Which storage protocol is supported for a datastore when using ESXi as the hypervisor within a Nutanix cluster?

In a Nutanix cluster running VMware ESXi, the Nutanix Controller VM (CVM) on each host aggregates the local storage devices into a single, distributed storage pool called the Distributed Storage Fabric (DSF). The CVM then presents this storage to its local ESXi hypervisor as a datastore using the Network File System (NFS) protocol. Each ESXi host mounts this unique NFS datastore, which is used to store virtual machine disks (VMDKs) and other VM files. This architecture leverages the robust and mature NFS client built into ESXi while providing advanced storage features like data locality, snapshots, and replication through the DSF.

A. iSCSI: This protocol is used by the CVM to present storage to the Nutanix AHV hypervisor and for the Nutanix Volumes feature, not for primary ESXi datastores.

B. SMB: This protocol is used by the CVM to present storage to Microsoft Hyper-V hosts, not to VMware ESXi hosts.

C. LVM: Logical Volume Manager (LVM) is a disk management technology used within the CVM's Linux operating system; it is not a network protocol for presenting storage to a hypervisor.

1. Nutanix Official Documentation. vSphere Administration Guide for Acropolis (AOS 6.5). Section: "Storage Configuration for a vSphere Cluster". The document states, "The Nutanix cluster provides storage to the ESXi hosts through the NFS protocol. The Controller VM is an NFS server, and the ESXi hypervisor is an NFS client."

2. Nutanix Official Documentation. Nutanix Acropolis: Distributed Storage Fabric White Paper. Section: "Hypervisor I/O Path". The paper details the I/O path for different hypervisors, specifying, "For VMware vSphere, the DSF is presented as an NFS v3 datastore."

3. Nutanix University. Nutanix Core: Enterprise Cloud Concepts (v6.5). Module: "Nutanix Cluster Architecture". The courseware explains that for vSphere environments, the CVM acts as an NFS server, presenting a datastore to the hypervisor over a dedicated internal network interface.