Course Overview & Delivery Format
Methodology: 95% Hands-On Enterprise Labs / 5% Instructor-Led Architecture Discussion
Target Audience: VMware Administrators, Infrastructure Engineers, Systems Engineers, Cloud & Datacenter Architects, Systems Administrators
Overview: This intensive boot camp is designed for experienced VMware administrators transitioning to Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) and AHV Hypervisor. The course is approximately 95% hands-on and focuses on enterprise planning, workload migration via Nutanix Move, Acropolis Distributed Storage Fabric (DSF), Flow Networking, Prism Central management, high availability, disaster recovery, and production operations across guided enterprise labs.
Module 1: Enterprise Nutanix AHV Architecture & Foundations
Module Focus: Establish a foundational understanding of Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), Acropolis Operating System (AOS), AHV Hypervisor, and Distributed Storage Fabric (DSF). Learn to build, optimize, and validate enterprise-ready hyperconverged clusters managed via Prism Element and Prism Central from the ground up.
Key Core Curriculum Topics
- Nutanix HCI architecture & Distributed Storage Fabric (DSF) vs. VMware vSphere/vSAN infrastructure models
- AHV Hypervisor core architecture, Controller VM (CVM) data path, and host servicing
- Nutanix Virtual Networking: AHV Open vSwitch (OVS), Bond modes, VLANs, and Flow Virtual Networking
- Storage Architecture: Storage Pools, Storage Containers, Replication Factor (RF2/RF3), Deduplication, Compression, and Erasure Coding
- Guest VM lifecycle management, Nutanix Guest Tools (NGT) integration, and VM Templates/Images
- Multi-node cluster bootstrapping, IPMI/Foundation deployment, and cluster health diagnostics via NCC
Guided Hands-On Enterprise Labs
- Lab 1.1 Foundation Bootstrapping & AHV Node Installation: Execute Nutanix Foundation to image bare-metal nodes with AHV and AOS. Configure node IP addresses, CVM memory allocation, and IPMI management settings.
- Lab 1.2 Enterprise Licensing & LCM Patching: Deploy Life Cycle Manager (LCM) to apply system updates, firmware patches, AOS upgrades, and AHV host patches across cluster nodes without downtime.
- Lab 1.3 Core Network & CVM Infrastructure Setup: Configure cluster-wide DNS resolution, NTP synchronization, and active domain name resolution. Validate storage performance and network latency thresholds required for CVM stability.
- Lab 1.4 Open vSwitch (OVS) & AHV Uplink Bonding: Configure OVS bridge configurations (br0, br1) on AHV hosts. Implement active-backup and LACP bond modes across physical 10GbE/25GbE interfaces.
- Lab 1.5 VLAN Trunking & Microsegmentation Pre-Reqs: Configure VLAN ID tagging on AHV Virtual Switches and VM NICs to segregate CVM management, hypervisor traffic, and user VM subnets.
- Lab 1.6 Acropolis Storage Container Provisioning: Initialize storage containers within the Distributed Storage Fabric. Configure Replication Factor 2 (RF2) and Replication Factor 3 (RF3) policies.
- Lab 1.7 Data Efficiency Optimization (Compression, EC & Dedupe): Enable Inline Compression, Post-Process Compression, Erasure Coding (EC-X), and Fingerprint Deduplication across target storage containers.
- Lab 1.8 Shared Storage Integration: Nutanix Volumes (iSCSI): Configure Nutanix Volumes to export block storage LUNs via iSCSI to external physical servers and bare-metal database instances.
- Lab 1.9 Shared Storage Integration: Nutanix Files (SMB/NFS): Deploy a Nutanix Files cluster to deliver enterprise NFS and SMB file shares directly from the Nutanix HCI cluster.
- Lab 1.10 Centralized Image Service & Template Management: Configure the Prism Central Image Service. Upload Linux distribution ISOs, Windows Server media, and Cloud-Init image specs.
- Lab 1.11 Enterprise Linux VM Deployment on AHV: Deploy a production Linux Virtual Machine on AHV using Prism Central. Assign vCPUs, RAM, storage controllers, and vNIC profiles.
- Lab 1.12 Windows VM Deployment & VirtIO Driver Setup: Deploy a Windows Server Virtual Machine on AHV. Inject Nutanix VirtIO SCSI, network, and balloon drivers during OS installation.
