Storage networking has long been a scary word for many IT pros. They talk about the fact that it’s too complex, too expensive, and it requires more planning and more management than they have time to deal with. But wait - is that for a Fibre Channel SAN or an iSCSI SAN? I contend that all of those arguments are true for FC, but not so much so for iSCSI.

Now that iSCSI is starting to get more widely accepted due to the low cost of Ethernet and the already embedded knowledge of IP Networking, will storage networking continue to have such a negative connotation for people? I would like to argue that iSCSI has forever changed the way storage networking will be perceived. The one side effect of iSCSI popularity that is not talked about as much is that traditional FC SANs have become easier to manage. Marketing terms like “Simple-SAN” and “SAN-in-a-can” are further proof that the FC proponents are at least trying to make the technology easier for customers. The reality is that they are getting easier. Easier then iSCSI? No - but easier.

So given the fact that iSCSI SANs are inherently less complex plus the evolving simplicity of FC SANs, I profess that, unequivocally, iSCSI has indeed changed the face of storage networking forever!

We could also talk about 10GbitE over copper as another driving force that will help to continually modify the perception of storage networks. Lower cost higher-speed networks never hurt!

Now, just to be fair – the whole storage networking world will get further disrupted by SAS as a storage networking protocol. By the end of 2006, customers will have more choices than they’ll know what to do with for their external storage connectivity.

I look forward to seeing how things work out.

Blog ya later!

Joe

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 3rd, 2005 and is filed under General, Storage Interconnects & RAID, Application Environments, Advisor - Joe Disher. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.