Free NCA-V6-10 Practice Test Questions and Answers (2026)

To create a VM template from an existing virtual machine in a Nutanix AHV environment, the source VM must be powered off. This action ensures that the virtual machine's disks are in a consistent, quiescent state, which is a mandatory prerequisite for creating a reliable master image. The Prism interface will not allow the "Convert to VM Template" operation to be initiated on a VM that is currently running.

A. Sysprep or Cloud-init script: These are best practices for guest OS customization to ensure uniqueness when cloning, but not a technical prerequisite for the template creation action itself.

B. The VM is powered on: The operation is explicitly blocked on powered-on VMs to ensure data consistency for the resulting template.

C. Windows OS is installed: VM templates can be created from any supported guest operating system, including various Linux distributions, not just Windows.

1. Nutanix Prism Web Console Guide (AOS 6.5), Chapter: VM Management (AHV), Section: Creating a VM Template. The first sentence of the procedure states, "You can create a VM template from a powered-off guest VM."

2. Nutanix University, Nutanix Certified Associate (NCA) v6.5 Courseware, Module 4: VM Management, Section: Managing VMs. The course material explicitly lists powering off the VM as a required step before it can be converted into a template.

The Prism Element Home dashboard features a dedicated Data Resiliency Status widget. This widget provides an immediate, at-a-glance summary of the cluster's fault tolerance status. It indicates whether the cluster can sustain the configured number of component or node failures without data loss or downtime. The status is typically displayed as "OK" (green), "Warning," or "Critical," directly answering the administrator's need to verify the cluster's data protection level.

A. Select the gear icon and then select Pulse.

Pulse is a feature for sending diagnostic system data to Nutanix Support for proactive monitoring and case resolution; it does not display the cluster's current resiliency status.

B. Click on Home and then Alerts.

The Alerts dashboard shows specific, triggered events or faults. While a data resiliency issue would generate an alert, this dashboard does not provide the overall, continuous resiliency status.

D. Navigate to the Health dashboard.

The Health dashboard is used for running detailed Nutanix Cluster Check (NCC) diagnostics on various components, which is more in-depth than the summary status required.

1. Nutanix Prism Element Web Console Guide (AOS 6.5): In the "Main Dashboard" section, the "Data Resiliency Status" widget is described as follows: "This widget indicates if the cluster has the ability to sustain a component or node failure... The status can be OK (green check mark), Warning (yellow triangle), or Critical (red circle)." (Reference: Prism Element Web Console Guide, Chapter: Main Dashboard, Section: Data Resiliency Status).

2. Nutanix University - Nutanix Hybrid Cloud Fundamentals Course: The course material covering the Prism Element interface explicitly shows the Home Dashboard and points out the Data Resiliency Status widget as the primary indicator for fault tolerance. It explains that this widget summarizes the cluster's ability to meet its configured redundancy factor (RF) and fault tolerance (FT) level. (Reference: Nutanix Hybrid Cloud Fundamentals, Module: Cluster Management with Prism Element).

Nutanix offers its core Acropolis Operating System (AOS) software in three primary commercial licensing tiers: Starter, Pro, and Ultimate. The Starter license provides fundamental hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) features suitable for small-scale deployments. The Pro license builds upon Starter, adding features for enhanced management, data protection, and resilience, such as metro availability and advanced data reduction. The Ultimate license is the most comprehensive tier, including the full suite of features for security hardening, advanced automation, and performance optimization, making it ideal for mission-critical enterprise applications.

A. Community Edition is a free, feature-limited version for non-production use, not a commercial licensing level. Enterprise is a legacy term.

B. "Dedicated" is not a standard Nutanix software licensing tier for its core HCI platform.

D. "Mixed" and "Advanced" are not official Nutanix licensing tiers. "Enterprise" is a legacy term replaced by Ultimate.

1. Nutanix AOS 6.5 Licensing Guide: Page 6, Section "AOS License Tiers". This section explicitly lists and describes the Starter, Pro, and Ultimate license tiers. It states, "AOS is available in Starter, Pro, and Ultimate license tiers."

2. Nutanix Software Options Datasheet: Page 2, Table "Nutanix Acropolis Software". This table provides a feature comparison matrix across the Starter, Pro, and Ultimate editions, confirming these are the available licensing levels.

