RE: iSCSI: ISIDs

["Jim Hafner" <hafner@almaden.ibm.com>]

Folks,

I want to add a point here.  (It's a bit preachy, however).

The whole reason we put in the draft the "SHOULD partition" ISIDs among
portal groups and why it is so prominent is to get all the people building
these components to agree NOW to the OS-specific mechanisms to achieve it.
First recognize the need and THEN to define the mechanism (and I've said
that the mechanism isn't hard, we (as vendors, not necessarily within the
specification) just have to agree on it).

We're trying to prevent exactly the problem David (I think) mentioned with
FW Nodenames never taking on the role they should have.  We're posting
right up front an implementation (strong) recommendation to enable both
assignment of Initiator Name (from outside the HW or SW) and of ISIDs (from
outside the HW or SW).   This enables the protocol to function at its best.
If people don't want to implement to this recommendation, then they'll pay
the price with either  inter-vendor interoperability problems (not with the
wire but within a given initiator) or with much more complex management
issues (a la FC Portnames).

Jim Hafner