A certain grid is configured in a network topology where only Admin Nodes and Gateway...

StorageGRID Platform Services traffic, including Apache Kafka event notifications, originates from Storage Nodes that run the Administrative Domain Controller (ADC) service. NetApp explicitly requires these ADC Storage Nodes to have network connectivity to external Platform Services endpoints. For Kafka, StorageGRID normally establishes outbound TCP connectivity from ADC Storage Nodes to the Kafka cluster, using port 9092 by default unless another port is configured.

In this topology, the Storage Nodes do not have Client Network interfaces, so they cannot use a Client Network default route to reach the Kafka endpoint. NetApp's supported alternative is to configure the Storage Nodes with Admin Networks containing appropriate Admin External Subnet List (AESL) entries that provide routes to the external endpoint network. Without the required AESL route on the ADC nodes, StorageGRID cannot validate connectivity to the Kafka endpoint.

Option B incorrectly identifies LDR as the service responsible for sending Platform Services messages. Option D is irrelevant because Gateway Nodes do not originate these Kafka Platform Services notifications. Although Platform Services must be enabled for the tenant, the networking details in the scenario specifically identify missing ADC-node endpoint routing as the intended failure.

Reference topics: Platform Services → Kafka Event Notifications → ADC Service → Admin Network → AESL → External Endpoint Connectivity