License file is generated , apply this file to the cluster. All nodes should be licensed now.  

Hi!While reading the documentation for storage QoS the following is mentioned as a limitation:Storage QoS is not supported for Metro Availability, synchronous replication, and AFS virtual machines.What will the actual result be if I apply storage QoS to a VM that I also replicate synchronously? Can I even do this? Or vice versa, what happens if I start replication of a VM with storage QoS?In what way does storage QoS conflict with Metro functionality?Thanks.

Hi,Do PD snapshots eventually all expire on my DR site if I lose the primary site (no communication between)?For instance I have a PD with 5 hourly replication snapshots retained locally and remotely. If I lose the primary site but can’t get to the DR site for say 6 hours, will I still be able to recover the PD?Thanks!

Is there a way using PowerShell to assign a large list of VMs to run from only specific hosts within an AHV cluster?  Basically is there a way to assign host affinity to a list of VMs?  I found commands for anti-affinity using the CLI but could not find anything related to setting affinity.  

Nutanix customers using AHV as their Hypervisor often run into disk space issues on their cluster and need to evaluate how much disk space is being consumed by each entity.  And one of the more important factors that needs to be considered is how much space is being taken up by each VM.  There needs to be an easy way of running one single command and get a listing of the space consumed by each VM, so that at one glance you can figure out which are the VMs that can be removed from the cluster right away in order to get some space reclamation.  As a bonus I have also included the command string that will add up all these numbers and give you the grand total of how much disk space has been consumed by all these VMs put together.I have come up with the following string manipulation to be able to get those numbers:nutanix@CVM:$ for Q in `acli vm.list | awk '{print $1}'`;do echo -n "$Q "; acli vm.get "$Q" | grep vmdisk_size | awk '{sum+=$2} END {print sum}' | awk '{ byte =$1 /1024/1024/10

Hi, Im planning to add 2 more blocks NX-3060-G6 with 2 nodes on each block. Currently i have 2 Block Nutanix NX-3060-G6 with 2 Nodes on each block.Current topology is 2 Block nutanix connected to Cisco 2960X with all eth interfaces connected to it. My question is, In NX-3060-G6 there are 3 Ethernet interfaces, 1 for MGMT (IPMI) and there are other 2 eth interfaces and 2 SFP+. For networking purpose,Do we need to use those 2 eth interfaces from each node in order to work? Or do we need to use only 1 eth interface only on each node? We’re adding 1 more switch Juniper EX4600, so if we need to use those 2 eth interfaces, can we separate them? 1 Eth interface to Cisco 2960X and the other goes to EX4600? Can i have different VLAN on each interfaces (exclude MGMT) that i connect to switch?Sorry if my question isn’t clear enough. But i hope you do understand it. Thank you.NX-3060-G6Networking Topology (Just for Eth Interfaces) 

Below are new knowledge base articles published on the week of October 11-17, 2020.KB 9073 - Two-Node Cluster: Unauthorized request to witness after password changed for witness KB 9795 - Advanced NUMA Configuration Options Under AHV KB 9951 - Pre-Upgrade Check: test_spdk_managed_disks_present KB 10003 - Install dot net Framework 3.5 on Windows 10 KB 10052 - VM console access fails with "Connection Error" if the VM name has "#" special character KB 10131 - vGPU VMs may not power on after AHV 20190916.x upgrade KB 10151 - Unable to enable pulse as it is failing with error "not able to communicate to https://insights.nutanix.com:443" KB 10154 - PE and PC custom login UI settings are not Persistent KB 10157 - install_host_package on AHV skips NVIDIA Volta (V100) and Turing (T4) model GPUNote: You may need to log in to the Support Portal to view some of these articles.

Memory allocation and distribution on the AHV Hypervisor is always a tricky equation and not very easy or straight forward to calculate.  I decided to dig deep into this aspect, and the findings were quite intricate.I ran the following command from the Acropolis Master and gathered information for Host 10.21.46.243:$ links http:0:2030 Let us refer to the data obtained for this Host on this listing:Host IP: 10.21.46.243CPUs: 88CPUs used: 37.58CPU free: 50.42Memory: 515822 MB say 512 GBMemory used: 261104 MB say 261 GBMemory Reserved: 0 MBMemory free: 254718 MB say 255 GBPlease note that the output we obtain by running # cat /proc/meminfo on the Host hypervisor will show small numbers for MemFree and MemAvailable fields (less than 0.2%of the Total RAM on the Host): [root@NTNX-16SM76360147-A ~]# cat /proc/meminfo | head -3MemTotal:       528210648 kBMemFree:         1891960 kBMemAvailable:    2619508 kB[root@NTNX-16SM76360147-A ~]#This is because Memory allocations are made in advance by

AWS or Azure can be configured as a remote site for backup and restore operations, this feature is known as cloud connect. The cloud connect feature enables you to back up and restore copies of virtual machines and files to and from an on-premise cluster and a Nutanix Controller VM located on the Amazon Web Service (AWS) or Microsoft Azure cloud. The Nutanix Controller VM is created on an AWS or Azure cloud in a geographical region of your choice. It is a single-node cluster with a 30 terabyte (TB) disk attached to the node, with a usable disk capacity of 20 TB. Amazon or Azure customers are charged only for capacity that is used (not charged for the full capacity). Once configured through the web console, the remote site cluster is managed and monitored through the Data Protection dashboard like any other remote site you have created and configuredCloud configuration guide at : Cloud Connect (AWS AND AZURE)Step-By-Step Azure Remote Site Configuration for Azure Cloud Backuphttps://port