10 Things You Should Know About iSCSI

You really can use your existing Ethernet infrastructure to support iSCSI. Of course, thats assuming you have a fairly modern, high-capacity switch that will handle VLANs (virtual LANs), prioritization and maybe even jumbo frames. And, of course, it has

Your network staff can probably handle iSCSI, but theyll still need some training. The concept of iSCSI is simple, but actually pulling it off can be complicated.

Just because your staff and your existing infrastructure are capable of handling iSCSI doesnt mean its a good idea. Storage traffic can put some heavy demands on your network and take needed bandwidth away from other users and applications.

iSCSI isnt as fast as Fibre Channel unless youre using 10 Gigabit Ethernet. Fibre Channel runs at 4G bps, and is optimized for storage. Nearly all iSCSI implementations being sold today use Gigabit Ethernet, and you dont actually get the whole gigabit

iSCSI is cheaper than Fibre Channel, perhaps a lot cheaper. But even under ideal circumstances, youll need four iSCSI connections for every Fibre Channel connection, unless youre using 10G Ethernet. And, of course, 10G Ethernet is really expensive, too.

If youre using Windows in an iSCSI environment, then youll find yourself also using Microsofts iSCSI Initiator. The good news is that this software is free. The bad news is that its complex and tedious to set up and administer, and the documentation d

Dont believe the ease-of-use claims. Yes, the vendors will claim that theres one-button setup. Even if everything works exactly as it should, it still takes more than one button.

Learn to love the wizards. Even if they dont deliver on their claims of one-button setup, the wizards that the iSCSI makers deliver still save you a lot of mindlessly tedious tasks. In fact, they may be the only thing standing between you and Initiator-i

Appliance-specific driver software works with the iSCSI Initiator to make the appliance visible to your server. Your performance depends on this driver software, including such details as whether the drivers know how to load balance between multiple ports

Despite the fact that the documentation may tell you that the iSCSI appliance you just acquired will work with DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol), the fact is, a fixed IP address is a must. You must assign a specific IP address to each port, and d

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