A storage administrator needs highly available connectivity from a Microsoft Windows host to an iSCSI storage array. The administrator needs to ensure that the data is still available in the event of

MPIO (Multipath I/O) is a general multipathing framework requiring a Device Specific Module and additional configuration steps, making it a broader infrastructure component rather than the specific iSCSI initiator-level failover setting.

NIC teaming provides link-level aggregation or failover between physical NICs at the network layer but does not manage iSCSI session continuity or storage path failover when a port fails.

Storage cluster services provide shared storage clustering between multiple Windows hosts, which is unrelated to ensuring a single host maintains its iSCSI connection after a local port failure.

The Microsoft iSCSI Initiator supports a failover configuration that registers multiple network interfaces for iSCSI target sessions, allowing the initiator to maintain storage connectivity by transparently switching to an alternate NIC when a port failure is detected. This iSCSI session-level failover is the specific host-side configuration required to ensure highly available connectivity to the iSCSI storage array. Configuring failover within the iSCSI initiator addresses port failure scenarios directly at the storage protocol layer.