- Lab 1.13 Nutanix Guest Tools (NGT) Deployment & Optimization: Install and mount Nutanix Guest Tools (NGT) on Linux and Windows guest VMs. Enable VSS application-consistent snapshots and CLI agent communication.
- Lab 1.14 VM Customization & Cloud-Init Template Creation: Generalize master Linux and Windows VMs using sysprep and Cloud-Init configurations. Convert master VMs into reusable Prism Central Templates.
- Lab 1.15 Prism Central Deployment & Multi-Cluster Registration: Deploy Prism Central VM instances, establish HA scale-out Prism Central deployments, and register Prism Element clusters.
- Lab 1.16 Prism Central RBAC & Category Configuration: Define custom Roles, Access Control Policies (ACP), and System Categories in Prism Central to enforce multi-tenant administrative boundaries.
- Lab 1.17 Cluster Health Diagnostics via Nutanix Cluster Check (NCC): Execute full Nutanix Cluster Check (NCC) health diagnostics via CLI (`ncc health_checks run_all`) and analyze cluster status.
- Lab 1.18 Storage & Network IOPS Benchmarking: Run synthetic benchmarking tools (X-Ray, FIO) against DSF containers and AHV storage paths to establish baseline throughput and latency metrics.
- Lab 1.19 AHV Network & Storage Troubleshooting: Diagnose intentional CVM network disconnects, storage container degradation, and OVS bond misconfigurations using `acli`, `ncli`, and `cvm` tools.
- Lab 1.20 Architecture Validation & Comprehensive Audit: Perform an audit of cluster storage capacity, CVM health, network bridges, and Prism Central policies prior to executing migration workflows.
Module 2: VMware Infrastructure Assessment & Workload Migration Planning
Module Focus: Discover, analyze, and plan the systematic migration of VMware vSphere workloads to Nutanix AHV. Master automated discovery tools, Nutanix Move deployment, agentless disk replication, driver injection, and cutover pipelines.
Key Core Curriculum Topics
- Automated discovery and inventory of VMware vCenter assets using Nutanix Move / RVTools
- VMware VM dependency mapping, performance profiling, and migration wave planning
- Agentless migration architecture: Nutanix Move deployment, source/target provider setup, and network mapping
- Execution models: Cold migration, seed replication, warm sync, and cutover execution
- Driver remediation: Automatic removal of VMware Tools and injection of Nutanix VirtIO drivers
- Rollback strategies, change control execution, and post-migration validation
Guided Hands-On Enterprise Labs
- Lab 2.1 Automated VMware Environment Discovery: Deploy Nutanix Move appliance and execute automated discovery scripts against vCenter APIs to catalog hosts, datastores, and virtual machines into an assessment tracking matrix.
- Lab 2.2 Application Dependency & Service Group Mapping: Analyze network traffic flows and application dependencies across legacy VMware workloads to group virtual machines into low-risk migration waves.
- Lab 2.3 Nutanix Move Appliance Deployment & Configuration: Deploy the Nutanix Move virtual appliance on the target Nutanix AHV cluster. Configure administrative credentials and network access parameters.
- Lab 2.4 Connecting Source (vCenter) and Target (AHV) Providers: Register source VMware vCenter Server and target Nutanix AHV environment within Nutanix Move. Validate SSL certificate trust and provider readiness.
- Lab 2.5 Configuring Migration Network & Storage Mappings: Map source vSphere Distributed Switches / Port Groups and VMFS datastores to target AHV Virtual Switches and Nutanix Storage Containers.
- Lab 2.6 Seed Replication Execution: Linux Workloads: Create Nutanix Move Migration Plans for Linux workloads and initiate non-disruptive initial seed data replication while source VMs remain live on VMware.
- Lab 2.7 Seed Replication Execution: Windows Workloads: Configure Move Migration Plans for Windows Server instances. Perform initial data seeding and monitor delta sync progress over the network.
- Lab 2.8 Automatic VMware Tools Cleanup & VirtIO Injection Setup: Configure Move in-guest driver options to automatically uninstall VMware Tools and inject Nutanix VirtIO drivers during final VM cutover.
- Lab 2.9 Cold Cutover Migration: Standalone Linux Workloads: Execute final cutover for Linux application servers. Move quiesces source VMs, performs final delta block sync, shuts down source VMs, and powers up AHV VMs.
- Lab 2.10 Cold Cutover Migration: Windows Server Workloads: Perform final cutover execution for legacy Windows Server instances. Verify automatic VirtIO driver activation, disk controller attachment, and guest boot state.