3. Prism Central Guide (pc.2023.3): Section "License Types". This section details the license management within Prism Central and refers to the core license tiers as Starter, Pro, and Ultimate. It notes, "Nutanix offers Starter, Pro, and Ultimate licenses."

Metro Availability provides the best (lowest) Recovery Time Objective (RTO) by implementing synchronous replication between two sites. Data is written simultaneously to both locations, ensuring the secondary site is an exact, real-time copy of the primary. In a disaster scenario, virtual machines can be restarted on the secondary site almost instantaneously because there is no data to recover or resynchronize. This active-active configuration results in a near-zero RTO and a zero Recovery Point Objective (RPO), making it the superior choice for mission-critical applications requiring the highest levels of availability.

A. Async: This method uses scheduled snapshots, resulting in a higher RTO as the failover process requires manual intervention and restoring data from the last successful replication point.

B. Availability Zone: This is a high availability feature designed to protect against failures (e.g., rack failure) within a single datacenter, not a disaster recovery solution for site-level outages.

D. NearSync: While offering a low RPO (as low as one minute), it is still an asynchronous technology. The failover process is not instantaneous, leading to a longer RTO compared to Metro Availability.

1. Nutanix University, Nutanix Hybrid Cloud Fundamentals Course Guide, v6.5.

Chapter 6: Data Protection and Disaster Recovery, Section: "Replication Technologies," Page 118. This section explicitly compares replication types, stating: "Metro Availability provides the highest level of availability for enterprise applications... RPO is 0 and RTO is near-zero."

2. Nutanix, Nutanix Disaster Recovery Guide, v6.5.

Section: "Metro Availability," Paragraph 1. The guide describes the feature: "Because the replication is synchronous, failover is nearly instantaneous, providing a near-zero RTO and a zero RPO."

3. Nutanix, Prism Central Guide, pc-v2023.3.

Section: "Protection Policy Management," Subsection: "Creating a Protection Policy." The documentation contrasts the options, highlighting that Metro Availability (synchronous replication) is for applications requiring zero data loss and minimal downtime (RTO).

Nutanix provides block-based storage to external systems, such as a Veeam appliance, using the Nutanix Volumes feature, which leverages the iSCSI protocol. To enable this service, a cluster-wide virtual IP address, known as the Data Services IP, must be configured. This IP address acts as a highly available iSCSI target portal. All iSCSI discovery and I/O requests from external initiators are directed to this single, resilient endpoint. Without the Data Services IP, the Nutanix Volumes iSCSI service cannot be activated, and no connection can be established.

A. Network Segmentation: This is a network design practice for isolating traffic. While recommended for iSCSI, it is not the specific configuration that enables the service itself.

B. Nutanix Objects: This is an S3-compatible object storage solution. The scenario requires iSCSI, which is a block storage protocol, not object storage.

C. Prism Central: This is a multi-cluster management platform. The Data Services IP is configured at the individual cluster level in Prism Element, not Prism Central.

1. Nutanix University, Nutanix Certified Associate (NCA) 6.5 Courseware: In the "Nutanix Storage Services" module, the "Nutanix Volumes" section explicitly states that a Data Services IP address is required to enable iSCSI services for external clients.

2. Nutanix Volumes Guide v6.5, "Enabling Nutanix Volumes" section: "To enable Nutanix Volumes, you must configure a data services IP address in Prism Element. The data services IP address is a cluster-wide setting that provides a single IP address for iSCSI I/O. This IP address is a virtual IP address that is highly available."

3. Prism Element Web Console Guide v6.5, "Configuring a Data Services IP Address" section: This section details the procedure for setting the Data Services IP, noting it is a prerequisite for enabling iSCSI access. It states, "Before you can use Nutanix Volumes, you must configure the cluster with a data services IP address."

Nutanix Move is a dedicated, standalone appliance designed to simplify and automate the migration of virtual machines to a Nutanix AHV cluster with minimal downtime. It supports migrations from various sources, including VMware ESXi, Microsoft Hyper-V, and public clouds like AWS and Azure. Move orchestrates the entire migration process, from data replication to the final cutover, making it the correct utility for automating the migration of a VM from ESXi to AHV.

B. acli: The Acropolis Command-Line Interface (ACLI) is used for managing VMs, networks, and other resources directly on an AHV cluster, not for migrating VMs from external hypervisors.

