Nutanix Volumes

In the Ultra Transcenders books

NCP-MCI-7.5

Each book explains Nutanix Volumes in context, with comparison tables and the common traps.

Terms in this definition

• General-purpose v1

  The older storage account kind (Storage), which lacks access tiers, Archive and premium file shares and retires on 13 October 2026. Converting to ZRS requires first upgrading to GPv2, a one-way change.

• Physical

  Describes the concrete, real-world parts that put a logical architecture into effect.

• Volume

  Holds non-tabular files sitting in cloud storage under Unity Catalog governance, addressed as /Volumes/<catalog>/<schema>/<volume>. A volume can be external or managed, and WRITE VOLUME or READ VOLUME decide who may use it.

• iSCSI

  Protocol that carries block storage over TCP on port 3260. When recovering files, Azure Backup's script mounts recovery point disks as local volumes using it.

• NVMeoF/TCP

  Gives one external NVMe client access to a volume group across TCP, configured in Prism Central. It carries much tighter restrictions than iSCSI access and is unavailable where network segmentation is in use.

Related terms

• CHAP

  A method of authenticating iSCSI clients, which Nutanix Volumes can enforce in one direction or both.

• IBM AIX

  Nutanix Volumes accepts versions 7.1 and 7.2 running on POWER as clients. This is IBM's flavour of Unix.

• IQN

  An identifier for an iSCSI initiator. Allowlists for volume groups in Nutanix Volumes are built from these client identifiers.

• iSCSI Data Services IP

  Nutanix Files relies on this address, and Nutanix Volumes clients discover storage through it. It belongs to the cluster, sits on one CVM at a time and shifts elsewhere when that leader fails.

• LUN

  A number that identifies a block device offered up by storage. A physical server can start from such a device through Nutanix Volumes, using iSCSI.

• MPIO

  Multipathing handled on the client, where the guest OS manages paths and load balancing. For Nutanix Volumes, the recommended alternative is the iSCSI Data Services IP, which does away with it.

• SLES

  A Linux distribution that Nutanix Volumes supports for guest clients. When building a guest cluster, configure iSCSI target startup as automatic.

• SQL Server

  Windows failover clusters running this Microsoft relational database can use shared storage from Nutanix Volumes, and capacity planning treats it as a workload type.