An organization wants to provide access to the same dataset over both NFS and SMB. They plan to manage permissions separately for Linux and Windows clients, but the data must reside in the same volume and namespace. What configuration should the administrator implement?

• A. Enable multiprotocol access (NFS and SMB) on a single SVM hosting the shared volume
• B. Two SVMs, one NFS and one SMB, each hosting separate volumes
• C. Configure separate aggregates for each protocol under the same SVM
• D. Use FlexGroup volumes to automatically segregate NFS and SMB data

Answer: (A)

Multiprotocol access lets an ONTAP SVM serve the same volume to both NFS and SMB clients within a single, unified namespace. By enabling this on one SVM that hosts the shared volume, Linux and Windows users can access the exact same data without duplicating it or creating separate namespaces. This setup supports managing permissions appropriate to each protocol—POSIX permissions for NFS and NTFS-style ACLs for SMB—while still presenting a single path for all clients. The other options would either split the namespace (two SVMs) or don’t provide the single shared namespace with simultaneous NFS/SMB access (separate aggregates, or FlexGroup use, which is about scaling rather than unifying protocol access).