C. Flow: Nutanix Flow is a software-defined networking and microsegmentation product used to secure applications with network policies. It is not a VM migration tool.

D. Ncli: The Nutanix Command-Line Interface (NCLI) is used for managing the overall Nutanix cluster, including storage pools and containers, but not for cross-hypervisor VM migrations.

1. Nutanix Move User Guide v4.5:

Section: "Introduction to Move"

Content: "Move is a cross-hypervisor migration solution to migrate VMs with minimal downtime... Supported sources for VM migration are ESXi, Hyper-V, AWS EC2, and Azure." This directly identifies Move as the tool for migrating from ESXi to AHV.

2. Nutanix Command Reference v6.5:

Section: "Acropolis Command-Line Interface (acli)"

Content: "The Acropolis command-line interface (acli) is a set of commands to manage VMs, networks, and other resources in a Nutanix cluster." This confirms ACLI's role is management within the cluster, not migration from external sources.

3. Nutanix Flow Networking Guide v6.5:

Section: "Flow Networking Overview"

Content: "Nutanix Flow Networking delivers advanced networking and security services... Flow Networking provides policy-based network segmentation to protect applications." This clarifies that Flow is a security and networking product.

Redundancy Factor 3 (RF3) ensures that three copies of all data are maintained across different nodes within the Nutanix cluster. This configuration provides high availability by allowing the cluster to tolerate the simultaneous failure of up to two nodes without data loss or service interruption. To guarantee that each of the three data copies can be placed on a unique node, a minimum of five nodes is required in the cluster. This is a fundamental architectural requirement for the Nutanix Distributed Storage Fabric (DSF).

A. 3 nodes: This is the minimum cluster size required for Redundancy Factor 2 (RF2), which maintains two data copies and can tolerate the failure of a single node.

B. 4 nodes: A four-node cluster does not have enough nodes to satisfy the unique-node placement requirement for three data copies needed for Redundancy Factor 3.

D. 6 nodes: While a six-node cluster can support Redundancy Factor 3, it is not the minimum required size. The question specifically asks for the minimum.

1. Nutanix University. (2023). Nutanix Hybrid Cloud Fundamentals v6.5 Student Guide. Module 4: Data Protection and Disaster Recovery, "Redundancy Factor" section. The courseware explicitly states, "Redundancy Factor 3 (RF3) requires a minimum of five nodes and protects against two concurrent node or disk failures."

2. Nutanix. (2023). Prism Web Console Guide, AOS 6.7. Data Protection and Recovery > Data Resiliency in a Cluster > Resiliency Status. The documentation notes, "For redundancy factor 3, you must have at least five nodes in the cluster."

3. Nutanix. (2023). Data Protection and Recovery with Acropolis, BP-2033. Section: Failure and Recovery Scenarios, Subsection: Redundancy Factor. This best practices guide details, "Redundancy factor 3 (RF3) requires a minimum of five nodes. With RF3, the cluster can tolerate two simultaneous node failures."

According to the official Nutanix Support Program Guide, customers with a "Production Support" entitlement have defined Initial Response Time Targets based on case priority. A Priority 4 (P4) case, which is typically for low-severity issues or informational requests, has a guaranteed initial response time target of 8 business hours. This directly matches the 8-hour response guarantee specified in the question. Opening a case with a higher priority (P1, P2, or P3) would result in a much faster response time than 8 hours.

A. P1: Incorrect. A P1 (Critical) case has a 30-minute response time target for production-down scenarios, which is significantly faster than the 8-hour response mentioned.

B. P2: Incorrect. A P2 (High) case has a 2-business-hour response time target for issues with major functionality impact.

C. P3: Incorrect. A P3 (Medium) case has a 4-business-hour response time target for partial, non-critical loss of functionality.

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1. Nutanix Support Program Guide:

Reference: In the "Support Response" section, the table titled "Initial Response Time Targets" explicitly lists the service levels for different support plans.

Details: For the "Production Support" plan, the row specifies the following targets: Priority 1 (P1) - 30 Minutes; Priority 2 (P2) - 2 Business Hours; Priority 3 (P3) - 4 Business Hours; Priority 4 (P4) - 8 Business Hours. This document directly confirms that a P4 case aligns with an 8-hour response guarantee for Production Support. (This guide is publicly available from the official Nutanix support portal).

