To configure the environment to satisfy the requirement of implementing a security policy named Staging_Production, such that no VM in the Staging Environment can communicate with any VM in the production Environment, you need to do the following steps:

Log in to Prism Central and go to Network > Security Policies > Create Security Policy. Enter Staging_Production as the name of the security policy and select Cluster A as the cluster.

In the Scope section, select VMs as the entity type and add the VMs that belong to the Staging Environment and the Production Environment as the entities. You can use tags or categories to filter the VMs based on their environment.

In the Rules section, create a new rule with the following settings:

Direction: Bidirectional

Protocol: Any

Source: Staging Environment

Destination: Production Environment

Action: Deny

Save the security policy and apply it to the cluster.

This will create a security policy that will block any traffic between the VMs in the Staging Environment and the VMs in the Production Environment. You can verify that the security policy is working by trying to ping or access any VM in the Production Environment from any VM in the Staging Environment, or vice vers

a. You should not be able to do so.

To correct the issue of cluster services down on Controller VM (35.197.75.196) in the least disruptive manner, you need to do the following steps:

Log in to Prism Element using the admin user credentials.

Go to the Alerts page and click on the alert to see more details.

You will see which cluster services are down on the Controller VM. For example, it could be cassandra, curator, stargate, etc.

To start the cluster services, you need to SSH to the Controller VM using the nutanix user credentials. You can use any SSH client such as PuTTY or Windows PowerShell to connect to the Controller VM. You will need the IP address and the password of the nutanix user, which you can find in Desktop\Files\SSH\nutanix.txt.

Once you are logged in to the Controller VM, run the command:

cluster status | grep -v UP

This will show you which services are down on the Controller VM.

To start the cluster services, run the command:

cluster start

This will start all the cluster services on the Controller VM.

To verify that the cluster services are running, run the command:

cluster status | grep -v UP

This should show no output, indicating that all services are up.

To clear the alert, go back to Prism Element and click on Resolve in the Alerts page.

To meet the security requirements for cluster level security, you need to do the following steps:

To update the default password for the root user on the node to match the admin user password, you need to SSH to the node using the root user credentials. You can use any SSH client such as PuTTY or Windows PowerShell to connect to the node. You will need the IP address and the password of the root user, which you can find in Desktop\Files\SSH\root.txt.

Once you are logged in to the node, run the command:

passwd

This will prompt you to enter a new password for the root user. Enter the same password as the admin user, which you can find in Desktop\Files\SSH\admin.txt.

To update the default password for the nutanix user on the CVM to match the admin user password, you need to SSH to the CVM using the nutanix user credentials. You can use any SSH client such as PuTTY or Windows PowerShell to connect to the CVM. You will need the IP address and the password of the nutanix user, which you can find in Desktop\Files\SSH\nutanix.txt.

Once you are logged in to the CVM, run the command:

passwd

This will prompt you to enter a new password for the nutanix user. Enter the same password as the admin user, which you can find in Desktop\Files\SSH\admin.txt.

To resolve the alert that is being reported, go back to Prism Element and click on Resolve in the Alerts page.

To output the cluster-wide configuration of SCMA policy to Desktop\Files\output.txt before changes are made, you need to log in to Prism Element using the admin user credentials.

Go to Security > SCMA Policy and click on View Policy Details. This will show you the current settings of SCMA policy for each entity type.

Copy and paste these settings into a new text file named Desktop\Files\output.txt.

To enable AIDE (Advanced Intrusion Detection Environment) to run on a weekly basis for the cluster, you need to log in to Prism Element using the admin user credentials.

Go to Security > AIDE Configuration and click on Enable AIDE. This will enable AIDE to monitor file system changes on all CVMs and nodes in the cluster.

Select Weekly as the frequency of AIDE scans and click Save.

To enable high-strength password policies for the cluster, you need to log in to Prism Element using the admin user credentials.

Go to Security > Password Policy and click on Edit Policy. This will allow you to modify the password policy settings for each entity type.

For each entity type (Admin User, Console User, CVM User, and Host User), select High Strength as the password policy level and click Save.

To ensure CVMs require SSH keys for login instead of passwords, you need to log in to Prism Element using the admin user credentials.

Go to Security > Cluster Lockdown and click on Configure Lockdown. This will allow you to manage SSH access settings for the cluster.

Uncheck Enable Remote Login with Password. This will disable password-based SSH access to the cluster.

Click New Public Key and enter a name for the key and paste the public key value from Desktop\Files\SSH\id_rsa.pub. This will add a public key for key-based SSH access to the cluster.