- Lab 2.11 Migrating Active Directory Domain Controllers: Migrate secondary Active Directory domain controllers to Nutanix AHV while primary DCs remain on VMware. Validate SYSVOL replication, Kerberos, and DNS health post-cutover.
- Lab 2.12 Migrating Enterprise Microsoft SQL Databases: Perform database-aware migrations of Microsoft SQL Server workloads. Quiesce database services, sync transaction logs, execute Move cutover, and verify DB consistency.
- Lab 2.13 Migrating IIS & Web Application Servers: Migrate IIS and web application servers to Nutanix AHV nodes. Update network IP bindings, SSL certificates, and verify external service reachability.
- Lab 2.14 Post-Migration Driver & Network Adapter Verification: Verify complete removal of VMware Tools, clean up ghost network adapters in Windows Device Manager, and verify Nutanix Guest Tools (NGT) agent status.
- Lab 2.15 Network Re-IP & DNS Update Automation: Execute automated scripts via Nutanix Move / PowerShell to update IP addresses, default gateways, and enterprise Active Directory DNS records for migrated VMs.
- Lab 2.16 Automated Migration Wave Execution: Execute a multi-VM migration wave using Nutanix Move automated batch scheduling. Track seeding times, delta sync durations, and cutover downtime against SLAs.
- Lab 2.17 Near-Zero Downtime Cutover Execution: Execute timed final cutovers for mission-critical VMs with continuous delta syncs running right up to the maintenance window, minimizing cutover downtime to under 5 minutes.
- Lab 2.18 Rollback Plan Execution & DR Simulation: Simulate a migration failure during cutover, cancel Move execution, power back on original VMware source VMs, and validate data integrity to guarantee zero data loss.
- Lab 2.19 Post-Migration Application Acceptance Testing: Run automated validation scripts to verify database connectivity, web endpoints, and Active Directory authentication across migrated AHV virtual machines.
- Lab 2.20 Migration Readiness Gate Review: Audit overall migration metrics, Move conversion logs, and performance reports across completed waves. Complete the readiness checklist before advancing to enterprise HA/ DR.
Module 3: Enterprise Storage, Backup & High Availability Architecture
Module Focus: Design, deploy, and maintain highly available compute, networking, and storage infrastructure in Nutanix AHV. Master Nutanix High Availability, Protection Domains, Leap Disaster Recovery, Nutanix Mine backup integration, and Metro Availability topologies.
Key Core Curriculum Topics
- Nutanix AHV High Availability (HA) models: Best-Effort vs. Guarantee Reserved Resources
- Data Protection: Async Replication, NearSync (1–15 min RPO), and Metro Availability (Zero RPO / RTO)
- Disaster Recovery Orchestration: Nutanix Disaster Recovery (Leap), Recovery Plans, and Protection Policies
- Storage Snapshots & Clones: Redirect-on-Write (RoW) snapshots, space-efficient cloning, and VM restores
- Enterprise Backup: Nutanix Mine, HYCU, Veeam, and Commvault integration with Nutanix DSF
- Storage failure recovery, CVM failover, node degradation handling, and auto-healing
Guided Hands-On Enterprise Labs
- Lab 3.1 Nutanix AHV High Availability Configuration: Configure AHV Cluster High Availability settings in Prism Element. Enable Resource Reservation mode to guarantee compute capacity during node failures.
- Lab 3.2 Storage Container Resiliency & Replication Factor Tuning: Validate data block placement across physical nodes. Test container resiliency state during storage disk and node capacity changes.
- Lab 3.3 Protection Domain Configuration (Async Replication): Create local and remote Protection Domains. Configure scheduled snapshots and Async replication schedules across Nutanix clusters.
- Lab 3.4 NearSync Replication Setup (1-Minute RPO): Configure NearSync protection schedules for critical database workloads, achieving 1-minute RPO block replication to secondary remote clusters.
- Lab 3.5 Metro Availability Setup (Zero RPO): Configure Metro Availability synchronous replication for stretched cluster configurations. Test active-active storage container presentation across sites.
- Lab 3.6 Granular VM Snapshot & File-Level Restores: Take application-consistent snapshots using NGT/VSS. Perform granular file-level restores directly from snapshots via Prism Central.
