An analysis of three gigabit networking protocols for storage area networks

Abstract

SCSI protocol is the protocol of choice for block storage management. Different transport mechanisms such as parallel SCSI, Fibre Channel, iSCSI and Infiniband can be used to transfer SCSI protocol data. Distance and connectivity limitations are the key draw-backs of parallel SCSI. Therefore, Fibre Channel, Infiniband and iSCSI (SCSI over TCP) are competing to emerge as the dominant next generation SCSI transport mechanism. By analyzing the different components of a network protocol, this paper evaluates whether Fibre Channel, Infiniband and iSCSI are (a) suitable for gigabit wire speeds (b) scalable across thousands of interconnected devices (c) satisfy the needs of storage environments and storage protocols.