When Microsoft released their iSCSI Software Target to general download in April they

opened up a world of possibilities for smaller companies (as well as IT Pros and hobbyists)
who use servers, but cannot justify spending thousands of dollars on a Storage Area
Network (SAN) device. In this article I will show you how to create a virtual SAN in your
environment.
Installing the iSCSI Software Target (available
here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=45105d7f-8c6c-4666a305-c8189062a0d0) is a simple process. It comes as a self-extracting package which
installs seamlessly on any Windows Server 2008 R2 operating system (RTM or SP1). Once
installed it appears underAdministrative Tools.

Before we create our iSCSI Target we will create two VHD files: One as ourWitness
Disk and one for Shared Storage.
Right-click on Devices and clickCreate
Virtual Disk.
In the Create Virtual Disk Wizard type the
full name (including directory structure)
of the VHD file you want to create. The
Witness Disk does not have to be very
big (8GB is my norm), but the Shared
Storage Disk should be as large as you would need it to be depending on what you will be
storing it might need to be quite large.
1. In the Welcome screen click Next.

2. In the File screen type the name and location of the VHD file you want to create
(c:\disks\Witness.vhd) and click Next.
3. In the Size screen enter the size of the VHD in megabytes (for the Witness disk
enter 8192) and click Next.
4. In the Description screen enter a description (Witness Disk) and click Next.
5. On the Access screen click leave the fields blank and click Next. We will configure this
once we create our Target.
6. On the Completing the Create Virtual Disk Wizard screen click Finish.
Make sure to repeat these steps for the Shared Storage disk, changing only the file name,
description, and size appropriately.
For each VHD two files will be
created the Virtual Hard Disk file
which will be Fixed Disks, and a
Microsoft iSCSI Software Target
Change Tracking Bitmap file, which is a .cbm file that Microsoft uses for integrity checking.
Now that our storage is allocated we will create our iSCSI Target. To begin we will right-click
on iSCSI Targets in the navigation pane and click Create iSCSI Target.
1. In the Welcome screen click Next.
2. In the iSCSI Target Identification screen enter the name of your iSCSI target. This will
be the name of your Logical Unit Number (LUN). You can also optionally enter a description.
Click Next.
NOTE: Although not a requirement, it is a best practice to exclude punctuation,
especially periods and dashes, as they are used in the iSCSI Qualified Name (IQN) that will
be created by both the target and initiator.
3. In the iSCSI Initiators Identifiers screen we will select the Windows machines that will
be able to access the iSCSI target. Click on Advanced to enter the DNS domain name, IP
address, MAC address, or multiple pre-determined IQNs. In most cases the iSCSI Initiators
of your devices will not have been enabled yet, but by entering their IP address you can
save extra steps later.
There are two components of an iSCSI SAN the target, which is the LUN on the actual SAN
device, and the initiator, which is the computer that will be accessing it. Because SANs are
commonly used with clusters, it is possible to have several initiators configured to access a
single target. However if the target is not configured for the initiator, it will be invisible to
that system when it tries to access it.

4. Click Next on the iSCSI

Initiators Identifiers screen,
then clickFinish on
the Completing the Create
iSCSI Target Wizard screen.
At this point your iSCSI target has
been created. We can look at the
properties by right-clicking on the
iSCSI Target we created and

clickProperties.
The LUN properties box should have five tabs:General, iSCSI Initiators, Authentication,
Virtual Disks,and Advanced.
Under the General tab you will see (for the first time?) your IQN. In the example created for
this article it is iqn.1991-05.com.microsoft:ski-storage-lun1-target. This convention
may appear long and convoluted, but it can be broken down into two parts the device
manufacturer and the actual target.
Because we are using the iSCSI Software Target, the manufacturer is Microsoft, and
because their domain name (microsoft.com) was registered in May of 1991 the first part of
our iqn is 1991-05.com.microsoft. (If you had an EMC device, you would have an IQN
of iqn.1997-07.com.emcJ
The first part of the IQN is separated from the second part by a colon. The actual target
(LUN1) is on a server called Ski-Storage, hence ski-storage-lun1-target.
Under the iSCSI Initiators tab you can see, add, edit, and remove initiators. This will be
important if you plan to add new initiators to a cluster, for example.
Under the Authentication tab you can set CHAP (Control Host Authentication Protocol). This
is the only method of authentication supported by iSCSI.
Under the Virtual Disks tab we will add our pre-created VHDs.
1) Click Add

2) Select both disks and click OK.

3) In the LUN Properties screen click OK.
At this point our LUN is created and populated, and ready to go! Now it is a simple matter
of pointing our initiators to the device.
In Windows Server, click Start Administrator Tools iSCSI Initiator to launch the
iSCSI Initiator. If this is the first time you are running it on your server you will be warned
that in order to run the Initiator, the Microsoft iSCSI Initiator Service must be running,
and that Windows will configure it to auto-start.
In the iSCSI Initiators Properties box there are six tabs: Targets, Discovery, Favorite Targets,
Volumes and Devices, RADIUS, and Configuration.
In the Targets tab type the IP address of the server on which you configured your software
target, and click Quick-Connect In the event of a successful connection a Quick
Connect window will appear with the IQN of your iSCSI target and the
status Connected in the Status
column. Click Done to close the
Quick Connect window.
The IQN of your target will now
appear in the Discovered
Targets list on the Targets tab.
Click on the Volumes and
Devices tab of the iSCSI Initiator
Properties window. The Volume List should be blank. ClickAuto Configure to automatically
configure all of the devices on the discovered target. Two devices should appear.

The rest of what we are doing should be pretty familiar to you.

1) Open Server Manager.
2) Navigate to Disk Management.
There should be two new disks attached to your server.
3) Right-click the 8.00 GB disk and click on-line. Right-click the 64.00 GB disk and
click on-line.
4) Right-click the 8.00 GB disk and click Initialize. The Initialize Disk screen should
appear, allowing you to select both disks to be initialized. Click OK.
5) Create a Simple Volume on each disk.

a. On the 8.00 GB disk right-click on the unallocated space and click Create Simple
Volume.
b. In the New Simple Volume Wizard click Next.
c. In the Specify Volume Size screen click Next.
d. In the Assign Drive Letter or Path screen select Q and click Next.
e. In the Format Partition screen change the Volume Label to Witness Disk and
click Next.
f. On the Completing the New Simple Volume Wizard screen click Finish.
Repeat the same steps for the 64.00 GB disk, replacing the drive letter with M and the
label to Shared Storage. At this point your LUN is created, formatted, and ready for data.