Storage Networking Architectures
Storage Transport Protocols
IP Storage – iSCSI Gateway
In the Enterprise we can use iSCSI Gateway devices to allow
iSCSI connectivity to existing FC data-centre storage.
Fibre Channel
Hosts
Fibre Channel
Storage
FC
iSCSI Gateway
IP
iSCSI Hosts
IP storage is both competitive with and complementary to Fibre Channel. IP
storage doesn’t offer the same levels of performance as Fibre Channel, but it
can be a lot less expensive to implement, in part because IP storage
leverages existing infrastructure, skill sets, and management tools.
Use different SAN technologies for different applications.
Fibre Channel is good for performance, and IP storage is good for cost.
Today, IP storage isn’t typically used for high-performance databases,
but it might be a good solution for lower-performance applications like
email or web servers.