RE: Review of requirements document

[John Matze <John.Matze@NSMG.VERITAS.com>]

The SCSI spec does use the sector representation in the Mode Select/Mode
Sense pages for the format device page.  However, my request was more for
SCSI software developers who in many cases have treated the blocks as
sectors.  In some cases it maps easier with the upper layers of the
operating system.  In either case if this sounds too confusing, then I have
no objection of dropping the term.

This does bring up another objection if we do change the VBS.  Not all SCSI
devices are block and volume oriented.  For instance tape libraries do not
have a concept of blocks they use elements and I'm not sure about scanners
and printers.  I wouldn't want the spec to be too "disk/tape" specific.  It
may stop other devices from utilizing the spec.

John 

-----Original Message-----
From: Lani [mailto:lani@gadzoox.com]
Sent: Thursday, June 29, 2000 1:27 PM
To: John Matze
Cc: scsi-tcp@external.cisco.com; ips@ece.cmu.edu
Subject: Review of requirements document


John,
In reviewing Randy's requirements document in our phone meeting today
(6/29/00) a change was proposed/introduced (starting on first page under
section APPLICABILITY) to define current storage controllers ( I assume
SCSI) as volume/block/sector(VBS) oriented devices & I felt that this was
confusing to add "sector" to this definition, as the SCSI protocols used on
such storage devices are block (or stream) oriented and the specs never use
the term "sector". We needed input from you as this change was initiated
from your comment at the 6/19 Haifa meeting. Could you please elaborate on
what you had in mind - should we attempt to describe the media mapping
method underneath SCSI in the document?
thanks - Lani