Nutanix – Page 2 – en.vmik.net

Deploying Kubernetes clusters using Nutanix Kubernetes Engine on Nutanix Community Edition

Nutanix Kubernetes Engine, or NKE (formerly Karbon), is a solution to deploy and manage Kubernetes clusters in a Nutanix infrastructure.

With NKE, we can deploy Kubernetes clusters, upgrade them, add or remove workers, configure RBAC based on Prism Central, and more in a pretty simple way.

The purpose of this article is to provide a walkthrough on how to prepare a Nutanix cluster for use with NKE and how to deploy a Kubernetes cluster.

Deploying Prism Central on Nutanix Community Edition 2.0 using the 1-Click Internet Method

Nutanix Community Edition 2.0 is compatible with the commercial version of Prism Central (PC), and we can use the 1-click Internet Method to deploy the PC, which significantly simplifies the deployment procedure.

For those who don’t know, Prism Central provides the ability to manage multiple Nutanix clusters from a single pane of glass, as well as additional features for managing, monitoring, reporting, and access control that are not available from the Prism Element interface. Also, Prism Central is required for deploying services like Nutanix Kubernetes Engine, Objects, Flow, and so on.

The purpose of this article is to provide a walkthrough on using 1-Click PC deployment.

Using Workers in Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV

Veeam workers are the VMs running in the Nutanix cluster used in large environments to speed up the backup and restore processes.

Veeam Backup and Replication manages those VMs. During backup or restore procedures, VMs are powered on to process the data, and when backup or restore is finished, they are powered off.

We can consider workers as temporary proxies, working only during backup or restore procedures.

In this article, we will look at how to add workers to the backup infrastructure and how it works.

A few tips for preparing for the Nutanix Certified Expert — Multicloud Infrastructure exam

In 2022, I had the opportunity to take the Nutanix Certified Expert — Multicloud Infrastructure (NCX-MCI) certification exam, and in this article, I would like to talk a little about the certification and give some tips for preparation.

Notice: This is a translated version of my original post, written in 2022 after I passed this exam. Since then, a few things have changed, but the overall process is still the same.

What’s new at Nutanix University?

As I wrote a few months ago, Nutanix released a new training and certification related to Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) – Nutanix Certified Professional – Cloud Integration.

It contains two free online courses:
Nutanix Cloud Clusters on AWS Administration (NC2A-AWS) – Configuring and administrating NC2 in the AWS environment;
Nutanix Cloud Clusters on Azure Administration (NC2A-Azure) – Configuring and administrating NC2 in the Microsoft Azure environment.

And two exams:
Nutanix Certified Professional – Cloud Integration – AWS (NCP-CI-AWS) 6.7;
Nutanix Certified Professional – Cloud Integration – Azure (NCP-CI-Azure) 6.7.

Both exams are exiting the beta stage and will be available from April 30.

And the good news! Until April 19, two 100% discounts are available:

NCP-CI-AWS 6.7 exam discount code: NXFRCIAWS67;
NCP-CI-Azure 6.7 exam discount code: NXFRCIAZ67.

To get Nutanix Certified Professional – Cloud Integration 6 status, and badge, you don’t need to take both exams, but just one of them. So, schedule an exam today using a discount code and take an exam after April 30.

Quick fix: Nutanix. Restore admin password

It’s not a common situation, but it does happen sometimes, especially in test clusters.

To change the admin password we need to connect to the CVM, for example, using the nutanix user, and reset the password:

$ ncli user reset-password user-name=admin password=MyStrong@Passw0rd
Password of user 'admin' reset successfully
Please login again with new credentials.

The password should be strong and between 8 and 255 characters. It should differ by at least 4 characters from previous password and it should not be from last 5 passwords.

Now you can connect to Prism and use the password you just set.

Veeam Backup & Replication Instant Recovery to Nutanix AHV

I have previously written about how to connect VBR to a Nutanix cluster, as well as how to create backup tasks and restore.

In this article, we will talk about a very important VBR functionality – Instant Recovery, support for which was added with the release of Nutanix AOS 6.0 STS and AOS 6.5 LTS.

What’s new at Nutanix University?

Good news for Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) users – two new courses and certification tracks have been announced.

Two free online courses:
Nutanix Cloud Clusters on AWS Administration (NC2A-AWS) – Configuring and administrating NC2 in the AWS environment;
Nutanix Cloud Clusters on Azure Administration (NC2A-Azure) – Configuring and administrating NC2 in the Microsoft Azure environment.

Both courses include a theoretical part and Hands-on Labs as well.

And there are new certifications – Nutanix Certified Professional – Cloud Integration for AWS and Azure.

NCP-CI-AWS 6.7;
NCP-CI-Azure 6.7.

As usual, both exams are in beta state, and you can take them for free. Use discount code NCPCIAWS67BETA for NCP-CI-AWS 6.7 exam and NCPCIAZURE67BETA for NCP-CI-Azure 6.7. This offer is only available to the first 250 participants, and the last day to test is March 10, 2024.

Using SSH key-based authentication and Lockdown mode in Nutanix clusters

Last year, a new check added to the NCC module may require your attention:

“Password-based remote login is enabled on the cluster. It is recommended to use key-based SSH access instead of password-based SSH access for better security.”

Although this check has a severity level of “Info”, if you dig a little bit deeper, you can find, that password-based authentication will be a deprecated authentication method since 2024. And we can only guess when key-based authentication will be not a recommendation, but a requirement.

In this article, we will look at Cluster Lockdown Mode and how to enable key-based access to the cluster.

How to backup Nutanix AHV using Veeam Backup and Replication 12.1 and Veeam Plug-In for Nutanix AHV v5

In this article, we will look at backing up Nutanix AHV virtual machines using VBR 12.1 and Nutanix AHV Plug-In v5.

The main difference between the v4 plugin and v5 is the possibility of creating backup jobs related to Nutanix AHV VMs right in the VBR console. You don’t need to connect to the backup appliance deployed in a Nutanix cluster to create a backup job.

Also, please make sure, that you’re using version 5.1 of the plugin or higher because of the critical bug found in v5.0.