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
Provides access control for registered targets and initiators
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:
Suppose you have a company that has 100 iSCSI initiators and 100 iSCSI targets. Depending on your configuration, all iSCSI initiators could potentially try to discover and connect to any of the 100 iSCSI targets. This could create a discovery and connection nightmare. By grouping initiators and targets into discovery domains, you can prevent iSCSI initiators in one department from discovering and connecting to the iSCSI targets in another department. The result is that the iSCSI initiators in a specific department can only discover those iSCSI targets that are part of the department’s Discovery Domain.