RE: iFCP as an IP Storage Work Item

[Charles Monia <cmonia@NishanSystems.com>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: JP Raghavendra Rao [mailto:jp.raghavendra@india.sun.com]
> Sent: Thursday, January 04, 2001 8:19 AM
> To: ips@ece.cmu.edu
> Subject: RE: iFCP as an IP Storage Work Item
> 
> > I believe iFCP should be an IPS work item for the following 
> > technical reasons:
> > 
> > 1)  iFCP allows leverage of existing FCP-based driver stacks and
> > preservation of the $$$ and @#$!!% that have been invested in them
> > by vendor companies and their customers.
> > 
> 
> I think the argument for preserving software doesn't make 
> strong case in the
> face of a migration to a new mapping/tunneling protocol, new 
> software and new
> administration challenges in spite of the fact that all of 
> this is likely to
> mimic FC and contained in one or two edge router

I don't know how you equate these.  In my world, debugged and stable driver
stacks are a precious commodity not to be discarded lightly.  The other
factors seem equally pertinent to all IP storage solutions.

> - Today's 
> FC network is
> difficult to administer and any bridging technology to a 
> different interconnect
> is only going to compound it.
> 
> It would be nice if somebody comes up with a stronger case 
> for connecting an
> iSCSI host to a FC device - Is this attempted for the 
> survival of FC or for
> a speedier deployment of iSCSI ?
> 

How about the fact that users seem reluctant to trash their existing storage
investments every time a new interconnect technology shows up.  Is that
strong enough? 

Also, storage interconnects have greater market longevity, so I wouldn't
count on FC's demise any time soon. After all, people have been predicting
the demise of parallel SCSI for a while, but after 10+ years, it's still
thriving.

Charles