NCP-MCA Exam Dumps - Nutanix Certified Professional (NCP) Questions and Answers

When configuring a Playbook in Intelligent Operations (X-Play), the "User Execution" settings allow the administrator to define a specific user context (impersonation) under which the playbook actions run.

However, for alocal user accountcreated in Prism Central to be available and valid for this impersonation, that usermust have logged into the Prism Central interface at least once. This login event creates the necessary user profile and mapping within the Prism Central database that X-Play requires to authenticate and execute actions on their behalf. If the user has been created but never logged in, they cannot be successfully used for playbook execution.

Playbooks in Intelligent Operations (X-Play) areEvent-Driven. They execute strictly when a specific event (trigger) occurswhilethe playbook is active.

The Scenario:The administrator sees the category Expired is present on the VM, and the Playbook is currently enabled.

The Cause (Option B):If the category was applied to the VMwhile the Playbook was disabled(or before it was created), the system generated the "Category Assigned" event, but the Playbook was not listening for it at that time.

Consequence:When the administrator later enables the Playbook, it does not retroactively scan for existing VMs with that category; it only waits fornewassignment events. Since the event was missed, no execution record exists.

To fix this, the administrator would need to re-apply the category (remove and add) while the Playbook is enabled to generate a new event.

When a Blueprint is designed to trigger external automation (like a Playbook via Webhook or API) or perform post-deployment actions (like applying categories via script), these actions must be explicitly defined asTaskswithin the Blueprint's lifecycle.

The Symptom:The VM provisioning (Substrate) succeeded, but the subsequent logic (Categories/Notifications) failed to happen.

The Cause:In Self-Service, simply creating a Blueprint does not automatically link it to an Intelligent Operations Playbook. The developer must add a specific task (e.g., an HTTP Request task targeting the Playbook trigger, or a specific "Execute Playbook" action) to theService Profile(specifically the Post-Create or Create phase).

If this task is missing, disabled, or misconfigured (e.g., wrong URL or payload), the VM will deploy, but the call to the Playbook will never occur, resulting in missing categories and notifications.

Option A is incorrect because deployment would not start at all without a Project. Option D is incorrect because Playbooks are not published to the Marketplace (Blueprints are).

InIntelligent Operations (X-Play) Playbooks, the syntax for string interpolation (using parameters) differs from Self-Service (Calm).

Playbook Syntax:X-Play uses thedouble curly bracesyntax {{ ... }} to reference parameters.

Example:To reference the name of the entity that triggered the playbook, the correct parameter string is {{trigger[0].source_entity_info.name}} or {{trigger[0].alert_entity_info.name}} depending on the trigger type.

Contrast:@@{...}@@ (Option B) is the syntax used inSelf-Service (Calm)macros, not X-Play Playbooks.

In Nutanix Self-Service (Calm), to share a Runbook across multiple projects, it must be published to the Marketplace.

When an administrator selects an existing Runbook and chooses the "Publish" option:

Secret Handling:The system strictly enforces thatsecrets (passwords/keys) are not published. The administrator is required to verify that no secret values are hardcoded. Any sensitive variables are stripped or must be set to runtime input during the publication process.

Project Selection:During the publication or approval workflow via theMarketplace Manager, the administrator configures theProject Sharingsettings. This determines which projects have access to view and execute the Runbook from the Marketplace.

It is not necessary to clone the Runbook first; the publication process itself creates the Marketplace entry derived from the source Runbook.

Nutanix Self-Service (Calm) is designed to model complex applications using Multi-VM Blueprints.

To support a multi-tier stack (Web, App, DB) deployable in a single action:

Multiple Services:The administrator defines three distinct Services within the blueprint editor, one for each tier.

Dependencies:The administrator defines boot dependencies (e.g., Database must be up before App Server; App Server must be up before Web Server).

Single Action:Once published to the Project, the end-user sees a single catalog item. Clicking "Launch" triggers the orchestration engine to provision all VMs and configure them in the correct order automatically.

In the Nutanix Self-Service (Calm) Blueprint lifecycle, tasks are executed in a specific order relative to the provisioning of the infrastructure (Substrate).

Pre-Create Task:This is the specific phase designed to run scripts or set variablesbeforethe VM provision call is sent to the provider (AHV).

Workflow:

The developer creates a pre-create task (e.g., a Python script) to generate the custom hostname string based on logic (e.g., date, user input, or sequence).

The script outputs this string to a variable (e.g., @@{vm_hostname}@@).

The VM Service configuration (Substrate) references this variable in the "VM Name" or "Hostname" field.

Execution:When the blueprint launches, the pre-create task runs first, populates the variable, and then the VM creation occurs using that calculated name.

Tasks in post-create or package-install (Options B and C) runafterthe VM has already been provisioned and named, making them too late for this requirement.

In Nutanix Self-Service (Calm), the Marketplace Manager is the specific administrative view used to govern the publication of blueprints.

When a developer submits a blueprint for publication, it enters a "Pending Approval" state. An administrator must access theMarketplace Manager, navigate to theApproval Pendingtab, and explicitly approve the blueprint. Only after this approval does the blueprint become visible to end-users in the standard Marketplace.

"Approval Policies" (Option C) refer to runtime restrictions (e.g., requiring approval toprovisiona VM), not the pre-publication governance of the blueprint design itself.

Creating and managingPlaybookswithin the Intelligent Operations (X-Play) feature of Prism Central requires an administrative role with sufficient privileges to define system-wide automation rules.

Prism Admin:ThePrism Admin(or Super Admin) role is explicitly required to create, edit, enable, and manage Playbooks. This role grants full control over the Intelligent Operations module.

Prism Viewer (A):This role has read-only access and can view Playbooks but cannot create or modify them.

Self-Service Admin (D):This role is specific to the Self-Service (Calm) application and its blueprints/projects, not the X-Play automation engine in Prism Central.

In Nutanix Self-Service (Calm) Projects, the "Allow Collaboration" setting controls the visibility and management of entities shared among project members.

Allow Collaboration Enabled:This allows any group member to see the VMs, applications, scheduler jobs, and other objects created by other members of the group. With the appropriate role permissions, they can also modify these shared entities.

Allow Collaboration Disabled:Project users can manageonlythe objects that they strictly created themselves. They cannot view or edit objects created by other users, even if they are in the same project.

To modify a Scheduler Job created by another user, "Allow Collaboration" must be enabled for that Project.