Unstoppable iSCSI
iSCSI is not only here to stay, it's likely to take a leading role in many storage shops.
We've watched iSCSI grow from a standard into a real technology that has spawned specific products, to the point where there are a large number of vendors providing iSCSI products. More importantly, we're seeing user adoption of iSCSI growing rapidly.
The vast majority of iSCSI customers still have Fibre Channel (FC) in their SANs. However, iSCSI has gained a substantial foothold without necessarily displacing FC, and the iSCSI juggernaut appears to be unstoppable.
There's a great deal of value in networking storage, but the majority of IT shops still use DAS to some extent. FC has failed to reach the ubiquity of other computer networking technologies largely because of its cost and complexity. The Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) believes that IP-based networking, with iSCSI as a fundamental technology, has the potential to raise the level of adoption to reach the masses. We're just on the threshold of iSCSI becoming a prevalent and widely adopted technology, but there are signs the technology could surpass FC in the not-so-distant future.
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This was first published in February 2007