enterprise data storage, administration, and research

Approaching the end of my graduate studies, I have been researching a thesis subject. Since I administer a SAN, I will write about a subject that I work with frequently – iSCSI or fiber channel over IP. IP is being re-discovered, so to speak, within the world of fiber optic topologies. We are seeing long-range trunks within SAN WAN’s consisting of FCIP (Fiber Channel over IP) that extend fiber networks over wide area networks. iSCSI on the other hand could be beneficial to the bottom line, as it provides access to storage targets via Ethernet that reside on a fiber-based SAN.

I have stashed a lot of content on StorageSeek.org - stay tuned.

At the local hospital where I administer the SAN, we will be upgrading our EMC CLARiiON CX3 SAN in January to a new CX4. The I/O consists of fiber channel and iSCSI modules. I have been wanting to implement iSCSI modules for some time - this will enable access to SAN storage via IP which will save cost on server-side fiber HBA’s. The only drawback to this would be the increased IP traffic on the IP switches, if iSCSI traffic is heavy; so separate subnets and IP switches would have to be used for the iSCSI targets and their initiators. Currently, we are using a couple of iSCSI initiators that access NAS targets: but the traffic is minimal, as the targets are document shares used for reporting.