iSCSI and its world domination strategy (2)
Since yesterday, i've met with a potential client from Japan who's going to implement iSCSI. This customer is a perfect example of the people who are currently evaluating and looking at iSCSI as a way to utilize the most of their resources (a.k.a. budget). Having installed Hitachi Data Systems' Fiber Channel system, this customer is convinced that iSCSI is the nice alternative. So he tried to use FalconStor to be the media server between the rest of the servers and HDS FC-AL system. This FalconStor software is useful in case that you have an outdated FC-AL system, you can turn this out-of-shape or out-of-form system into a new iSCSI-based system.
So the people of Fiber Channel technology, bring me your tired - your old FC-AL system. We can turn it to a new (entry-level) iSCSI system. This is pretty much due to the fact that this FC-AL system isn't fast to begin with. With an overhead from FalconStor, it's likely that this old tired FC-AL system can still be used as an entry-level iSCSI system serving Windows clients.
Let's continue our train of thought from yesterday, performance and security are the top two out of three that people would want to ask about any IT system (price, performance, security). You can only choose two out of three. If iSCSI system is inexpensive, does it mean that it's going to be either low performing, or lack of security?
The answers are no and no. Let's talk about performance perspective for a little while. iSCSI system is built on a newer hard drive technology. Namely SATA and SAS drives are in the driving seat of iSCSI technology. SATA stands for Serial ATA and SAS stands for Serial Attached SCSI. This means that newer the hard drive technology, the better it is, right? Yes and no. Yes, manufacturing capability is increasing, mean-time-between-failure (MTBF) are increasing among cheaper drives. However, the gap between medium-low market (SATA, SAS) and enterprise market (FC-AL drive) is still wide.
Most SATA drives are manufactured with 7,200 RPM, FC-AL drives come with 15,000 RPM. This translates to better seek time. But most SATA drives are either 2x or 3x in size. So the transfer time are almost the same (7200 RPM* 2x data <-> 15000RPM * x data). This leaves the gap to be the seek time.
Note: SATA drives come with 5-10 ms seek time while FC-AL drives come with 1-3 ms seek time.
Current development, there is a vendor who's producing 10,000 RPM SATA drives. This makes the gap between SATA and FC-AL drives smaller!
SAS drives are supposed to be the alternative to SCSI drives for most internal hard drive. However, iSCSI vendors are trying to bring these drives in based on the RPM (10,000) or even 15,000 RPM are coming. Once there is 15,000 RPM SAS drive, iSCSI will be in its full throttle.
After talking about the underlying layer (hard drive and its technology), storage system or storage array is just hard drive with cache. Most storage systems do not differ if they utilize similar design, similar standard. Hopefully we'll get to see the fastest and cheapest storage system in the same bundle from iSCSI.
Security is another issue that most of you will have to be concerned. Since its inception, iSCSI has been endowed with CHAP authentication mechanism and IP SEC encryption. These two industrial standards help iSCSI to expand in areas that security is needed.
Unlike iSCSI, FC-AL does not come with standard authentication mechanism nor encryption. FC-AL security is based on obscurity.
In addition, iSCSI also has another strong support from IP technology, if you are the paranoid type, you can choose any IP security technology such as you want to create a VPN tunnel between your server and iSCSI storage. While you also elect to implement CHAP for authenticating if the right server with the right key to gain access to the right data. Also you can choose to implement IP SEC within VPN (in the case you can not imagine that your VPN breaks loose, you're still protected by IP SEC). I call this double bag.
Since iSCSI adoption rate is climbing exponentially, it will be a part of your corporate planning strategy this year.
So the people of Fiber Channel technology, bring me your tired - your old FC-AL system. We can turn it to a new (entry-level) iSCSI system. This is pretty much due to the fact that this FC-AL system isn't fast to begin with. With an overhead from FalconStor, it's likely that this old tired FC-AL system can still be used as an entry-level iSCSI system serving Windows clients.
Let's continue our train of thought from yesterday, performance and security are the top two out of three that people would want to ask about any IT system (price, performance, security). You can only choose two out of three. If iSCSI system is inexpensive, does it mean that it's going to be either low performing, or lack of security?
The answers are no and no. Let's talk about performance perspective for a little while. iSCSI system is built on a newer hard drive technology. Namely SATA and SAS drives are in the driving seat of iSCSI technology. SATA stands for Serial ATA and SAS stands for Serial Attached SCSI. This means that newer the hard drive technology, the better it is, right? Yes and no. Yes, manufacturing capability is increasing, mean-time-between-failure (MTBF) are increasing among cheaper drives. However, the gap between medium-low market (SATA, SAS) and enterprise market (FC-AL drive) is still wide.
Most SATA drives are manufactured with 7,200 RPM, FC-AL drives come with 15,000 RPM. This translates to better seek time. But most SATA drives are either 2x or 3x in size. So the transfer time are almost the same (7200 RPM* 2x data <-> 15000RPM * x data). This leaves the gap to be the seek time.
Note: SATA drives come with 5-10 ms seek time while FC-AL drives come with 1-3 ms seek time.
Current development, there is a vendor who's producing 10,000 RPM SATA drives. This makes the gap between SATA and FC-AL drives smaller!
SAS drives are supposed to be the alternative to SCSI drives for most internal hard drive. However, iSCSI vendors are trying to bring these drives in based on the RPM (10,000) or even 15,000 RPM are coming. Once there is 15,000 RPM SAS drive, iSCSI will be in its full throttle.
After talking about the underlying layer (hard drive and its technology), storage system or storage array is just hard drive with cache. Most storage systems do not differ if they utilize similar design, similar standard. Hopefully we'll get to see the fastest and cheapest storage system in the same bundle from iSCSI.
Security is another issue that most of you will have to be concerned. Since its inception, iSCSI has been endowed with CHAP authentication mechanism and IP SEC encryption. These two industrial standards help iSCSI to expand in areas that security is needed.
Unlike iSCSI, FC-AL does not come with standard authentication mechanism nor encryption. FC-AL security is based on obscurity.
In addition, iSCSI also has another strong support from IP technology, if you are the paranoid type, you can choose any IP security technology such as you want to create a VPN tunnel between your server and iSCSI storage. While you also elect to implement CHAP for authenticating if the right server with the right key to gain access to the right data. Also you can choose to implement IP SEC within VPN (in the case you can not imagine that your VPN breaks loose, you're still protected by IP SEC). I call this double bag.
Since iSCSI adoption rate is climbing exponentially, it will be a part of your corporate planning strategy this year.
posted by Peter Srivaree-Ratana at
7:42 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home