Cluster Lockdown is a security feature within Nutanix AOS designed to harden the cluster by restricting access. When enabled, it disables password-based SSH login to all Controller VMs (CVMs) for every user, which explicitly includes the default nutanix and admin accounts. Access is then only permitted through SSH public key authentication, significantly enhancing security by preventing brute-force password attacks and ensuring that only authorized individuals with pre-configured keys can access the CVM command line.

B. STIG: A Security Technical Implementation Guide (STIG) is a security standard or hardening methodology, not a specific Nutanix feature that you enable to block password access.

C. RBAC Policy on PC: Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) in Prism Central defines user permissions for actions within the Prism interface, not the underlying SSH authentication method to a CVM.

D. Data-at-Rest Encryption: This feature encrypts data on the physical disks to protect against data theft but does not affect user authentication or login procedures for the CVMs.

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1. Nutanix AOS 6.5 Security Guide: In the "Securing a Cluster" section, under the sub-section "Cluster Lockdown," the documentation states, "When you enable cluster lockdown, password-based login to the CVMs is disabled for all users, including the default nutanix and admin users. You can only log in to the CVMs by using SSH with public key authentication." (Document available via the Nutanix Portal).

2. Nutanix University - Nutanix Certified Associate (NCA) 6.5 Student Guide: The "Securing a Nutanix Cluster" module describes Cluster Lockdown as the feature used to disable password-based SSH access and enforce key-based authentication for enhanced security.

To generate and send a Nutanix Cluster Check (NCC) report without using the command line, the administrator must use the Prism web console. The correct procedure is to navigate to the Health Dashboard, which is the central location for monitoring cluster wellness and running diagnostic checks. From the Actions menu in the Health Dashboard, the administrator can initiate the NCC checks. To email the resulting report, an SMTP server must be configured in the Prism settings, a configuration that is also used for sending alerts.

A. Run Health Checks in the Alert Dashboard and enter an email to send it to.

Health checks are initiated from the Health Dashboard, not the Alert Dashboard, which is used for viewing and managing existing alerts.

C. Run Health Checks in the Event Dashboard.

The Event Dashboard is for viewing a log of cluster events and tasks, not for running diagnostic health checks.

D. Configure email in Alert Settings and Run Health Checks in the Alert Dashboard.

This is incorrect because health checks are run from the Health Dashboard, not the Alert Dashboard.

1. Nutanix Prism Web Console Guide v6.5: In the "Health Monitoring" chapter, section "Running Health Checks," the procedure is explicitly stated: "Log on to the Prism web console. From the main menu (pull-down list), select Health. In the Health dashboard, click the Actions button and select Run NCC Checks from the drop-down list." This confirms the action takes place in the Health Dashboard.

2. Nutanix Cluster Check (NCC) Guide v4.6.5: The section "Running NCC from Prism Element" states: "You can run NCC from the Health dashboard in the Prism Element web console... In the Health page, click Actions > Run NCC Checks." This directly supports that the Health Dashboard is the correct location.

3. Nutanix University: Nutanix Hybrid Cloud Fundamentals Course v6.5 Student Guide: Module 6, "Cluster Health," details the features of the Health Dashboard. It describes this dashboard as the interface for running health checks (NCC) and viewing their results, distinguishing its function from the Alert and Event dashboards.

The Controller VM (CVM) and its local AHV host communicate over a dedicated internal network. This communication is managed by a default Open vSwitch (OVS) bridge created on the AHV host during installation. The technically correct name for this default bridge is br0.

Among the provided options, bridge0 is the most plausible intended answer, representing the full, unabbreviated name for the br0 device. This bridge connects the CVM's primary network interface (eth0) to the AHV host's internal interface, facilitating essential management and storage I/O traffic between them.

A. vs0: This is the default naming convention for a standard virtual switch (vSwitch) in a VMware ESXi environment, not Nutanix AHV.

B. virbro: This is a typo for virbr0. The virbr0 bridge is a default Linux bridge created by libvirt for NAT and is not used for CVM-to-host communication.

