Peter Johansson: Re: IETF mailing list question on Storage over Ethernet/IP

[Dave Nagle <bassoon@yogi.ece.cmu.edu>]

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Date:    Fri, 26 May 2000 10:39:58 -0700
From:    Peter Johansson <PJohansson@acm.org>
To:      IP Storage <IPS@ece.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: IETF mailing list question on Storage over Ethernet/IP

Some time ago, Randy_Haagens@hp.com wrote:

>Just about any reliable transport will do nicely for transporting SCSI 
>commands.

Very true---which is why it's difficult to discuss these issues 
generically. Many questions can't be answered until you look at the 
particular needs of the particular environment.

In the home network, IEEE 1394 is a strong contender, with speeds that 
range from 400 Mbps to 1.6 Gbps. TCP does add a lot of overhead; it's 
appropriate to consider it only when other considerations (extensibility to 
the WAN, for example) predominate.

In an environment like the home network, a "native" solution may be better.

I mention all of this because I think it's worth your time to look at NCITS 
325-1998, Serial Bus Protocol 2 (SBP-2). SBP-2 describes the encapsulation 
of SCSI commands and a DMA architecture for the efficient transfer of data 
over IEEE 1394.

OK, you say, "So what? FCP does this. SSA did this." and so on. Well, the 
point is that Fibre Channel is not a serious contender for use as a 
network. In some situations, such as the home or small office, IEEE 1394 is.

Regards,

Peter Johansson

Congruent Software, Inc.
98 Colorado Avenue
Berkeley, CA  94707

(510) 527-3926
(510) 527-3856 FAX

PJohansson@ACM.org

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