To migrate physical SQL workloads from a legacy SAN platform where hosts boot from SAN to a Nutanix environment, the administrator can useNutanix Volumesto enable booting overiSCSI. Nutanix Volumes is a block storage solution that provides iSCSI-based storage, allowing external hosts (such as physical servers) to access Nutanix storage as block devices. This is ideal for replacing SAN-based boot volumes, as it supports the same iSCSI protocol used in traditional SAN environments.

According to theNutanix Unified Storage Administration (NUSA)course, Nutanix Volumes enables external hosts to connect to Nutanix storage via iSCSI, which can be used for boot volumes or data volumes. The course emphasizes that “Nutanix Volumes supports iSCSI boot for physical servers, making it a suitable solution for migrating workloads from legacy SAN environments to Nutanix.” This allows the administrator to configure the physical SQL servers to boot from iSCSI targets provisioned on Nutanix Volumes, leveraging the Nutanix cluster’s storage resources.

TheNutanix Certified Professional - Unified Storage (NCP-US)study guide further details that Nutanix Volumes can be configured to present iSCSI LUNs to physical hosts, which can be used for both operating system boot and application data storage. For the SQL workloads, the administrator can create iSCSI targets on Nutanix Volumes, configure the physical hosts’ iSCSI initiators to connect to these targets, and migrate the boot and data volumes from the legacy SAN to Nutanix.

The other options are not suitable for this task:

Boot using PXE protocol with Nutanix Files: Nutanix Files is a file storage solution that supports SMB and NFS protocols, not PXE (Preboot Execution Environment) booting. PXE is typically used for network-based OS installation, not for booting SQL workloads or replacing SAN-based boot volumes.

Boot using the NFS protocol with Nutanix Files: Nutanix Files supports NFS for file sharing, but NFS is not designed for booting physical servers. It is used for file-level access, not block-level access required for boot volumes.

Boot using Nutanix Object stores: Nutanix Objects is an object storage solution designed for S3-compatible APIs, not for block or file-based booting. It is unsuitable for hosting bootable volumes or SQL workloads.

The NUSA course documentation highlights that “Nutanix Volumes provides a seamless migration path for SAN-based workloads, including boot-from-SAN configurations, by leveraging iSCSI to present storage to physical hosts.” This makes it the only viable option for the described migration task.