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Table Of Contents
VMware, Inc. 59
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ESXisystemsincludeiSCSItechnologytoaccessremotestorageusinganIPnetwork.YoucanusethevSphere
WebClient,commandsintheesxcliiscsinamespace,orthevicfg-iscsicommandtoconfigureboth
hardwareandsoftwareiSCSIstorageforyourESXisystem.
Thischapterincludesthefollowingtopics:
“iSCSIStorageOverview”onpage 59
“ProtectinganiSCSISAN”onpage 61
“CommandSyntaxforesxcliiscsiandvicfgiscsi”onpage 63
“iSCSIStorageSetupwithESXCLIonpage 68
“iSCSIStorageSetupwithvicfgiscsi”onpage 73
“ListingandSettingiSCSIOptions”onpage 77
“ListingandSettingiSCSIParameters”onpage 78
“EnablingiSCSIAuthentication”onpage 82
“SettingUpPortsforiSCSIMultipathing”onpage 83
“ManagingiSCSISessions”onpage 84
SeethevSphereStoragedocumentationforadditionalinformation.
iSCSI Storage Overview
WithiSCSI,SCSIstoragecommandsthatyourvirtualmachineissuestoitsvirtualdiskareconvertedinto
TCP/IPprotocolpacketsandtransmittedtoaremotedevice,ortarget,onwhichthevirtualdiskislocated.To
thevirtualmachine,thedeviceappearsasalocallyattachedSCSIdrive.
Toaccessremote
targets,theESXihostusesiSCSIinitiators.InitiatorstransportSCSIrequestsandresponses
betweenESXiandthetargetstoragedeviceontheIPnetwork.ESXisupportsthesetypesofinitiators:
SoftwareiSCSIadapter.VMwarecodebuiltintotheVMkernel.AllowsanESXihosttoconnecttothe
iSCSIstoragedevicethroughstandardnetworkadapters.ThesoftwareinitiatorhandlesiSCSIprocessing
whilecommunicatingwiththenetworkadapter.
HardwareiSCSIadapter.OffloadsalliSCSIandnetworkprocessingfromyourhost.HardwareiSCSI
adaptersarebrokenintotwotypes.
DependenthardwareiSCSIadapter.LeveragestheVMwareiSCSImanagementandconfiguration
interfaces.
IndependenthardwareiSCSIadapter.LeveragesitsowniSCSImanagementandconfiguration
interfaces.
SeethevSphereStoragedocumentationfordetailsonsetupandfailoverscenarios.
Managing iSCSI Storage
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