iSCSI: Support Alias in the protocol

["John Hufferd" <hufferd@us.ibm.com>]

Today at the 51st meeting of the IETF, I presented an issue that came out
of the Naming and Discovery Team.

That was that some members of the team did not understand why we needed to
have an Alias field, which is in the base protocol today, since it was
technically not needed.   The position I presented to the group was that
the Naming and Discovery Team did not have consensus, since many of us felt
that having a Human oriented "Tagging" function was useful, and a small
item which would be useful for Administrators especially when EUI names are
used.

One person, at the meeting today, stated that it might not be of extreme
importance on large Networks with sophisticated Management tools, but it
was very useful in small to medium environments, where the Management tools
were slim.  And at least one person stated that since it was not required,
it should not be in the protocol.

As the conversations when on, it was pointed out by the area director,
Scott  Bradner, that SLP used a similar Text field in its protocol, so
there was clearly a president.

In any event, we could not reach consensus at the meeting, so I was asked
to bring the issue to the List.  (So here it is!)

Please state your positions so that David can call a consensus.



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John L. Hufferd
Senior Technical Staff Member (STSM)
IBM/SSG San Jose Ca
Main Office (408) 256-0403, Tie: 276-0403,  eFax: (408) 904-4688
Home Office (408) 997-6136
Internet address: hufferd@us.ibm.com