Exam NCP-BC-7.5 Topic 1 Question 111 Discussion

Nutanix storage is often accessed by external backup solutions (like Veeam, Commvault, or HYCU) using the iSCSI protocol. This allows the backup server to mount snapshots and read data directly from the storage tier.
The error message " iscsiadm... discovery... timeout " specifically indicates that the backup server ' s iSCSI initiator is unable to communicate with the Nutanix Data Services IP or the Controller VMs (CVMs) over the network.
When a Nutanix cluster is expanded, it is essential that all networking and firewall configurations applied to the existing nodes are also applied to the new nodes. The iSCSI protocol relies on specific TCP ports: port
3260 is the standard port for iSCSI traffic, and port 3205 is often used for iSCSI discovery and metadata operations within Nutanix. If these ports are not open in the physical firewall or the host-based security rules for the newly added nodes, the backup server will be unable to discover the targets on those specific nodes, leading to the timeout errors . This highlights a common " Day 2 " operational trap: cluster expansion requires careful auditing of network security groups and firewall whitelists to ensure that external integrations- especially BCDR and backup services-continue to have uninterrupted access to the expanded storage fabric.
Verifying and opening ports 3205 and 3260 for the new node IPs is the first step to resolving this timeout issue.