Which storage protocol allows administrators to reduce the total number of network ports used in the network environment?

Fibre Channel over Ethernet converges FC and Ethernet traffic onto shared physical links, which can reduce some dedicated FC ports, but it still requires Converged Network Adapters and does not eliminate storage-specific port requirements as completely as vSAN does.

vSAN uses existing VMkernel network adapters on the standard Ethernet fabric to carry both VM and storage traffic simultaneously, removing the need for any dedicated storage network ports or additional HBAs and thereby reducing the total port count across the infrastructure.

Fibre Channel requires dedicated Host Bus Adapters and separate FC switch ports that are entirely distinct from the Ethernet network, which increases the total number of network ports rather than reducing them.

Network File System uses existing Ethernet ports for file-level storage access but does not reduce the total port count - it simply adds storage traffic on top of existing Ethernet usage without eliminating any dedicated ports.