KERNSAFE - iSCSI SAN Software and Storage Virtualization

iSCSI Server - Starters Guide

If you are visiting this page it means that you would like to know more about iSCSI technology and what can you do with it to benefit your needs. From this article you will learn everything you need to know about iSCSI and learn how to use it in real world scenarios using your own hardware! Using iSCSI, on the contrary to fiber channel, you don’t need to buy any new hardware! You can use hardware you already have. Only thing you will need is iSCSI Target (it is an application that will share your storage) and iSCSI Initiator (it is application that allows you to connect to iSCSI Target).

iSCSI – stands for Internet Small Computer System Interface, is a technology that will allow you to connect to different devices (including your hard drive, optical drivers, scanners, usb drives etc.) using Ethernet network. It means that using iSCSI Target, such as iStorage Server, you can share your storage through the Internet or LAN! Similar technology was available before but main difference with iSCSI is that device connected in this way will appear like it is locally connected. It means that when you will mount a partition using iSCSI Initiator, for your operating system it will appear like it is a locally connected drive. That has many benefits allowing you to partition, format or label that drive as you wish, exactly in the same way as you could do with a physical disk. You can do the same thing with other devices such as scanners, printers or tape devices.

Now you should have a basic idea of what iSCSI is therefore we can move to more interesting part of this article, and that it using iSCSI Target – iStorage Server. iStorage Server is software (that means it don’t require any special hardware to work thus it is saving you money) iSCSI Target. Its role is to create a target, using your device on a host machine, to which later iSCSI Initiator can connect.

But iStorage Server can do more than just simply share your devices as a iSCSI Target. It is also capable of creating High-Availability (Failover) servers, RAID-1 or using network diskless boot! For complete list please visit:

http://www.kernsafe.com/product/istorage-server/features.aspx

On our download page there is available Free 20 days trial version that don’t have any feature limitations. Except for that, there is also a completely free version available that allows you to create iSCSI Targets that are will be shown later in this article. You can download iStorage Server here:

http://www.kernsafe.com/download.aspx

When it comes to iSCSI Initiator – if you are using Windows 7 you already have this tool. You can find it by typing iSCSI Initiator in the Start Menu. For those who don't have it (for example XP users) please visit:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=12cb3c1a-15d6-4585-b385-befd1319f825

and, if you are using 32-bit Operating System, please download: Initiator-2.08-build3825-x86fre.exe 

You may also choose to use TotalMounter, which is KernSafe iSCSI Initiator. TotalMounter is all-in-one software that can mount almost any file type as well as virtual CD/DVD burner. It is the only free software that has so many capabilities. You can check more information about it here:

http://www.kernsafe.com/product/totalmounter.aspx


Next article will be about how to create your first iSCSI target using iStorage Server and how to connect to it. Stay tuned for next week!