Re: iSCSI Naming: WWUIs, URNs, and namespaces

[Brian Pawlowski <beepy@netapp.com>]

Wait.

Are "initiators" being connected to actively by "targets"?
Via some call back or something?

I might be missing something here - I was doing a mental analogy
to NFS clients and servers - we had to come up with a server
name space, but the clients were initiating the mappings and
only had to be able to find file systems on servers (forming
an identifier).

> Marjorie,
>                                                                       
>  >The host name provides the level of uniqueness necessary            
>  >to allow iSCSI to ensure further uniqueness within that host.       
>                                                                       
> 
> 
> 
> Not all iSCSI devices have a host name;  some use DHCP for IP address
> assignment, particularly initiators.  An initiator needs a name that is
> more unique than just within its host, so the target can identify it
> (imagine all the initiators named "WindowsLaptop").  It is even possible
> for a target to use DHCP, if all the initiators find its IP address using
> some means other than DNS (e.g., iSNS and/or SLP).  Also, this would enable
> storage administrators to configure a "hot backup" of a target on a second
> host, so they can temporarily move the data to a backup machine to perform
> some maintenance on the primary machine, without reconfiguring the
> potentially thousands of geographically widespread initiators.  You could
> preconfigure the initiators with a primary hostname and a backup hostname
> for the target, or use iSNS/SLP to learn its IP address.
> 
> Tom McSweeney
> iSCSI Development, Storage Systems Group, IBM
> Email: rf42tpme@us.ibm.com
> Phone: (USA) 919-254-5634  (tie line: 444-5634)
> Fax:   (USA) 919-254-0391  (tie line: 444-0391)
>