When expanding a cluster by adding new Storage Data Server (SDS) nodes:
* Validate new node compatibility (Option A): Before adding a node, you must ensure it matches the hardware compatibility list (HCL). More importantly, to prevent performance bottlenecks ("stragglers"), the new nodes should ideally match the CPU, RAM, and most importantly, the drive type
/performance of the existing nodes in the Storage Pool.
* Configure Fault Sets for the new nodes (Option C): If the cluster is configured to use Fault Sets (which is recommended for larger clusters to ensure rack-level availability), the new node must be explicitly assigned to a specific Fault Set before it is added. You cannot add a node to a Protection Domain that uses Fault Sets without specifying which Fault Set it belongs to.
Incorrect Options: Option B describes "Rebalance," which is an automatic background process, not a manual
"reallocation" action. Option D is incorrect because deduplication is a pool-wide setting; you do not enable it on a per-node basis.

Sufficient network bandwidth (Option A): PowerFlex replication is typically asynchronous.
However, the link (WAN) between sites must be sized correctly to handle the change rate of the data. If the application writes 1GB/s but the WAN link is only 100MB/s, the replication buffer (Journal) will fill up, and compliance will break (RPO violation).
Compatible replication protocols (Option D): Both the source and target clusters must be running compatible versions of the PowerFlex software to understand the replication metadata and data stream format.

The Metadata Manager (MDM) cluster is the critical control plane of PowerFlex.
* Maintain redundancy for metadata storage (Option D): The MDM cluster (typically 3 or 5 nodes) must always maintain a quorum. When reconfiguring or expanding the management capabilities, you must ensure that there are enough replicas (Primary, Secondary, Tie-Breakers) to survive a node failure without bringing down the cluster management.
* Ensure even distribution (Option A): Best practice dictates that MDM roles should be distributed across different failure domains (different racks or chassis) to prevent a single physical failure (like a rack power outage) from taking down the entire MDM cluster simultaneously.
Incorrect Options: MDMs are not assigned to Fault Sets (C)-Fault Sets are for SDSs. Replication protocols (B) are relevant for data disaster recovery, not for the local cluster MDM expansion.

A Storage Pool is a logical entity that aggregates the capacity of physical devices.
* Define the Protection Domain (Option A): The Storage Pool hierarchy is strict. You must first create a Protection Domain (PD), which groups the SDS nodes. The Storage Pool is then created within that Protection Domain. You cannot create a Storage Pool without this parent container.
* Assign drives with similar performance characteristics (Option B): This is a critical configuration requirement. PowerFlex stripes data across all drives in a pool. If you mix NVMe and SATA drives in the same pool, the fast NVMe drives will wait for the slow SATA drives, dragging the entire pool's performance down to the lowest common denominator (the "straggler" effect). Therefore, standard procedure is to create separate pools for separate media types (e.g., "Performance_Pool" for NVMe,
"Capacity_Pool" for HDD).

"Post-installation" refers to the steps taken after the base software (MDM/SDS) is installed but before the system is fully operational for production I/O.
Configure Protection Domains (Option A): This is step #1. You must define the logical boundaries of your storage.
Enable Fault Sets (Option C): This is a critical configuration step that typically happens during the setup of the Protection Domain structure. If you intend to use Fault Sets (for rack awareness), you should enable and define them before populating the system with massive amounts of data, as converting to a Fault Set structure later is operationally complex.