iSCSI technologies in HP ProLiant servers using advanced network adapters, 2nd edition

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You must use HP ProLiant Essentials Accelerated iSCSI Pack to enable accelerated iSCSI on HP servers
with embedded Multifunction Gigabit Ethernet server adapters. It is not required for the multifunction
mezzanine cards and multifunction Gigabit Ethernet server adapters because accelerated iSCSI is
included on these optional cards. For more information on the Accelerated iSCSI Pack, please go to
www.hp.com/go/iscsi.
A complete list of ProLiant networking adapters and mezzanine cards for ProLiant BladeSystem
servers is available at http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/servers/networking/index-nic.html.
iSCSI boot
iSCSI boot lets the host server boot from a remote OS image located on a SAN. An iSCSI firmware
image (iSCSI boot option ROM) on the host server makes the remote disk drive appear as a local,
bootable C: drive. The server is configured to connect to and boot from the iSCSI target disk on the
network and to download the OS image from the iSCSI target disk.
iSCSI boot for FlexFabric adapters
HP FlexFabric adapters feature iSCSI boot support as part of the base product. In addition to
providing iSCSI boot support for Red Hat, SUSE Linux®, or Microsoft® Windows® Server
environments, FlexFabric adapters will also support iSCSI boot in various Virtual Machine
environments, including VMware ESXi 4.1. iSCSI boot for FlexFabric is not supported on earlier
versions of VMware.
Configuring iSCSI boot using Virtual Connect Manager
The HP FlexFabric adapter supports configuration of iSCSI boot parameters using the HP Virtual
Connect Manager 3.10 for the HP BladeSystem enclosure. This eliminates the need to use traditional
remote connection tools to access each server individually and configure iSCSI boot using server-side
software utilities. From the Virtual Connect console, you can manage the iSCSI boot configurations for
iSCSI initiator functions on multiple servers’ FlexFabric adapters (Figure 4).