Early users give iSCSI thumbs up

The iSCSI protocol has gained momentum as an alternative for Fibre Channel storage-area networks , and early adopters like it for the same reasons they like Ethernet - it's inexpensive and easy to install.

The idea behind iSCSI is to let users have universal access to storage devices and SANs over standard Ethernet-based TCP/IP networks. Approved by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) as a standard in February, the protocol can be deployed effectively to host the traffic of Microsoft SQL databases, Exchange messaging or Oracle applications, users say.

Sean Wilde, director of global IS operations for Global Positioning System manufacturer Trimble Navigation in Sunnyvale, Calif., has just completed a beta test of iSCSI. He says that based on the results, that he's ready to migrate his storage to iSCSI for its familiarity, cost and performance.

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The iSCSI protocol has gained momentum as an alternative for Fibre Channel storage-area networks , and early adopters like it for the same reasons they like Ethernet - it's inexpensive and easy to install.

The idea behind iSCSI is to let users have universal access to storage devices and SANs over standard Ethernet-based TCP/IP networks. Approved by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) as a standard in February, the protocol can be deployed effectively to host the traffic of Microsoft SQL databases, Exchange messaging or Oracle applications, users say.

Sean Wilde, director of global IS operations for Global Positioning System manufacturer Trimble Navigation in Sunnyvale, Calif., has just completed a beta test of iSCSI. He says that based on the results, that he's ready to migrate his storage to iSCSI for its familiarity, cost and performance.

"The average Windows NT system engineer can spell SCSI, but not Fibre Channel," Wilde says. "From my point of view, this is a technology that my technical staff is comfortable with and is competent to work with without any extensive training, unlike Fibre Channel. The iSCSI technology doesn't breed any fear, uncertainty or doubt from the systems people."

Wilde beta-tested three Adaptec iSCSI AHA-7211C adapters  on three Windows NT servers. In his configuration, each server contained an iSCSI adapter that attached to iSCSI-enabled Network Appliance file servers via a Dell PowerConnect 5012 Gigabit Ethernet switch.

Over the course of this summer when Wilde can get some of his servers off-line for maintenance, he will migrate direct-attached storage from 125 Dell PowerEdge servers to Adaptec iSCSI adapters and Network Appliance file servers. He is looking to consolidate Oracle development databases on the file servers and eventually will put Oracle production and Microsoft Exchange data on the file servers.

Wilde can make a good business case for network-attached storage (NAS ) and iSCSI.

"There's a lot of churn and replication of the data and a lot of hand work - places where there's manual intervention," he says. "I want to use NAS, but I want something that performs very well - iSCSI seems to be the best fit at the best cost."

While Wilde says he could implement his plans using NAS alone, he says that the performance he gets from iSCSI is far better.

"ISCSI gives me the high performance access to the file server at a fairly low protocol level," Wilde says. "Our perception is that the performance is what we would get over a Gigabit Ethernet link."