Manage Shared Storage using iSCSI

Introduction

Welcome to the Manage Shared Storage using iSCSI Practice Lab.

Learning Outcomes

In this module, you will complete the following exercises:

• Exercise 1 - Install and Configure iSCSI Storage
• Exercise 2 - Prepare iSCSI Initiator and Remote Storage

After completing this lab, you will be able to:

• Install iSCSI Target Server
• Configure shared disk storage using iSCSI
• Configure iSCSI initiator and connect to remote disk storage
• Initialize remote disk storage

Exam Objectives

The following exam objectives are covered in this lab:

• Identify storage technologies and their typical usage scenarios - iSCSI hardware

Lab Duration

It will take approximately 45 minutes to complete this lab.

Exercise 1 - Install and Configure iSCSI Storage

Internet protocol over Small Computer System Interface (iSCSI) is a cost-effective solution to expand your system storage. This software-based storage expansion technology uses Internet Protocol (IP) stack as the medium to establish communication between devices namely the iSCSI target server and iSCSI initiator.

iSCSI Target Server hosts the SCSI logical unit, also known as a collection of storage drives that includes hard disks, virtual hard disks, solid state drives or tapes. These storage drives are numbered (logical unit number or LUN) to reference a RAID set, a single drive or partition or multiple drives or partition.

Windows Server iSCSI target server utilize VHD (virtual hard disk) format which is why it is called iSCSI Virtual Disks.

Newer versions of Windows operating system such as Windows Server 2008 and later support iSCSI target service that can be installed separately. Other Windows versions like Windows 7, Server 2008 and higher support iSCSI initiators feature. This is where Windows will use remote disks of iSCSI target servers and it will appear as local storage to the end-user.

Exercise 2 - Prepare iSCSI Initiator and Remote Storage

After installing and setting up the iSCSI Target Server on the domain controller server, you will configure the iSCSI Initiator client and connect it to the remote disk volume. iSCSI initiators are client computers that utilize the remote disk made available by an iSCSI target server. To initialize disk storage, the iSCSI initiator is started on a Windows computer and connects to the iSCSI target server. When the connection is successfully established, the remote disk volume is configured via disk management utility.