Novell LINUX ENTERPRISE SERVER 10 - INSTALLATION AND ADMINISTRATION 08-05-2008 Installation Manual page 300

lishing discovery relationships. This lets you control and simplify the number of targets
and initiators that must be discovered.
Figure 13.1 iSNS Discovery Domains and Discovery Domain Sets
Both, iSCSI targets and iSCSI initiators use iSNS clients to initiate transactions with
iSNS servers using the iSNS protocol. They then register device attribute information
in a common discovery domain, download information about other registered clients,
and receive asynchronous notification of events that occur in their discovery domain.
iSNS servers respond to iSNS protocol queries and requests made by iSNS clients using
the iSNS protocol. iSNS servers initiate iSNS protocol state change notifications and
store properly authenticated information submitted by a registration request in an iSNS
database.
Some of the benefits provided by iSNS for Linux include:
• Provides an information facility for registration, discovery, and management of
networked storage assets.
• Integrates with the DNS infrastructure.
• Consolidates registration, discovery, and management of iSCSI storage.
• Simplifies storage management implementations.
• Improves scalability compared to other discovery methods.
An example of the benefits iSNS provides can be better understood through the following
scenario:
282 Installation and Administration