C. bro: This is an incomplete name and a typo for the correct bridge name, br0.

1. Nutanix University, Nutanix Hybrid Cloud Fundamentals Courseware

In the "Nutanix AHV Networking" module, diagrams and text explicitly identify the default Open vSwitch bridge as br0. It is described as the central component connecting the CVM, the AHV host, and user VMs to the physical network.

2. Nutanix, AHV Administration Guide v6.5, Section: "Host and Controller VM Networking"

This section states, "The AHV host and the CVM communicate through the br0 OVS bridge on a dedicated virtual network. The CVM has an IP address of 192.168.5.254 and the AHV host has an IP address of 192.168.5.1 on this internal network."

3. Nutanix, AHV Administration Guide v6.5, Section: "Default Configuration"

This section clarifies the default setup: "By default, the AHV host creates a single bridge, br0, in the OVS. All physical interfaces on the host are bonded in this bridge."

Nutanix Prism Central applies alert policies based on a hierarchy of specificity. When multiple policies are configured for the same alert and could apply to a single entity, the most specific policy takes precedence. A policy applied directly to an individual entity (e.g., a specific VM) is considered the most specific. This overrides policies applied to broader groups, such as a category the entity belongs to, or a general policy applied to all entities of that type (e.g., all VMs).

B. Policy are applied to all entities of an entity type. This is the least specific type of policy and has the lowest precedence. It is overridden by both category-specific and entity-specific policies.

C. Policy are applied to an entity type in a category. This policy is more specific than one applied to all entities of a type, but it is less specific than a policy applied directly to an individual entity.

D. Policy are applied to an entity type in a cluster. This is not a distinct level in the defined precedence hierarchy. A cluster is an entity, so a policy can be applied to a specific cluster, which would fall under the highest precedence rule.

1. Nutanix Prism Central Guide (AOS 6.5)

Section: Alerts and Events Management > Configuring an Alert Policy > Alert Policy Precedence

Content: "When multiple policies apply to an entity, the policy that is most specific to the entity takes precedence. The order of precedence is as follows: 1. A policy applied to a specific entity. 2. A policy applied to entities in a category. 3. A policy applied to all entities of that type." This directly supports that a policy applied to a specific entity (as described in option A) has the highest precedence.

Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) is the offering specifically designed to extend on-premises private cloud environments into public clouds like AWS and Azure. It allows customers to run the full Nutanix HCI software stack, including AOS, AHV, and other services, on bare-metal instances within the public cloud. This creates a seamless hybrid cloud fabric, enabling application mobility, on-demand capacity bursting, and disaster recovery between the on-prem datacenter and the public cloud without needing to refactor applications. This model unifies management and operations across both environments through a single interface.

A. Nutanix Cloud Security: This refers to security features like Flow Network Security for microsegmentation and threat protection, which secure workloads but do not provide the infrastructure extension itself.

C. Nutanix Kubernetes Engine: This is a service for deploying, managing, and scaling Kubernetes clusters. While it can operate in a hybrid cloud, it is an application platform, not the underlying datacenter extension fabric.

D. Nutanix Data Services: This is a portfolio of storage solutions, including Nutanix Files, Objects, and Volumes. These are components that run on the Nutanix platform, not the solution for extending the platform to the public cloud.

1. Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) Documentation: "Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) on AWS extends the simplicity and ease of use of Nutanix hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) and the full Nutanix software stack to public cloud."

Source: Nutanix Cloud Clusters on AWS v4.0 Documentation, "Introduction to Nutanix Cloud Clusters on AWS".

2. Nutanix Kubernetes Engine (NKE) Documentation: "Nutanix Kubernetes Engine (NKE) simplifies the provisioning and management of Kubernetes clusters. NKE creates and configures the infrastructure VMs for the Kubernetes control plane and worker nodes..."

Source: Nutanix Kubernetes Engine Guide v2.8, "Introduction to Nutanix Kubernetes Engine".

3. Nutanix Security Documentation: "Flow Network Security provides policy-based network segmentation to protect applications from network threats... It provides a rich visualization of the communication between VMs..."

Source: Nutanix Security Guide v6.5, "Flow Network Security".

4. Nutanix Data Services (Unified Storage) Documentation: "Nutanix Unified Storage delivers a distributed and scalable software-defined storage platform that natively supports file, object, and block storage protocols."

Source: Nutanix Unified Storage Solution Brief, Page 3, "Introduction".

