10.3 X-Ray, Collector, and the Objective 1.3 Tool Inventory
Key Takeaways
X-Ray is an automated testing framework that benchmarks HCI performance and resilience, running scenarios such as node failure during load rather than raw synthetic I/O alone.
Collector gathers inventory and utilization data from an existing VMware environment to support Nutanix sizing before any migration begins.
Collector runs pre-sales and pre-migration; Move runs the migration itself, so the two are sequential rather than alternatives.
Objective 1.3 names exactly seven tools: Move, NGT, Foundation and Foundation Central, the Witness Service/VM, Self-Service Restore, X-Ray, and Collector.
Each of the seven maps to one distinct phase: sizing, deployment, migration, guest integration, arbitration, self-service recovery, and validation.
10.3 X-Ray, Collector, and the Objective 1.3 Tool Inventory
Objective 1.3 names seven tools. Five of them appear elsewhere in this guide where their function naturally belongs. This section teaches the remaining two — X-Ray and Collector — and then assembles all seven into one recognition table, because the most common way this objective is tested is a straight "which tool would you use" scenario.
X-Ray: Benchmarking Performance and Resilience
X-Ray is an automated testing framework for hyperconverged infrastructure. It is free, deploys as a virtual appliance, and runs test scenarios against a target cluster.
What makes X-Ray distinctive is the second half of its remit. Conventional storage benchmarking tools measure throughput and latency under a synthetic load and report a number. X-Ray does that, but it also tests resilience — how the platform behaves when something breaks while the load is running.
Representative scenarios:
- Performance under a defined workload profile, such as an OLTP-like or VDI-like mix, reported as throughput and latency over time.
- Node failure during load. X-Ray fails a node mid-test and charts what happens to application performance while the cluster rebuilds. A platform that posts an excellent peak number but collapses during a rebuild looks very different under this test.
- Rolling upgrade during load, showing the performance impact of a non-disruptive upgrade on running workloads.
- Noisy neighbour, showing whether one aggressive VM degrades others.
The results are charted over the test duration rather than reduced to a single figure, which is the point: the shape of the curve during a failure is the information a synthetic benchmark hides.
Tip
Use-case sentence to remember: X-Ray is how you compare HCI platforms — or validate your own cluster — on both performance and behaviour during failure. If a scenario mentions evaluating vendors, proving resilience claims, or measuring the impact of a node failure on running applications, the answer is X-Ray.
Collector: Sizing From the Existing Estate
Collector answers the question that comes before any Nutanix purchase: what do we actually have today, and how big does the Nutanix cluster need to be?
Collector connects to an existing VMware environment — typically vCenter — and gathers inventory and utilization data: how many VMs there are, their configured CPU, memory, and disk, and crucially their actual consumption over a collection period.
That distinction between configured and consumed is the whole value. Estates are routinely over-provisioned, and sizing a new platform from configured values produces a cluster far larger and more expensive than necessary. Collector supplies measured data so sizing reflects real demand.
Characteristics to recognize:
- It is a free, read-only data-gathering tool. It changes nothing in the source environment.
- It runs before any migration — during evaluation and design.
- Its output feeds Nutanix sizing for the proposed cluster.
Collector and Move Are Sequential, Not Alternatives
A frequent point of confusion, and a good distractor:
| Phase | Tool | Question it answers |
|---|---|---|
| Evaluate and size | Collector | What do we have, and how much Nutanix do we need? |
| Deploy | Foundation | How do these nodes become a cluster? |
| Validate | X-Ray | Does it perform and survive failure as claimed? |
| Migrate | Move | How do the workloads get onto AHV? |
Collector never moves a VM. Move never sizes a cluster.
The Complete Objective 1.3 Tool Inventory
All seven tools, each mapped to the phase it serves and to where this guide teaches it:
| Tool | Purpose | Phase | Covered in |
|---|---|---|---|
| Collector | Gathers inventory and real utilization from an existing VMware estate to size Nutanix | Pre-sales / design | This section |
| Foundation / Foundation Central | Images bare-metal nodes and creates clusters; Foundation Central does it remotely at scale | Deployment | Section 10.2 |
| X-Ray | Automated performance and resilience testing of HCI | Validation | This section |
| Move | Migrates VMs onto AHV from ESXi, Hyper-V, AWS, and Azure | Migration | Section 10.1 |
| NGT (Nutanix Guest Tools) | In-guest agent enabling application-consistent snapshots, VM mobility, and self-service restore | Guest integration | Section 6.3 |
| Self-Service Restore (SSR) | Lets a VM owner recover their own files from a snapshot without an administrator | Day-2 recovery | Section 6.3 |
| Witness Service / VM | Arbitrates leadership for two-node clusters and Metro deployments to prevent split brain | Availability | Sections 2.1 and 9.2 |
Important
Two of these depend on each other and are frequently paired in questions. Self-Service Restore requires NGT to be installed and enabled in the guest, because SSR works through the in-guest agent. A question that describes a user unable to restore their own files from a snapshot is very often an NGT question in disguise.
Quick Discrimination Drill
Work through these until the mapping is automatic:
- Prove that application latency stays acceptable when a node fails mid-workload. → X-Ray
- Determine how much CPU and memory the existing 900 VMs actually consume. → Collector
- Turn 12 new bare-metal nodes into a cluster. → Foundation
- Do the same at 40 stores without travelling. → Foundation Central
- Move those 900 VMs from vSphere onto AHV. → Move
- Take an application-consistent snapshot of a SQL Server VM. → NGT
- Let a user recover a file they deleted this morning, themselves. → SSR, which requires NGT
- Stop a two-node branch cluster from splitting brain. → Witness VM
An organization is comparing two hyperconverged platforms and wants evidence of how application performance behaves while a node fails and the cluster rebuilds. Which Nutanix tool produces that evidence?
Collector, by reporting utilization trends from the existing environment
The Life Cycle Manager, by simulating a rolling upgrade
Nutanix Cluster Check, by running health checks during the failure
X-Ray, by running scenarios that inject failures while a workload is running and charting the result
Before proposing a Nutanix cluster, a partner needs to know what the customer 900 existing VMware virtual machines actually consume rather than what they are configured for. Which tool is used?
Collector
Move
X-Ray
Foundation
A VM owner reports that they cannot recover their own deleted files from a snapshot using Self-Service Restore. What is the most likely prerequisite that has not been met?
The cluster is not licensed for NCI Ultimate
Erasure coding must be disabled on the storage container before SSR will function
The VM is not a member of a consistency group
Nutanix Guest Tools is not installed and enabled in the guest virtual machine
Sections you finish are checked off in the contents.