Close
  • Latest News
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Networking
  • Cybersecurity
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Storage
  • Sponsored
  • Mobile
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
Read Down
Sign in
Close
Welcome!Log into your account
Forgot your password?
Read Down
Password recovery
Recover your password
Close
Search
Logo
Logo
  • Latest News
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Networking
  • Cybersecurity
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Storage
  • Sponsored
  • Mobile
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
More
    Home Latest News
    • Storage

    Strenuous Work Awaits on Storage Specs

    By
    eWEEK EDITORS
    -
    March 18, 2002
    Share
    Facebook
    Twitter
    Linkedin

      For the past two years, subcommittees of the Internet Engineering Task Force have been working feverishly to develop specifications to enable businesses to exploit storage protocols over IP networks.

      Now that the development effort is almost done, the real work begins.

      The transition of the iSCSI, iFCP (Internet Fibre Channel Protocol) and FCIP (Fibre Channel over IP) specifications this month and next month from their development phases to the IETFs approval phases should fool nobody into thinking that products are ready or truly interoperable, industry experts say. The approval phase—which should lead to industrywide standardization—could last longer than the two-year development period did, and the numerous and well-hyped laboratory trials are very different from real-world implementations.

      First, the IETFs Steering Group mandates a two-week Last Call period, and then protocols enter a Request for Comment phase three months later. Thats followed by the Proposed Standard stage, during which vendor interoperability is proved. If two sets of two different vendors can each prove interoperability with the specification, a Draft Standard is established. After two more years, there can be an official standard.

      Meanwhile, “what will likely happen is that we will have varying levels of compliance. The marketers will say, Were IP-compliant, asterisk,” said Elizabeth Rodriguez, the IETFs IP Storage Working Group co-chair, in Allen, Texas.

      From IBM to unknown startups, that has already begun, Rodriguez said.

      The most mature of the specifications is iSCSI, born in early 2000. iSCSI replaces the physical connections between storage devices and servers with SCSI commands over TCP/IP connections, said John Hufferd, iSCSI committee technical coordinator and senior technical staff member for architectures and strategies at IBMs Storage Systems Group, in San Jose, Calif.

      “Its just a protocol of certain bit stuff over TCP/IP,” so unlike iFCP and FCIP, “all the tough stuff was done, we had a much cleaner thing to focus on,” Hufferd said. Engineers from Cisco Systems Inc., IBM and Intel Corp. worked on iSCSI before it was even taken to the IETF, and 250 companies were involved as early as August 2000, he said.

      The last details being worked out are security, framing and RDMA (remote data memory addressing), other contributors said.

      “Security was something that we did not have to face with SCSI or with Fibre Channel. Though we knew some IP stuff, this security was a thing of its own,” Hufferd said.

      But the framing and RDMA technologies might not be finished in time for Last Call and will have to be added later, other contributors said.

      “What were up against is coming out into … a mature environment in Fibre Channel,” Hufferd said. Fibre Channel will continue to sell in data centers, but it has nowhere to grow beyond that; meanwhile, iSCSI will likely begin with edge installations and creep inward and will be dominant by 2006, he said.

      Also on the horizon is iFCP, which uses the same general approach as iSCSI to send commands over IP but does so for Fibre Channel commands in SANs (storage area networks). “We are at Version 10 right now,” said Technical Coordinator Franco Travostino, director of Nortel Networks Corp.s Content Internetworking Lab, Advanced Technology Investments, in Billerica, Mass. “We had a fair amount of scrutiny, especially on the security part, [but] there may be changes in Fibre Channel that require new work.”

      However, “One of the primary iFCP goals is to support legacy devices, so we obviously cannot just jump on new things and ignore the old. There is a high degree of entropy there,” Travostino said.

      The third significant specification, FCIP, is a tunneling method for connecting geographically distributed Fibre Channel SANs. On that front, security is the main thing still uncompleted, said Murali Rajagopal, the FCIP groups technical coordinator to the IETF.