Click Save and Apply Lockdown. This will apply the changes and ensure CVMs require SSH keys for login instead of passwords.

Part1

Enter CVM ssh and execute:

cluster status | grep -v UP

cluster start

If there are issues starting some services, check the following:

Check if the node is in maintenance mode by running the ncli host ls command on the CVM. Verify if the parameter Under Maintenance Mode is set to False for the node where the services are down. If the parameter Under Maintenance Mode is set to True, remove the node from maintenance mode by running the following command:

nutanix@cvm$ ncli host edit id=<host id> enable-maintenance-mode=false

You can determine the host ID by using ncli host ls.

See the troubleshooting topics related to failed cluster services in the Advanced Administration Guide available from the Nutanix Portal's Software Documentation page. (Use the filters to search for the guide for your AOS version). These topics have information about common and AOS-specific logs, such as Stargate, Cassandra, and other modules.

Check for any latest FATALs for the service that is down. The following command prints all the FATALs for a CVM. Run this command on all CVMs.

nutanix@cvm$ for i in `svmips`; do echo 'CVM: $i'; ssh $i 'ls -ltr /home/nutanix/data/logs/*.FATAL'; done

NCC Health Check: cluster_services_down_check (nutanix.com)

Part2

Update the default password for the root user on the node to match the admin user password

echo -e 'CHANGING ALL AHV HOST ROOT PASSWORDS.\nPlease input new password: '; read -rs password1; echo 'Confirm new password: '; read -rs password2; if [ '$password1' == '$password2' ]; then for host in $(hostips); do echo Host $host; echo $password1 | ssh root@$host 'passwd --stdin root'; done; else echo 'The passwords do not match'; fi

Update the default password for the nutanix user on the CVM

sudo passwd nutanix

Output the cluster-wide configuration of the SCMA policy

ncli cluster get-hypervisor-security-config

Output Example:

nutanix@NTNX-372a19a3-A-CVM:10.35.150.184:~$ ncli cluster get-hypervisor-security-config

Enable Aide : false

Enable Core : false

Enable High Strength P... : false

Enable Banner : false

Schedule : DAILY

Enable iTLB Multihit M... : false

Enable the Advance intrusion Detection Environment (AIDE) to run on a weekly basis for the cluster.

ncli cluster edit-hypervisor-security-params enable-aide=true

ncli cluster edit-hypervisor-security-params schedule=weekly

Enable high-strength password policies for the cluster.

ncli cluster edit-hypervisor-security-params enable-high-strength-password=true

Ensure CVMs require SSH keys for login instead of passwords

https://portal.nutanix.com/page/documents/kbs/details?targetId=kA0600000008gb3CAA

To configure a DR solution that meets the stated requirements, you can follow these steps:

Log in to the Web Console of the source cluster where the VMs are running.

Click on Protection Domains on the left menu and click on Create Protection Domain.

Enter a name for the protection domain, such as PD_Mkt01, and a description if required. Click Next.

Select Mkt01 from the list of VMs and click Next.

Select Schedule Based from the drop-down menu and enter 2 hours as the interval. Click Next.

Select Remote Site from the drop-down menu and choose the remote site where you want to replicate the VM. Click Next.

Enter 5 as the number of snapshots to retain on both local and remote sites. Click Next.

Review the protection domain details and click Finish.

Repeat the same steps for Fin01 and Dev01, using PD_Fin01 and PD_Dev01 as the protection domain names, and adjusting the interval and retention values according to the requirements.

One possible reason why the SQL03 VM was not powered back on after a host failure is that the cluster was configured with the default (best effort) VM high availability mode, which does not guarantee the availability of VMs in case of insufficient resources on the remaining hosts. To resolve this issue, I suggest changing the VM high availability mode to guarantee (reserved segments), which reserves some memory on each host for failover of VMs from a failed host. This way, the SQL03 VM will have a higher chance of being restarted on another host in case of a host failure.

To change the VM high availability mode to guarantee (reserved segments), you can follow these steps:

Log in to Prism Central and select the cluster where the SQL VMs are running.

Click on the gear icon on the top right corner and select Cluster Settings.

Under Cluster Services, click on Virtual Machine High Availability.

Select Guarantee (Reserved Segments) from the drop-down menu and click Save.

To configure the environment to ensure any single host failure affects a minimal number of SQL VMs, I suggest using anti-affinity rules, which prevent VMs that belong to the same group from running on the same host. This way, if one host fails, only one SQL VM will be affected and the other SQL VMs will continue running on different hosts.

