Promise Technology 2-Year Extended Warranty for VessR2000 RAID Head - Manual (Page 624)

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Product Manual Technology Background
i
nitiAtOr
An initiator functions as the client, in this case, your host PC or server. The in-itiator makes requests to and
receives responses from an iSCSI target on the Vess RAID subsystem.
Each initiator has a unique iSCSI qualified name (IQN). You specify the initiator by that name when you map
a LUN or logical drive to
Software
A software initiator uses code to implement iSCSI. The software emulates SCSI devices for a computer by
speaking the iSCSI protocol. Software initiators are available for most mainstream operating systems, and this
type is the most common mode of deploying iSCSI on computers.
For more information, see your iSCSI driver user documentation.
Hardware
A hardware initiator uses dedicated hardware in combination with software running on it, to implement iSCSI.
A common example is an iSCSI host bus adapter (HBA) card.
The iSCSI HBA is a 1-gigabit or 10 gigabit Ethernet network Interface card (NIC) that plugs into a PCI-Express
slot. It looks like a SCSI device to the host PC or server’s operating system.
The iSCSI HBA uses a TCP/IP Offload Engine (TOE) to perform iSCSI and TCP processing and managing
interrupts, leaving the host PC or server’s microprocessor free to run other applications.
For more information, see your iSCSI HBA user documentation.
t
Arget
The target represents a storage device, in this case the Vess RAID subsystem. Each target has a unique iSCSI
qualified name (IQN).
Target options include Digests and CHAPs.