      “The standard in terms of the overall schemes of things is complete,” Rajagopal said. A need to tweak security issues wont stop vendors from applying the standard immediately, he said.

      Virtually no end users possess or have actually paid for end-to-end IP storage products yet. Several vendors are developing iSCSI products based on the .8 or .9 specifications, but those products have appeared only at demonstrations, at OEM partners and at isolated end-user pilot programs.

      Cisco and Nishan Systems Inc., both of San Jose, are among the very few companies with actual products for sale. Established companies such as Adaptec Inc., of Milpitas, Calif., and Emulex Corp., of Costa Mesa, Calif., echo the vast majority of their peers with more realistic claims of general availability by this fall.

      John Studdard, chief technology officer of VirtualBank, a division of First Virtual Inc., in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., runs a multiterabyte EMC shop. “Were running on the old school and have no plans to change any time soon. It would require us to probably migrate our infrastructure; were on the three-to-five-year plan, at least,” Studdard said. “Its sad to say, because were a very cutting-edge shop, but thats the one area that we dont pay much attention to the marketplace because we have a substantial investment.”

      However, if a credible leader such as EMC, of Hopkinton, Mass., does make significant inroads, “I wouldnt see it as something to be scared of at all,” Studdard said. “It definitely would drive the cost down.”

      eWEEK EDITORS
      eWeek editors publish top thought leaders and leading experts in emerging technology across a wide variety of Enterprise B2B sectors. Our focus is providing actionable information for today’s technology decision makers.

      MOST POPULAR ARTICLES

      Cybersecurity

      Visa’s Michael Jabbara on Cybersecurity and Digital...

      James Maguire - May 17, 2022 0
      I spoke with Michael Jabbara, VP and Global Head of Fraud Services at Visa, about the cybersecurity technology used to ensure the safe transfer...
      Read more
      Cloud

      Yotascale CEO Asim Razzaq on Controlling Multicloud...

      James Maguire - May 5, 2022 0
      Asim Razzaq, CEO of Yotascale, provides guidance on understanding—and containing—the complex cost structure of multicloud computing. Among the topics we covered:  As you survey the...
      Read more
      Big Data and Analytics

      GoodData CEO Roman Stanek on Business Intelligence...

      James Maguire - May 4, 2022 0
      I spoke with Roman Stanek, CEO of GoodData, about business intelligence, data as a service, and the frustration that many executives have with data...
      Read more
      Applications

      Cisco’s Thimaya Subaiya on Customer Experience in...

      James Maguire - May 10, 2022 0
      I spoke with Thimaya Subaiya, SVP and GM of Global Customer Experience at Cisco, about the factors that create good customer experience – and...
      Read more
      IT Management

      Intuit’s Nhung Ho on AI for the...

      James Maguire - May 13, 2022 0
      I spoke with Nhung Ho, Vice President of AI at Intuit, about adoption of AI in the small and medium-sized business market, and how...
      Read more
      Logo

      eWeek has the latest technology news and analysis, buying guides, and product reviews for IT professionals and technology buyers. The site’s focus is on innovative solutions and covering in-depth technical content. eWeek stays on the cutting edge of technology news and IT trends through interviews and expert analysis. Gain insight from top innovators and thought leaders in the fields of IT, business, enterprise software, startups, and more.

      Facebook
      Linkedin
      RSS
      Twitter
      Youtube

      Advertisers

      Advertise with TechnologyAdvice on eWeek and our other IT-focused platforms.

      Advertise with Us

      Menu

      • About eWeek
      • Subscribe to our Newsletter
      • Latest News

      Our Brands

      • Privacy Policy
      • Terms
      • About
      • Contact
      • Advertise
      • Sitemap
      • California – Do Not Sell My Information

      Property of TechnologyAdvice.
      © 2021 TechnologyAdvice. All Rights Reserved

      Advertiser Disclosure: Some of the products that appear on this site are from companies from which TechnologyAdvice receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site including, for example, the order in which they appear. TechnologyAdvice does not include all companies or all types of products available in the marketplace.

      ×