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Determining the supported number of hosts in iSCSI configurations

The maximum number of SAN hosts that can be connected in iSCSI configurations varies greatly based on your specific combination of multiple cluster attributes, such as the number of hosts connected to each cluster node, initiators per host, logins per host, and nodes in the cluster.

About this task

The number of hosts that can be directly connected to a node or that can be connected through one or more switches depends on the number of available Ethernet ports. The number of available Ethernet ports is determined by the model of the controller and the number and type of adapters installed in the controller. The number of supported Ethernet ports for controllers and adapters is available in the Lenovo Press.

For all multi-node cluster configurations, you must determine the number of iSCSI sessions per node to know whether you can add more hosts to your cluster. As long as your cluster is below the maximum number of iSCSI sessions per node, you can continue to add hosts to your cluster. The maximum number of iSCSI sessions per node varies based on the types of controllers in your cluster.

  1. Identify all of the target portal groups on the node.
  2. Check the number of iSCSI sessions for every target portal group on the node: iscsi session show -tpgroup tpgroup

    The number of entries displayed at the bottom of the command output represents your number of iSCSI sessions for that target portal group.
  3. Record the number of iSCSI sessions displayed for each target portal group.
  4. Add the number of iSCSI sessions for each target portal group on the node.

    The total represents the number of iSCSI sessions on your node.