Best practices for efficient storage management, Storage manager for sans, Lun management for iscsi subsystems – Dell PowerVault NX1950 User Manual

Page 67

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Appendix

67

Best Practices for Efficient Storage Management

Storage Manager for SANs

Storage Manager for SANs is a Microsoft Management Console snap-in that

system administrators can use to create and manage the logical unit numbers

(LUNs) that are used to allocate space on storage arrays in both Fibre

Channel and iSCSI environments. Storage Manager for SANs is deployed

through a conventional snap-in and can be used on storage area network

(SAN) based storage arrays that support Virtual Disk Server (VDS) using a

hardware VDS provider. Due to hardware, protocol, transport layer and

security differences, configuration and LUN management differ for the two

types (iSCSI and Fibre Channel) of supported environments. This feature

works with any type of Host Bus Adapter (HBA) or switches on the SAN. For a

list of VDS providers that have passed the Hardware Compatibility Tests

(HCT), see the Microsoft storage website on www.microsoft.com/storage.

LUN Management for iSCSI Subsystems

For iSCSI, a LUN is assigned to a Target—a logical entity that contains one or

more LUNs. A server accesses the LUN by logging on to the Target using the

server's iSCSI Initiator. To log on to a Target, the Initiator connects to portals

on the Target; a subsystem has one or more portals, which are associated with

Targets. If a server's Initiator is logged on to a Target, and a new LUN is

assigned to the Target, the server can immediately access the LUN.
Securing data on an iSCSI SAN—To help secure data transfers between the

server and the subsystem, configure security for the login sessions between

Initiators and Targets. Using Storage Manager for SANs, you can configure

one-way or mutual Challenge Handshake Authentication Protocol (CHAP)

authentication between the Initiator and Targets, and you can also configure

Internet Protocol security (IPsec) data encryption.

NOTE:

It is recommended that you use CHAP if the iSCSI traffic uses the public

network.

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