The Nutanix ECA course covers migration options for VMs in multi-cluster environments, particularly

when minimizing downtime is critical, such as during scheduled maintenance. The scenario involves

two identical clusters with guest VMs using pass-through GPUs, managed by separate Prism Central

instances, requiring a migration method that ensures minimal disruption.

Extract from Nutanix Enterprise Cloud Administration (ECA) Course Documents:

Module: VM Management, Section: Cross-Cluster Live Migration

"Cross-Cluster Live Migration allows administrators to migrate VMs between clusters managed by

different Prism Central instances with minimal downtime. This feature supports live migration of

VMs with pass-through GPUs, ensuring continuous operation during maintenance activities."

Module: Cluster Management, Section: Migration Strategies

"For scenarios requiring minimal downtime, such as planned maintenance, Cross-Cluster Live

Migration is the preferred method. It enables seamless VM migration across clusters, even those

managed by separate Prism Central instances, while maintaining VM availability."

Explanation of Options:

A. Run a Recovery Plan planned failover

This is incorrect. A Recovery Plan planned failover is part of Nutanix’s disaster recovery (DR) solution,

used to execute failover for Protection Domains in scenarios like site failure. It is not designed for

routine maintenance migrations and may involve downtime, especially for VMs with pass-through

GPUs, as failover requires VM restart on the target cluster. The ECA course states: "Recovery Plans

are used for DR failover, not for live migrations during maintenance, and may result in downtime."

B. Use Cross-Cluster Live Migration

This is the correct answer. Cross-Cluster Live Migration, introduced in later AOS versions, allows VMs

to be migrated between clusters, even those managed by different Prism Central instances, with

minimal downtime. The ECA course confirms that this feature supports VMs with pass-through GPUs,

as the migration process preserves VM state and connectivity. This method is ideal for planned

maintenance, ensuring VMs remain operational.

Supporting Extract: "Cross-Cluster Live Migration minimizes downtime by transferring VM state and

data live, supporting complex configurations like pass-through GPUs, making it suitable for

maintenance scenarios."

C. Perform a Nutanix Move migration plan

This is incorrect. Nutanix Move is a tool for migrating VMs from non-Nutanix environments (e.g.,

VMware or Hyper-V) to a Nutanix cluster, not for migrations between Nutanix clusters. It is not

optimized for live migrations within a Nutanix environment and may involve downtime. The ECA

course notes: "Nutanix Move is designed for external-to-Nutanix migrations, not for intra-Nutanix

cluster migrations, and is not suitable for minimizing downtime."

D. Migrate Asynchronous Protection Domains

This is incorrect. Migrating Asynchronous Protection Domains involves replicating snapshots to a

remote cluster for DR purposes, not live VM migration. This process is asynchronous, involves

downtime during failover, and is not suitable for maintenance scenarios requiring minimal

disruption. The ECA course clarifies: "Asynchronous Protection Domains are used for DR replication,

not for live VM migration, and require VM restart during failover."

Additional Context from ECA:

Cross-Cluster Live Migration: This feature leverages Nutanix’s hypervisor-agnostic migration

capabilities, ensuring that VMs with pass-through GPUs are migrated seamlessly. The process

involves copying VM memory and state while keeping the VM running, minimizing downtime to

seconds or less.

Maintenance Scenario: For scheduled maintenance, Cross-Cluster Live Migration ensures that VMs

remain available, which is critical for GPU-intensive workloads that cannot tolerate extended

downtime.

Supporting Reference from Web Results:

The Nutanix Support Portal (https://portal.nutanix.com) aligns with the ECA documentation: "Cross-

Cluster Live Migration supports live VM migration between clusters, including those with pass-

through GPUs, ensuring minimal downtime for maintenance tasks."