With Microsoft iSCSI Software Target, an iSCSI target provides storage to an iSCSI initiator by controlling and managing initiator access to the iSCSI Software Target storage services. When you create an iSCSI target, you identify the iSCSI initiator that can log on to the iSCSI target. After creating an iSCSI target, you can change which iSCSI initiators can access the target and configure other properties, such as enabling authentication. You can also manage iSCSI targets using Microsoft iSCSI Software Target VDS Hardware Provider and a management application, such as Storage Manager for SANs, that uses this provider.
Disk storage for an iSCSI target is provided by creating or importing virtual disks. You can assign zero or more virtual disks to each target. After you assign at least one virtual disk to the iSCSI target, the iSCSI initiator specified for the target can enumerate, access, read, and write to each disk assigned to the iSCSI target the same as a hard disk. Any other iSCSI virtual disks on the storage subsystem are not visible or available to the iSCSI initiator.
For more information about the components of an iSCSI storage subsystem, see Overview of Microsoft iSCSI Software Target.
For more information about iSCSI virtual disks, see Creating and Managing Virtual Disks for iSCSI Targets.
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| If implementing failover clustering with Microsoft iSCSI Software Target, you can create and manage iSCSI resource groups using Failover Cluster Management, and virtual disks and targets using Microsoft iSCSI Software Target. For more information about implementing failover clustering, see Configuring iSCSI Storage for High Availability. |