iSCSI Protocol Architecture
The iSCSI Standard
The way the Gateways work today, it will come from an iSCSI initiator, to a
proxy iSCSI target, and then it’s a proxy Fibre Channel initiator to a real Fibre
Channel target.
What it actually does is to take the iSCSI qualified name and it carry out a
proxy registration into the Fibre Channel network so the iSCSI initiator looks
like it is in the Fibre Channel network. And it takes our Fibre Channel target, it
takes its World Wide Name, and it does a proxy registration into our network.
At this point, it will typically use iSNS. Remember the internet Storage
Network Service that we developed for use with iFCP, which already took the
Name Server and put it onto our IP side so we could learn all of the name
services from all of the fabrics, well it also has the ability to take all of the
iSCSI information into it as well so we can use it to do the proxy registrations.
So iSCSI can use iSNS whereas iFCP has to use iSNS.
An iSCSI Gateway allows iSCSI initiators to communicate with Fibre Channel
targets.