iSCSI initiators and targets

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A Network Interface Controller (NIC) on System z® attached to an IP (TCP/IP) network acts as an iSCSI initiator which initiates I/O requests to and receives responses from iSCSI target. In this case the target is Storwize® V7000.

iSCSI targets are the devices, which provide the response to iSCSI commands received from the iSCSI initiators over the IP (TCP/IP) Network. On Storwize V7000, one or both of its node Ethernet ports are configured to become iSCSI target.

Initiators and targets are given a unique ASCII name with a size of 233 bytes known as iSCSI Qualified Name (IQN). IQN is worldwide unique name which is used to identify each initiator and target.

Figure 1. iSCSI host connection to Storwize V7000 over Ethernet network

Block diagram showing how the iSCSI host is connected over a network to Storwize V7000
Figure 1 courtesy of Storwize V7000 Information Development. For more information about Storwize V7000, see:
https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/flashsystem-7x00/7.8.x?topic=overview-storwize-v7000