Re: RDMA over TCP (Was Re: VI (Was: Avoiding deadlock in iSCSI))

[Stephen Bailey <steph@cs.uchicago.edu>]

> I believe the point in factoring out the RDMA mechanism from iSCSI is to
> make the same hardware assists available to other application
> protocols.

I agree.

The motivation is primarily economic.  If you implement a general
solution to 1) data steering, 2) congestion avoidance, 3) security,
you own the edge of all networking.  If you implement these for
storage, you only own storage.

Given that it seems such an easy step to make the hardware slightly
more general and own the world, I'm stumped on why not.  OK, I admit I
know the argument why not, because people think the more specific
solution more tractable.  I disagree.  The other reason why not is
some people really aren't sold on the necessity for hardware
implementation at all.

BTW, I made this case at CERN recently:
  http://hsi.web.cern.ch/HSI/HNF-Europe/Workshop%202000/Presentations/Com_Stor_Net.PDF 

Julo wasn't buying though.

Steph