An administrator plans a four-hour CVM rolling maintenance window on a Nutanix cluster. The current snapshot schedule creates local snapshots every four hours, and a protection domain replicates to a DR cluster every four hours. What should be done before starting maintenance?
Select an answer to reveal the explanation.
Short Explanation
Think of maintenance windows like a quiet period on a busy highway: you don't schedule the moving trucks and the road crew at the same time. If your snapshots or replication jobs still fire while CVMs are rolling, you're just inviting failed tasks and extra I/O. Move or pause the schedules first, then let the window run clean.
Full Explanation
Maintenance windows should be treated as periods when background data-protection work is moved out of the way. Snapshot creation and replication can add I/O, require CVM services, and interact with cluster rebalance or rolling restarts, so an administrator should reschedule or pause protection jobs so they do not run during the planned window. A protection domain that continues to replicate while CVMs are restarting may generate failed tasks, stale remote copies, or unnecessary contention, even if the underlying data remains recoverable. Disabling only local snapshots is wrong because replication still runs, still uses resources, and may attempt to copy data while the cluster is in a transitional state. Reducing retention is wrong because retention controls how long snapshots are kept, not whether a scheduled snapshot or replication job executes during maintenance. Taking a final manual snapshot is wrong because it does not remove the recurring schedule from the window and can add extra I/O immediately before maintenance. Exam caveat: the exam expects you to align operational schedules with maintenance windows rather than rely on retention changes or one-off manual jobs. Operational check: review the protection domain schedule and snapshot schedule, pause or shift them outside the window, then confirm no snapshot or replication tasks are queued during maintenance.