Download and Install Microsoft iSCSI Target and Tools for Windows Storage Server 2008 R2
I have a two-node Hyper-v cluster for testing purposes and until now i was using starwind software to create share storage in order to create CSVs for hyper-v. The problem is that now with microsoft iscsi software target 3.3 i want to do the same thing but when i try to create a target in one of the cluster nodes, it can only be posible clustering the service, and for that i need cluster available storage and this is the thing that i'm looking for with scsi target!. So how can i install iscsi software in standalone mode, but in a member of a cluster as i did with starwind?.
Microsoft iSCSI Target and Tools for Windows Storage server 2008 free download
A new option for server-based storage entered the market in April, 2011 when Microsoft made available for free public download a software package that transforms a standard Windows Server 2008 R2 computer into a Windows Storage Server, aka an iSCSI SAN provider. An iSCSI target server and supporting features are now bundled with Windows Server 2012, making it even easier to get the most out of your production, backup, or lab storage resources. Figure A shows the File and iSCSI Services selected in the Windows Server 2012 Add Roles and Features Wizard.
What is iSCSI?Internet Small Computer System Interface Target Server is a server components which works like a SAN (Storage Area Network) box and provides block storage to initiator. It is used to create SAN on Windows Server 2012 R2 and used as a Shared storage to share block storage over Ethernet. On the server you can create multiple partitions which can be accessed from multiple servers to save and access data. It was available for free download on Windows Server 2008 R2. However, from Windows Server 2012 onward Microsoft has provided iSCSI Target as a built-in features therefore no more additional downloads are required.
I am confused it appears that if you have windows server 2008 R2 then you can download the ISCSI target for free, which will basically turn your windows server into Windows storage server 2008, which was a product that was only open to OEM and to Technet for non prod use.
ISCSI target on Windows is interesting. It would be better to use those 700$ from the license on drives, but there is so much more that you can do with a server 2008. Could run ISCI and SMB from the same storage server.
A separate DHCP server may be configured to assist interfaces equipped with network boot capability to be able to boot over iSCSI. In this case, the network interface looks for a DHCP server offering a PXE or bootp boot image.[6] This is used to kick off the iSCSI remote boot process, using the booting network interface's MAC address to direct the computer to the correct iSCSI boot target[citation needed]. One can then use a software-only approach to load a small boot program which can in turn mount a remote iSCSI target as if it was a local SCSI drive and then fire the boot process from said iSCSI target[citation needed]. This can be achieved using an existing Preboot Execution Environment (PXE) boot ROM, which is available on many wired Ethernet adapters. The boot code can also be loaded from CD/DVD, floppy disk (or floppy disk image) and USB storage, or it can replace existing PXE boot code on adapters that can be re-flashed.[7] The most popular free software to offer iSCSI boot support is iPXE.[8]
Hyper-V is hypervisor-based virtualization software, forming a core part of Microsoft's virtualization strategy. It virtualizes servers on an operating system's kernel layer. It can be thought of as partitioning a single physical server into multiple small computational partitions. Hyper-V includes the ability to act as a Xen virtualization hypervisor host allowing Xen-enabled guest operating systems to run virtualized.[23] A beta version of Hyper-V shipped with certain x86-64 editions of Windows Server 2008, prior to Microsoft's release of the final version of Hyper-V on 26 June 2008 as a free download. Also, a standalone variant of Hyper-V exists; this variant supports only x86-64 architecture.[24] While the IA-32 editions of Windows Server 2008 cannot run or install Hyper-V, they can run the MMC snap-in for managing Hyper-V.