With the Nutanix AOS Pro licensing, several advanced features and add-on products become available. Specifically, in the AWS cluster deployment wizard, the following add-ons are available:
Files:
Nutanix Files provides a software-defined, scale-out file storage solution that simplifies the management and scaling of unstructured data.
Advanced Replication:
Advanced Replication features in Nutanix include synchronous and asynchronous replication capabilities, allowing for robust disaster recovery and data protection solutions.
DARE (Data-At-Rest Encryption):
DARE ensures that all data stored on Nutanix clusters is encrypted, providing a higher level of security for sensitive information.
These features are included in the AOS Pro licensing tier, offering enhanced data management, protection, and security capabilities.
Reference:
Nutanix Licensing Guide
Nutanix Cloud Clusters on AWS Administration Guide
Nutanix Best Practices for Advanced Features

To ensure continuous availability and maintain the specified Replication Factor (RF) during maintenance or hardware issues, Nutanix follows a proactive " provision before removal " logic for host replacement in the cloud. The correct operational sequence begins with adding a new host to the cluster first. This step expands the cluster ' s capacity and ensures there is a destination ready for data synchronization. Once the new host is fully integrated into the storage fabric, the system migrates the virtual machines and their associated data away from the degraded or old host. Only after the old host has been completely evacuated and the cluster returns to a healthy, balanced state does the NC2 console conclude the operation by removing the old host from the cluster configuration.

While Nutanix provides multiple management interfaces, each serves a distinct purpose in the hybrid cloud lifecycle. Prism Central and Prism Element are used for managing software-level entities like VMs, storage containers, and replication policies. However, for thedefinitive status of the cluster ' s cloud infrastructure- including whether the bare-metal nodes are provisioned, if the cluster is in a " Healthy, " " Degraded, " or " Failed " state, or if a " boot timeout " has occurred-administrators must usethe NC2 Portal. The NC2 Portal acts as the primary orchestration layer that bridges Nutanix and AWS; it is the only console that displays specific cloud deployment tasks, hardware replacement status, and AWS-raised infrastructure events in a unified view.

Nutanix offers two flexible paths for provisioning the underlying AWS networking infrastructure required for an NC2 cluster. The first option is toallow the NC2 portal to automatically deploy the required AWS resources. In this guided workflow, the portal uses predefined CloudFormation templates to create the VPC, subnets, NAT gateways, and routing tables based on the administrator ' s input. The second option is the " Bring Your Own " (BYO) manual workflow, where the administrator uses their own existing AWS networking resources. This is often preferred by large organizations with strict security requirements or pre- existing VPC architectures. Both methods are fully supported, allowing organizations to choose between the speed of automated deployment or the granular control of a manual networking setup.

* Traffic from the on-premises network is not permitted by VM and Management security groups:
* Ensure that the security groups assigned to the VMs and management interfaces in AWS allow inbound traffic from the on-premises network. Without appropriate security group rules, the traffic will be blocked.
* The AWS VPC traffic is blocked by a firewall in the on-premises network:
* Check if the firewall on the on-premises network is configured to allow traffic from the AWS VPC. Firewalls may have restrictive rules that block incoming traffic, preventing communication.
Refer to AWS documentation on security groups and firewalls and Nutanix documentation on configuring networking for NC2 clusters.