Re: Integration of SCST in the mainstream Linux kernel

[Linus Torvalds]

On Mon, 4 Feb 2008, Matt Mackall wrote:
> 
> But ATAoE is boring because it's not IP. Which means no routing,
> firewalls, tunnels, congestion control, etc.

The thing is, that's often an advantage. Not just for performance.

> NBD and iSCSI (for all its hideous growths) can take advantage of these
> things.

.. and all this could equally well be done by a simple bridging protocol 
(completely independently of any AoE code).

The thing is, iSCSI does things at the wrong level. It *forces* people to 
use the complex protocols, when it's a known that a lot of people don't 
want it. 

Which is why these AoE and FCoE things keep popping up. 

It's easy to bridge ethernet and add a new layer on top of AoE if you need 
it. In comparison, it's *impossible* to remove an unnecessary layer from 
iSCSI.

This is why "simple and low-level is good". It's always possible to build 
on top of low-level protocols, while it's generally never possible to 
simplify overly complex ones.

		Linus
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