Nutanix Certified Associate Practice Exam

How should network bonds be configured for a Nutanix cluster supporting high-performance VMs?

1. Configure bond0 as balance-lacp

2. Configure bond0 as balance-tcp

3. Configure bond0 as active-backup

4. Configure bond0 as balance-sib

The correct answer is: Configure bond0 as balance-sib

For a Nutanix cluster supporting high-performance VMs, configuring bond0 as balance-sib is a suitable choice because it optimizes the network performance by using a single interface for outbound and inbound traffic while also allowing the intelligent distribution of network traffic across multiple physical interfaces without compromising resiliency. In high-performance environments, the requirement often involves the efficient handling of numerous simultaneous connections and data flow, which balance-sib effectively achieves by maintaining a balance of traffic based on the specific flows and connections rather than merely round-robin or strict active-backup methodologies. This configuration allows enhanced throughput and utilization of available bandwidth, which is critical for VMs that require low latency and high data transfer rates. On the other hand, other configurations like balance-lacp and balance-tcp serve specific purposes but may not be optimal for every situation – especially ones requiring extreme performance under load balancing conditions. Active-backup focuses on redundancy rather than load balancing, which is less effective for performance-demanding applications. Therefore, balance-sib stands out as the most appropriate configuration option for ensuring high-performance networking for VMs in this scenario.