Install Guide

9 Citrix XenServer with Dell SC Series Storage Configuration and Deployment | 3132-CD-V
3 XenServer storage overview
XenServer environments utilize shared storage as part of the virtualization platform. Shared storage can be
connected through iSCSI, Fibre Channel (FC), or NFS. The information contained in this document is focused
on iSCSI and Fibre Channel block storage connectivity because the SC Series storage platform is a block
storage platform. The addition of FluidFS storage (a file-based NAS platform) to the SC Series platform can
provide NFS storage, but is not covered as part of this document.
Note: Additional information regarding FluidFS storage platforms can be found on the page, FluidFS
technical content.
Block storage devices in the form of iSCSI or FC LUNs are presented to the XenServer hosts, from which
SRs are created. SRs, which are connected to all XenServer hosts participating in the XenServer pool, are
the entity on which VDIs reside. VDIs are recognized by VMs as physical disks, and are persistent on the
SRs.
3.1 Shared iSCSI storage
XenServer using SC Series storage provides support for shared SRs on iSCSI-attached LUNs. iSCSI LUNs
can use the Open-iSCSI software initiator or a supported iSCSI host bus adapter (HBA). Figure 1 and Figure
2 illustrate how both the Open-iSCSI software initiator and iSCSI HBA environments look conceptually.
Shared iSCSI storage using the Open-iSCSI software initiator