- Lab 3.7 Nutanix Disaster Recovery (Leap) Setup: Configure Nutanix Disaster Recovery in Prism Central. Create Availability Zones, connect remote clusters, and define replication categories.
- Lab 3.8 Recovery Plan Creation & Network Mapping: Build Nutanix DR Recovery Plans. Define VM boot priority ordering, execution scripts, and production vs. test network mappings for DR failover.
- Lab 3.9 DR Failover Testing (Non-Disruptive Failover): Execute non-disruptive DR failover testing using isolated test networks in Nutanix Disaster Recovery. Validate application startup without impacting production.
- Lab 3.10 Planned & Unplanned DR Failover Execution: Execute planned DR migrations for datacenter maintenance, and trigger unplanned emergency failover during simulated primary site destruction.
- Lab 3.11 Hard Node Power Failure & AHV Host Failover: Simulate ungraceful power loss on a physical AHV host node. Observe CVM failover, automatic VM rescheduling, and restart execution on surviving nodes.
- Lab 3.12 CVM Failover & Storage Path Redirection: Forcefully reboot a Controller VM (CVM). Observe AHV host auto-redirecting storage I/O traffic to neighboring node CVMs via iSCSI loopback.
- Lab 3.13 Live VM Migration (Acropolis Dynamic Scheduling): Perform live migrations of running VMs between AHV hosts. Observe Acropolis Dynamic Scheduling (ADS) auto-balancing compute resource usage.
- Lab 3.14 Storage Disk Failure Simulation & Self-Healing: Forcefully fail an NVMe/SSD drive within a Nutanix node. Monitor DSF automatic data rebuilds and background re-replication back to RF2/RF3 state.
- Lab 3.15 Physical Network Link Failover & OVS Bonding Test: Simulate physical network interface failure on AHV host network adapters. Verify seamless OVS bond failover without VM packet loss.
- Lab 3.16 Nutanix Mine / Veeam Backup Appliance Setup: Deploy and integrate Nutanix Mine or Veeam Backup & Replication with Nutanix AHV for cluster-wide backup and long-term archiving.
- Lab 3.17 Direct Snapshot Backup Integration via REST API: Configure host-level VM backup jobs leveraging Nutanix Storage API for Data Protection (NTAP) for incremental backup jobs.
- Lab 3.18 Cross-Datacenter Data Protection & Sync: Replicate Protection Domains across geographically separated Nutanix clusters. Verify offsite data consistency and recovery readiness.
- Lab 3.19 Total Cluster Rebuild & Disaster Recovery Restore: Simulate total primary cluster loss. Rebuild bare-metal nodes via Foundation and restore all workloads from remote protection sites.
- Lab 3.20 Storage & HA Operational Review: Perform full cluster, DSF, and Leap DR health evaluations using Prism Central dashboards. Resolve warnings prior to operational sign-off.
Module 4: Enterprise Security, Automation & Production Operations
Module Focus: Secure, automate, and manage Nutanix AHV environments at scale. Master Microsegmentation via Nutanix Flow, Active Directory / OIDC authentication, Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) via Terraform, Nutanix Calm automation, and Prism Ops observability.
Key Core Curriculum Topics
- Nutanix Security Hardening: Security Technical Implementation Guides (STIG), Data-at-Rest Encryption (Software/ Hardware SED), and Key Management (KMIP)
- Role-Based Access Control (RBAC): Prism Central User Roles, Active Directory/LDAP integration, and SAML/OIDC SSO
- Nutanix Flow Networking: Security Policies, Application Microsegmentation, Environmental Isolation, and Service Chaining
- Automation & IaC: Terraform Nutanix Provider, Nutanix Calm Blueprints, and REST API v3/v4 Automation
- Enterprise Operations & Observability: Prism Ops (X-Fit machine learning), Capacity Runway forecasting, Anomaly Detection, and Playbooks
- Automated Maintenance: Non-disruptive One-Click upgrades via Life Cycle Manager (LCM)
Guided Hands-On Enterprise Labs
- Lab 4.1 Enterprise Directory & SAML SSO Integration: Connect Prism Central to corporate Active Directory via LDAPS and configure SAML 2.0 Single Sign-On (SSO) with Okta / Azure AD.
- Lab 4.2 Fine-Grained Role-Based Access Control (RBAC): Define custom Prism Central Roles, Entity Execution Permissions, and Assign Projects to isolate developer and operations teams.
