.SAN design reference guide Vol. 1-5 785350-001

B-series iSCSI Director Blade
The B-series iSCSI Director Blade (FC4-16IP) is a gateway device between Fibre Channel targets
and iSCSI initiators. This allows iSCSI initiators in an IP SAN to access Fibre Channel storage in
a Fibre Channel SAN.
This section describes the following topics:
• “Blade overview” (page 353)
• “Hardware support” (page 353)
• “Software support” (page 354)
• “Scalability rules” (page 354)
For the latest B-series documentation, see http://h18006.www1.hp.com/storage/
saninfrastructure.html.
Blade overview
The B-series iSCSI Director Blade provides IP hosts access to Fibre Channel storage devices. The
IP host sends SCSI commands encapsulated in iSCSI PDUs to a blade port over TCP/IP. The PDUs
are routed from the IP network to the Fibre Channel network and then forwarded to the target.
Figure 156 (page 353) shows a sample configuration in which a B-series iSCSI Director Blade
bridges an IP network and Fibre Channel network.
Figure 156 Fibre Channel and IP configuration with the B-series iSCSI Director Blade
25320b
Host 1
Host 2
IP
network
B-series
iSCSI
Director
Blade
Fibre
Channel
IP link ISL
B-series
fabric
Fibre
Channel
Fibre
Channel
The incoming iSCSI initiators on an iSCSI port are mapped as a single iSCSI virtual initiator. The
virtual initiator is presented to Fibre Channel targets as an N_Port Fibre Channel initiator device
with a WWN.
By default, the blade uses basic LUN mapping to map Fibre Channel targets to iSCSI virtual targets.
This creates one iSCSI virtual target per Fibre Channel target and allows 1-to-1 mapping. The iSCSI
initiators are then allowed to access the iSCSI virtual targets.
Hardware support
This section describes the devices compatible with the B-series iSCSI Director Blade.
HP iSCSI bridge products 353