I posted a message on the Fool asking about storage over Internet protocol (SANs over IP). I was wondering if people here have expertise that could help me out.
Here's the message:
Hey GGer's,
Over the past couple of days, I have been reading about storage area networks (SANs) over Internet Protocol (IP) which today are primarily Fibre Channel based. This seems to me that this could be the next discontinuous innovation of sorts in the area of storage networking because it would possibly create one network (networking and storage networking converging). Also, Fibre Channel has not been adopted enough to possibly close the door on SAN over IP ('cause those SANs cost a boatload of money and are complicated).
I found a white paper called EtherStorage. I was wondering if we have any storage/networking gurus out there that can simplify some of this stuff for the less technologically inclined?
adaptec.com
nwfusion.com
There is a hot debate between Fibre Channel and Ethernet. Most people in this debate are simply not objective b/c they have a lot of money at stake and they carry on like two year olds. It would be nice to try and get a balanced view on this stuff.
Anyway, there seems to be some challenges that lie ahead:
1. Industry standards - this is kind of obvious. The question is how long it could take.
2. Getting Ethernet to do block level transfers of data which would require it to support Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) protocols?
3. Ethernet will have to reduce its overhead. Basically, to get data from point A to point B, it sends it in jumbled packets. Getting the data to where it needs to be is CPU intensive. So, even though it will possibly be faster than Fibre Channel, it may not be as efficient. But, hardware may be developed (or is being developed) to do a lot of this work, making it more efficient.
4. Operating systems have to be changed to recognize block level transfers over the IP network.
This is really early stage stuff (way pre-Chasm) but the thing going for it is that IT managers like IP, so they may be inclined to adopt it. I did find a company, Nishan Systems, that it doing some of this SoIP stuff, but it looks like it has been a tough road so far.
nishansystems.com
I think the big opportunity could be in software too that makes all of this stuff work. But, I am not sure.
So, do we have storage gurus in this board that can shed light on this stuff?
Thanks,
John |
