hosted by iscsi: the new storage interconnect on the “block”? sean p. derrington consultant,...
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iSCSI: The New Storage Interconnect on the “Block”?
Sean P. DerringtonConsultant, Enterprise Storage and ServersAppergy, [email protected]
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State of the Union
Economic melee• Dollars are still tight, how much do I get for $X is still the
mantra
Execution focused• IT organizations are increasing becoming execution
focused as staffing and time are precious
The storage market is seeing significant
innovation and has seen over $1.1B invested
by VCs since July 2002
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Critical IssuesEnsuring execution for storage infrastructure
and/or consolidation efforts
Determining technical storage requirements and
delivering storage services
The current and future state of iSCSI and Fibre
Channel (FC) as storage networking interconnects
Determining the value and dependency of storage
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Ensuring Execution of Storage Infrastructure Initiatives
Storage Area Networks (SANs)• A SAN is the set of principals of
offloading data and storage traffic from
the application network
• SANs are transport agnostic
• Goal is to create separate and
manageable networks
• TCP/IP and Fibre Channel (FC) are both
network transports working at the SCSI
command or “block” level
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Creating a Storage Infrastructure Business eXecution System
Establish business value• Application and storage service levels
• Approximate ROI
Create storage infrastructure design• Storage access, best practices, organizational
structure
Negotiate with storage vendors• Requirements driven RFI and RFP
• Managing multiple vendors delivering solution stack
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Determining Technical Storage Requirements
Storage access• SAN, NAS, fixed content
Business continuity and disaster recovery• Satisfying business requirements and ensuring regulatory
compliance
Application recovery• Mean time to recovery and recovery point objective
Monitoring and reporting• Storage resource management, capacity planning, billing, etc.
Administrative apparatus• Roles and responsibilities for storage and storage management
tasks
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Delivering Storage ServicesLook to tiered storage• Platinum, gold, silver levels—don’t get too granular
• Examine a variety of access methods (e.g., SAN, NAS, fixed content, DAS)
Maintain application service levels while introducing storage service levels • Monitor efficiency, even if only internally reported
• Begin with performance, availability, time to capacity, functionality, and cost
• Sourcing will be a larger question raised by senior management
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The Future of iSCSI and Fibre Channel
Extending SANs beyond the campus
iSCSI directions
FC in the campus
The value in storage
Where’s the intelligence
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Extending SANs beyond the Campus
iSCSI and Fibre Channel over
IP (FCIP) will be the two
dominant IP transports for
SCSI block commands
FCIP will be the dominant WAN
bridging transport for both FC
and iSCSI based campus SANs
All others (iFCP, mFCP) will be
niches or slowly pass into
obscurity
FCIP
iSCSI
FC
FC
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iSCSI Directions
10/100mbit vs. Gb vs. 10Gb
• Forget about 10Gb for the next 5 years—too expensive
SNICs, TOEs, initiators, and targets
• Low end servers probably won’t need TOEs
• CPU utilization and compatibility throughout the “stack”
will remain a challenge
Enterprise vs. SME
• Could be suitable for both, but iSCSI is not mission critical
• Focus on what problem is being solved with iSCSI
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FC: Still Big Man on Campus
FC will remain the dominant storage interconnect for
the majority of data centers
iSCSI may provide connectivity for low-end servers
and will put pricing pressure on FC component (e.g.,
HBA and switch) vendors
Skip 4Gb FC (for the select vendors that adopt it),
stay with 2Gb and wait for 10Gb
Take notice of FC as a host and device interconnect
• ATA will play a critical role as device interconnect
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Where’s the Value?
Storage functionality and management are critical components in product/strategy evaluation
Virtualization will continue to be redefined to a broader storage management definition and is only one component of a storage infrastructure
IT organizations must also focus upon sound procurement, infrastructure, and operational disciplines—execution
The “utility data center” model will be fraught will challenges through 2006 and presumes robust server and storage virtualization capabilities
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Where’s the Dependency?
Dependency and intelligence will
reside either in the
• Server (e.g., Veritas),
• Network (e.g., Softek, DataCore, IBM),
• Storage subsystem (e.g., EMC, HP, IBM)
Focus on storage management
Policy based storage management
is in its infancy
• There can be only one
HeterogeneousServers
HeterogeneousNetworks
HeterogeneousStorage
Management
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Bottom Lines
Storage principles, irrespective of underlying
technologies, are paramount to a robust
storage infrastructure and operations
Discuss with the business, in their terms,
early and often what storage services they
desire and categorize by application
FC will remain the dominant host interconnect
Put iSCSI and FCIP “in their place”
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Appergy, Inc Appergy provides clients with a robust method to better
execute on business initiatives.
The Appergy business execution approach reduces time to results by:• eliminating the need for clients to build their own execution structures
(process, rules, and techniques), and
• providing a robust method that reduces execution oversights that cause delays.
The Appergy business execution approach mitigates the risk of business initiative failure, through the elimination of uncertainty, by providing an organized, comprehensive and disciplined business execution approach to which clients can adhere.
www.appergy.com
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Thank you!
Sean P. Derrington
Consultant, Enterprise Storage and Servers
Appergy, Inc