- Lab 4.3 Data-at-Rest Encryption (DaRE) Setup: Enable Nutanix native Software Data-at-Rest Encryption (DaRE) across storage containers using local key management or external KMIP server.
- Lab 4.4 Nutanix Flow Security Policy Setup: Enable Nutanix Flow in Prism Central. Create System Categories and define Application Isolation security policies to restrict east-west VM traffic.
- Lab 4.5 Application Microsegmentation via Nutanix Flow: Write granular Flow Security Policies enforcing strict tier isolation between web, application, and database VM tiers.
- Lab 4.6 Environmental & Quarantine Isolation Rules: Configure Flow Quarantine rules to immediately isolate compromised virtual machines from the network with a single click in Prism Central.
- Lab 4.7 Infrastructure as Code with Terraform Nutanix Provider: Configure the Terraform Nutanix provider using API keys. Write manifests to provision AHV VMs, storage containers, and subnets.
- Lab 4.8 Nutanix Calm Blueprint Creation & Provisioning: Build multi-tier application blueprints in Nutanix Calm, automating complete OS provisioning, software package installation, and domain joining.
- Lab 4.9 Custom Python Scripting via Nutanix REST API: Develop custom Python scripts utilizing Nutanix REST API v3/v4 endpoints to generate cluster inventory reports and automate VM lifecycle actions.
- Lab 4.10 Prism Ops Anomaly Detection & Metric Monitoring: Configure Prism Ops machine learning performance baselines to automatically flag anomalous CPU, memory, and storage I/O behavior.
- Lab 4.11 Automated Operations via Prism Central Playbooks: Create automated X-Fit Playbooks triggered by alerts to automatically execute remediation tasks (e.g., snapshot VM, add RAM, notify Slack).
- Lab 4.12 Capacity Runway Forecasting & Optimization: Analyze cluster capacity runway reports in Prism Ops. Model future workload additions and generate node expansion recommendations.
- Lab 4.13 Syslog, Audit Trail & SIEM Integration: Configure cluster-wide rsyslog forwarding to stream Prism Central audit logs, API commands, and CVM events to a central SIEM (Splunk/ELK).
- Lab 4.14 Automated Alerting & Webhook Notifications: Configure alert routing rules in Prism Central to send real-time notifications to PagerDuty, Slack channels, and email distribution lists.
- Lab 4.15 Host Security Hardening & STIG Compliance: Run automated Security Technical Implementation Guide (STIG) compliance scripts on AHV hosts and CVMs to enforce DoD security baselines.
- Lab 4.16 Non-Disruptive Cluster Upgrades via LCM: Execute a full non-disruptive cluster update via Life Cycle Manager (LCM), upgrading AOS, AHV host hypervisors, and firmware sequentially without workload downtime.
- Lab 4.17 Disaster Recovery Automation & Playbook Scripting: Write automated recovery playbooks to execute post-failover network rebindings and guest OS service startup in a DR site scenario.
- Lab 4.18 Guest OS Software Management via Ansible: Execute Ansible playbooks targeting Linux and Windows VMs running on AHV to perform post-provisioning software updates and security baselining.
- Lab 4.19 Security Auditing & CIS Compliance Scanning: Run security vulnerability scanners against AHV hosts and CVMs. Remediate flagged misconfigurations to achieve full compliance.
- Lab 4.20 Security & Operations Operational Review: Verify all Flow security policies, RBAC roles, LCM update pipelines, and Leap DR automation are fully operational and compliant before completing the enterprise curriculum.
Bootcamp Key Takeaways & Enterprise Competencies
- Architecture & Deployment: Design, build, and maintain production-grade, highly available Nutanix AHV clusters integrated with Acropolis Distributed Storage Fabric (DSF) and Flow Virtual Networking.
- Workload Migration: Execute agentless end-to-end migrations of complex Linux and Windows workloads from VMware vSphere to Nutanix AHV with minimal downtime using Nutanix Move.
- Automation & Infrastructure as Code: Leverage Terraform, Nutanix Calm, Ansible, and Nutanix REST APIs to automate cluster initialization, guest provisioning, and daily operational tasks declaratively.
- Resilience & Disaster Recovery: Implement robust backup and recovery topologies using Nutanix Leap, NearSync replication, Metro Availability, and automated VM failover orchestration.
- Operational Excellence: Enforce microsegmentation security policies via Nutanix Flow, leverage Prism Ops machine-learning automation, enforce STIG compliance, and execute seamless production updates via LCM.
