Re: no DHCP-assigned InitiatorName

Michael Howard <[email protected]> Wed, 24 Sep 2008 14:59:04 -0700
Newsgroups gmane.ietf.ips
Message-ID <[email protected]>
Gaurav and Shyam,

Q: Do you have contacts with the EqualLogic team who may be interested 
in working on a resolution for this iSCSI/DHCP issue?

Q: Do you have any contacts at Broadcom?


Thanks,
Michael

[email protected] wrote:
> My 2 cents based on my understanding of iSNS. 
> 
> - iSNS clients (initiators and targets) need to have an IQN address
> before they register with the iSNS server.
> - Most pre-OS iSCSI initiators available today are not iSNS clients i.e.
> they don't register with and/or query iSNS server.
> 
> Given this, it seems better to have a DHCP based standardized mechanism
> for acquiring the initiator IQN. Based on initial email from Michael,
> most pre-OS iSCSI Initiators available today have the capability to be a
> DHCP client.
> 
> Thanks,
> Gaurav Chawla
> Technology Strategist, Network Storage Architecture | Office of the CTO,
> Dell, Inc.
> Phone: 512.724.4064 (work)
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of
> Michael Howard
> Sent: Monday, September 22, 2008 2:29 PM
> To: Iyer, Shyam
> Cc: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected];
> [email protected]
> Subject: Re: [Ips] no DHCP-assigned InitiatorName
> 
> [email protected] wrote:
>> My 2cents on the issue. Please correct me if I am wrong. 
> 
> Thank you for participating in this discussion.
> 
>> Shouldn't it be possible to configure the isns server with a set of
>> possibly regex rules for the control path. If this not possible today,
>> then it could possibly be the root to take towards standardizing. 
> 
> I am not familiar enough with iSNS to comment.
> 
> I have been exposed to about about a dozen commercial environments with 
> some level of iSCSI use/experimentation. I am not aware that any of them
> 
>   were running iSNS servers.
> 
>> This can solve the problem of provisioning for dynamic boot
> environments
>> with minimum changes to legacy iqn implementations, many of which
> would
>> need to relearn to the new iqn mechanism that might end up as a result
>> of this discussion.
> 
> Frankly, my concern is that Broadcom/IBM already have a non-standard 
> DHCP Vendor Option work-around for this problem.
> 
> Adding a new/standardized InitiatorName DHCP option would not break 
> existing initiator implementations. Vendors would integrate support for 
> this new InitiatorName option into their code/firmware releases over
> time.
> 
>> Instead of changing numerous configurations we could
>> simply change the isns server control mechanism.
> 
> I need to do some homework regarding iSNS.
> 
>> Comments?
> 
> iSCSI is still a very small part of the market.
> 
> I advocate addressing this deficiency sooner rather than later.
> 
> 
> Michael
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