The Nutanix upgrade process for software like AHV is a rolling, sequential operation designed to be non-disruptive. The Life Cycle Manager (LCM) orchestrates this process by placing only one node into maintenance mode at a time. It live-migrates the virtual machines from that node, performs the upgrade, restarts the node, and verifies its health before bringing it back into the cluster. Only after the first node has successfully rejoined the cluster does the process begin on the next node. This one-at-a-time method ensures the cluster maintains its data redundancy and availability throughout the entire upgrade procedure.

B. 2: Placing two nodes in maintenance mode simultaneously in an RF3 cluster would leave the cluster with no further fault tolerance, a risk the automated process avoids.

C. 3: This is incorrect. Placing three nodes into maintenance mode in an RF3 cluster would cause data to become unavailable, as all three replicas of some data blocks would be offline.

D. 4: This would far exceed the cluster's fault tolerance capabilities (two-node failure for RF3) and would result in significant data unavailability.

3. References

1. Nutanix Prism Web Console Guide (AOS 6.5): In the "Software and Firmware Updates" section, the 1-Click Upgrade process is described. It states, "The upgrade process is non-disruptive. The process upgrades one node at a time in a rolling fashion through the cluster." This confirms the sequential, one-node-at-a-time nature of the operation. (Reference: Prism Web Console Guide v6.5, Chapter: Life Cycle Management, Section: Software and Firmware Updates).

2. Nutanix Life Cycle Manager (LCM) Guide (v2.5): This guide details the LCM workflow. In the "LCM Update Process" section, it outlines the sequential steps for updating a node: "LCM selects a node in the cluster... puts the Controller VM in maintenance mode... puts the host in maintenance mode... performs the update... brings the host out of maintenance mode... brings the CVM out of maintenance mode... LCM moves to the next node." This explicitly confirms the one-by-one process. (Reference: Life Cycle Manager Guide v2.5, Chapter: LCM Updates, Section: LCM Update Process).

3. Nutanix University - Nutanix Hybrid Cloud Fundamentals Courseware: The course material on cluster maintenance and upgrades emphasizes that automated procedures like 1-click upgrades are "rolling upgrades." This industry term implies a sequential, node-by-node process to prevent service interruption and maintain the cluster's high availability characteristics. (Reference: Nutanix Hybrid Cloud Fundamentals, Module: Acropolis Platform Management, Lesson: Upgrading a Nutanix Cluster).

In a Nutanix cluster running VMware ESXi, the Nutanix Controller VM (CVM) on each host aggregates the local storage devices into a single, distributed storage pool called the Distributed Storage Fabric (DSF). The CVM then presents this storage to its local ESXi hypervisor as a datastore using the Network File System (NFS) protocol. Each ESXi host mounts this unique NFS datastore, which is used to store virtual machine disks (VMDKs) and other VM files. This architecture leverages the robust and mature NFS client built into ESXi while providing advanced storage features like data locality, snapshots, and replication through the DSF.

A. iSCSI: This protocol is used by the CVM to present storage to the Nutanix AHV hypervisor and for the Nutanix Volumes feature, not for primary ESXi datastores.

B. SMB: This protocol is used by the CVM to present storage to Microsoft Hyper-V hosts, not to VMware ESXi hosts.

C. LVM: Logical Volume Manager (LVM) is a disk management technology used within the CVM's Linux operating system; it is not a network protocol for presenting storage to a hypervisor.

1. Nutanix Official Documentation. vSphere Administration Guide for Acropolis (AOS 6.5). Section: "Storage Configuration for a vSphere Cluster". The document states, "The Nutanix cluster provides storage to the ESXi hosts through the NFS protocol. The Controller VM is an NFS server, and the ESXi hypervisor is an NFS client."

2. Nutanix Official Documentation. Nutanix Acropolis: Distributed Storage Fabric White Paper. Section: "Hypervisor I/O Path". The paper details the I/O path for different hypervisors, specifying, "For VMware vSphere, the DSF is presented as an NFS v3 datastore."

3. Nutanix University. Nutanix Core: Enterprise Cloud Concepts (v6.5). Module: "Nutanix Cluster Architecture". The courseware explains that for vSphere environments, the CVM acts as an NFS server, presenting a datastore to the hypervisor over a dedicated internal network interface.