What is the minimum number of compute nodes required to run the NetApp Deployment Engine...

The NetApp Deployment Engine for NetApp HCI requires a minimum of two compute nodes. NetApp HCI is built around independent compute and storage resources, and the deployment engine validates the minimum configuration before allowing an installation workflow to proceed. One compute node is not sufficient because the platform is designed to provide a resilient hypervisor environment and to separate compute lifecycle operations from storage resource provisioning. Three or four compute nodes may be common in larger deployments, but they are not the minimum requirement for the deployment engine. The exam wording asks for compute nodes, not total nodes in the HCI environment, so the answer must focus only on the compute-node requirement. The support engineer should distinguish this from the storage-node minimum and from general vSphere cluster sizing. References/topics: NetApp HCI deployment prerequisites, NetApp Deployment Engine validation, minimum compute-node requirements, and HCI installation planning.