iSCSI Portal Addresses

Field

Description

IP address

The IP address of the network interface in dotted decimal format (nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn)

TCP Port

The number of the TCP port used to access the network interface.

Portal Group Tag

A numerical value ranging from 0 to 65535 that identifies the iSCSI target portal group to which the interface belongs. Because all TCP connections within an iSCSI session must use interfaces assigned to the same target portal group, all TCP connections within an iSCSI session must use interfaces with the same target portal group tag.

Interface

A network interface over which the storage system receives iSCSI requests. Each interface is currently assigned to the iSCSI target portal group identified by its tag on the same line.

If you have enabled multi-connection iSCSI sessions, you can define your own target portal groups that contain multiple network interfaces.  (For more information about multi-connection iSCSI sessions, see the Data ONTAP Block Access Management Guide.)

Network interfaces in the same target portal group collectively coordinate an iSCSI session. Using multi-connection sessions means that the loss of a single TCP connection (due to a cable pull, for example) does not necessarily result in the loss of the iSCSI session. You do not need to use MPIO to enable support for multiple connections.

Data ONTAP allows a single host to access iSCSI LUNs over up to 16 different network data paths simultaneously. Data ONTAP does support multiple TCP connections over the same data path, but distinct data paths are needed to obtain the high availability and bandwidth aggregation benefit.

Note Your initiator software might support a lower maximum number of connections than the 16 connections supported by Data ONTAP. For details, see the documentation for your initiator software.