To create an anti-affinity rule for the SQL VMs, you can follow these steps:

Log in to Prism Central and click on Entities on the left menu.

Select Virtual Machines from the drop-down menu and click on Create Group.

Enter a name for the group, such as SQL Group, and click Next.

Select the SQL VMs (SQL01, SQL02, SQL03) from the list and click Next.

Select Anti-Affinity from the drop-down menu and click Next.

Review the group details and click Finish.

I hope this helps. How else can I help?

https://portal.nutanix.com/page/documents/details?targetId=AHV-Admin-Guide-v6_5:ahv-affinity-policies-c.html

To configure the VM to better leverage AHV Turbo, you can follow these steps:

Log in to Prism Element of cluster A using the credentials provided.

Go to VM > Table and select the VM named Turbo.

Click on Update and go to Hardware tab.

Increase the number of vCPUs to match the number of multiqueues that you want to enable. For example, if you want to enable 8 multiqueues, set the vCPUs to 8. This will improve the performance of multi-threaded workloads by allowing them to use multiple processors.

Change the SCSI Controller type from SATA to VirtIO. This will enable the use of VirtIO drivers, which are required for AHV Turbo.

Click Save to apply the changes.

Power off the VM if it is running and mount the Nutanix VirtIO ISO image as a CD-ROM device. You can download the ISO image from Nutanix Portal.

Power on the VM and install the latest Nutanix VirtIO drivers for Windows 10. You can follow the instructions from Nutanix Support Portal.

After installing the drivers, power off the VM and unmount the Nutanix VirtIO ISO image.

Power on the VM and log in to Windows 10.

Open a command prompt as administrator and run the following command to enable multiqueue for the VirtIO NIC:

ethtool -L eth0 combined 8

Replace eth0 with the name of your network interface and 8 with the number of multiqueues that you want to enable. You can use ipconfig /all to find out your network interface name.

Restart the VM for the changes to take effect.

You have now configured the VM to better leverage AHV Turbo. You can run your stress test application again and observe the performance gains.

https://portal.nutanix.com/page/documents/kbs/details?targetId=kA00e000000LKPdCAO

change vCPU to 2/4 ?

Change SATA Controller to SCSI:

acli vm.get Turbo

Output Example:

Turbo {

config {

agent_vm: False

allow_live_migrate: True

boot {

boot_device_order: 'kCdrom'

boot_device_order: 'kDisk'

boot_device_order: 'kNetwork'

uefi_boot: False

}

cpu_passthrough: False

disable_branding: False

disk_list {

addr {

bus: 'ide'

index: 0

}

cdrom: True

device_uuid: '994b7840-dc7b-463e-a9bb-1950d7138671'

empty: True

}

disk_list {

addr {

bus: 'sata'

index: 0

}

container_id: 4

container_uuid: '49b3e1a4-4201-4a3a-8abc-447c663a2a3e'

device_uuid: '622550e4-fb91-49dd-8fc7-9e90e89a7b0e'

naa_id: 'naa.6506b8dcda1de6e9ce911de7d3a22111'

storage_vdisk_uuid: '7e98a626-4cb3-47df-a1e2-8627cf90eae6'

vmdisk_size: 10737418240

vmdisk_uuid: '17e0413b-9326-4572-942f-68101f2bc716'

}

flash_mode: False

hwclock_timezone: 'UTC'

machine_type: 'pc'

memory_mb: 2048

name: 'Turbo'

nic_list {

connected: True

mac_addr: '50:6b:8d:b2:a5:e4'

network_name: 'network'

network_type: 'kNativeNetwork'

network_uuid: '86a0d7ca-acfd-48db-b15c-5d654ff39096'

type: 'kNormalNic'

uuid: 'b9e3e127-966c-43f3-b33c-13608154c8bf'

vlan_mode: 'kAccess'

}

num_cores_per_vcpu: 2

num_threads_per_core: 1

num_vcpus: 2

num_vnuma_nodes: 0

vga_console: True

vm_type: 'kGuestVM'

}

is_rf1_vm: False

logical_timestamp: 2

state: 'Off'

uuid: '9670901f-8c5b-4586-a699-41f0c9ab26c3'

}

acli vm.disk_create Turbo clone_from_vmdisk=17e0413b-9326-4572-942f-68101f2bc716 bus=scsi

remove the old disk

acli vm.disk_delete 17e0413b-9326-4572-942f-68101f2bc716 disk_addr=sata.0