iSCSI

Anytime I do a demo that requires a SAN, I use the Microsoft iSCSI Target software.  I'm lucky, I get to install it onto my demo machines.  If you want it, you need to ask your OEM (the one that sold you your Windows Storage Server) - it's just an add-on.

I'm frequently asked how I use it and set it up.  So, here goes:

This ten minute demo is broken down into three sections (Setting up the Target, Setting up the Initiator and Setting up the Initiator using the command line in Server Core).

Click to start, double click anywhere to play it in Full Screen and move your mouse over it to get the Player Controls to pop up.

Here's the commands I used towards the end (I just modify and use this for each Server Core machine I need to configure) - democore is the local iSCSI Initiator (the one I'm configuring) and daven-2008 is the iSCSI Target machine.  So just replace every instance of each with your own server names.

sc \\democore config msiscsi start= auto
net start msiscsi

iscsicli QAddTargetPortal daven-2008
iscsicli QAddTarget iqn.1991-05.com.microsoft:daven-2008-daven-2008-target daven-2008
iscsicli QloginTarget iqn.1991-05.com.microsoft:daven-2008-daven-2008-target
iscsicli PersistentLoginTarget iqn.1991-05.com.microsoft:daven-2008-daven-2008-target T * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 0
iscsicli BindPersistentVolumes
iscsicli ListPersistentTargets
iscsicli ReportTargetMappings

The iSCSI Initiator is already in Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista.  You can download it for 2003, 2000 and XP from here.  There's also a very detailed User Guide (which explains why I have fifteen stars in my PersistentLoginTarget command).

Enjoy,

Dave.