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.