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Date:      Sat, 16 Sep 2006 15:35:52 +0300
From:      Danny Braniss <danny@cs.huji.ac.il>
To:        Robert Blayzor <rblayzor@inoc.net>
Cc:        Matthew Jacob <lydianconcepts@gmail.com>, freebsd-stable@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: iSCSI HBAs 
Message-ID:  <E1GOZOi-0009lJ-7g@cs1.cs.huji.ac.il>
In-Reply-To: <450BE564.20106@inoc.net> 
References:  <450B62C9.5000706@inoc.net> <7579f7fb0609152252y5660195fo419a67dbe90904cd@mail.gmail.com> <450BE564.20106@inoc.net>

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> Matthew Jacob wrote:
> > Why do you think an iSCSI HBA would be of any benefit to anything
> > other than the target mode side as a server?
> 
> 
> Mostly for deploying servers that are diskless, quickly.  No need to
> depend on another server (other than the iSCSI target) to get servers up
> without a lot of fusing around.  Diskless + the software initiator seems
> like a lot of fusing around to get one server up.  I mean I could be
> wrong, I'm not really sure how the FreeBSD software initiator works or
> if it's actual optimized and stable.  If it's as easy as setting up a
> DHCP and TFTP server just to boot the kernel, then mount the iSCSI
> volume, that might be an option.  But right now, if an iSCSI HBA driver
> was available it might be the more reliable way to go.  Again, I could
> be way off base.  We use FreeBSD in all of our server clusters now, most
> via RAID1 mirrors on every server, I'd like to stay with FreeBSD, but
> sometimes it's lack of support for new server beneficial drivers make
> that choice hard to make.

we have been running diskless clients for a few hundred work stations, so
i think i have some experience :-)
	1- setting a diskless freebsd is far easier than linux
	2- it's by far much easier to manage.
btw, the majority of ws are running linux.
being involved with the iSCSI initiator for FreeBSD, I can't see where
this can help for a diskless host, or in other words, what's
wrong with NFS?
also, the TOE cards are not that cheep either :-)
my 2c,
	danny





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