Re: Integration of SCST in the mainstream Linux kernel

[Bart Van Assche]

On Jan 31, 2008 6:14 PM, Nicholas A. Bellinger <nab@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Also, with STGT being a pretty new design which has not undergone alot
> of optimization, perhaps profiling both pieces of code against similar
> tests would give us a better idea of where userspace bottlenecks reside.
> Also, the overhead involved with traditional iSCSI for bulk IO from
> kernel / userspace would also be a key concern for a much larger set of
> users, as iSER and SRP on IB is a pretty small userbase and will
> probably remain small for the near future.

Two important trends in data center technology are server
consolidation and storage consolidation. A.o. every web hosting
company can profit from a fast storage solution. I wouldn't call this
a small user base.

Regarding iSER and SRP on IB: InfiniBand is today the most economic
solution for a fast storage network. I do not know which technology
will be the most popular for storage consolidation within a few years
-- this can be SRP, iSER, IPoIB + SDP, FCoE (Fibre Channel over
Ethernet) or maybe yet another technology. No matter which technology
becomes the most popular for storage applications, there will be a
need for high-performance storage software.

References:
* Michael Feldman, Battle of the Network Fabrics, HPCwire, December
2006, http://www.hpcwire.com/hpc/1145060.html
* NetApp, Reducing Data Center Power Consumption Through Efficient
Storage, February 2007,
http://www.netapp.com/ftp/wp-reducing-datacenter-power-consumption.pdf

Bart Van Assche.
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