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    iSCSI: NIC interoperability



    After seeing some of the emails on this topic from Dave 
    Sheehy, David Black and Jim Hafner, I have some comments
    and questions.
    
    It appears to me that the following three are the major
    issues that one has to deal with for building a multi-NIC
    iSCSI Node, where the NICs are potentially from different
    vendors.
    	A. Each NIC MUST allow the Node name to be configurable.
    	B. Each NIC MUST allow the ISID range to be configurable
               (if deployed in an initiator configuration). 
    	C. In addition, if only one (initiator/target) portal group 
               is sought to be presented (i.e. session spanning across
               any and all of these NICs is a requirement), each NIC
               MUST allow itself to be managed by an externally-resident 
               "session manager" in some "TBD standard way".
    
    Admittedly, C is is the hardest and till the "TBD standard way"
    is defined to interact with a session manager, it cannot be 
    mandated.  Failure to comply with C would only create multiple
    portal groups in an iSCSI implementation - each portal group
    limited to NIC(s) from a given vendor.
    
    But, A and B above seem reasonable and in fact seem required
    to be mandated - both to avoid the problems as with FC Node
    Name, and also to address the concerns of not leaving target
    with a deterministic way to enforce access control mechanisms 
    and such.
    
    I realize that the "no duplicate nexus" goal does not strictly
    require A (hence neither B), but I recommend that A be mandated, 
    thus automatically making B an additional requirement for initiator
    configurations.  Rev08 iSCSI draft seems to refer to A and B 
    in section 9 (implementation notes) as "should".  Was there a 
    concern about the appropriateness of mandating A and B in the
    main modeling discussion?  They appear fairly straightforward
    to implement.  
    
    If the reasoning was not to require _any_ configuration of an 
    iSCSI NIC, I would argue that you require some "name" to be 
    configurable anytime you want to build a logically monolithic 
    entity (as in a node) from smaller components (each of which 
    can act as a logically independent entity in its own right).
    
    Comments from NDT and/or Julian would help.
    
    Thanks.
    -- 
    Mallikarjun 
    
    Mallikarjun Chadalapaka
    Networked Storage Architecture
    Network Storage Solutions Organization
    MS 5668 Hewlett-Packard, Roseville.
    cbm@rose.hp.com
    


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Last updated: Sat Oct 20 22:17:46 2001
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