{"id":264,"date":"2011-08-18T08:59:10","date_gmt":"2011-08-18T14:59:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unifiedcomputingblog.com\/?p=264"},"modified":"2011-08-18T08:59:10","modified_gmt":"2011-08-18T14:59:10","slug":"fcoe-vs-iscsi-vs-nfs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.unifiedcomputingblog.com\/?p=264","title":{"rendered":"FCoE vs. iSCSI vs. NFS"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following was just a short note I wrote in an internal discussion about FCoE vs. iSCSI vs. NFS – and spurred by Tony Bourke’s discussion<\/a> about methods for implementing FCoE.<\/p>\n

This wasn’t intended to be a detailed analysis, just a couple of random musings.\u00a0\u00a0 Comments as always are welcome.<\/p>\n

—–<\/p>\n

While NFS and iSCSI are completely different approaches to accessing
\nstorage, they both “suffer” from the same ailment – TCP.\u00a0\u00a0 Remember folks,
\nTCP was developed in the 70’s for the express purpose of connecting
\ndisparate networks over long, latent, and likely unreliable links.\u00a0 The
\noverheads placed onto communication solely to address these criteria
\nsimply aren’t appropriate in the datacenter.\u00a0 We’re talking about a
\nprotocol written to support links slower than your Bluetooth headset.\u00a0 \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

iSCSI is a hack, plain and simple.\u00a0 It solves a cost problem, not a
\ntechnology one.\u00a0 Even its name is misleading – iSCSI.\u00a0\u00a0 It isn’t SCSI over
\nIP – it’s SCSI over TCP over IP. So call it tSCSI or tiSCSI.<\/p>\n

I’m not saying they’re not “good enough”, but why do “good enough” now
\nthat “better” is getting much closer in price?\u00a0 On the array side, I
\nexpect more and more vendors to go the NetApp route – all protocols in one
\nbox – just turn on which ones you want to use (via appropriate licensing,
\nof course).\u00a0 10G DCB makes this even easier and more attractive – one
\nport, you pick the protocol you’re comfortable with.<\/p>\n

As one of my coworkers points out, FCoE is a bit of a cannon – and for many customers,
\ntheir storage challenges are more in mosquito scale.<\/p>\n

Fibre Channel was developed with storage in mind as a datacenter protocol,
\nI haven’t seen one yet I like better for moving SCSI commands around *in
\nthe datacenter*.\u00a0\u00a0 I’m sure someone will develop a new protocol at some
\npoint that utilizes DCB-specific architectures to replace iSCSI and
\nFCoE… but why?\u00a0\u00a0 If you want a high performance, low latency,
\nmade-for-storage protocol, run FC over whatever wire you feel like.\u00a0\u00a0 If
\nyou want a low-cost solution utilizing commodity
\nhardware\/switching\/routing, use iSCSI and\/or NFS.\u00a0\u00a0 I don’t know that
\nthere’s a new problem to solve here.<\/p>\n

For customers that already have and know FC, FCoE is a no-brainer.
\nNothing new to learn about how to control access, you’re just replacing
\nthe wires.\u00a0 iSCSI and NFS introduce whole new mechanisms and mindsets into
\naccessing storage if you’re not used to them.<\/p>\n

I saw a quote the other day that said that Fibre Channel is like smoking –
\nif you’re not already doing it, there’s no reason to start now.\u00a0\u00a0 I get
\nthe sentiment, but I don’t agree.\u00a0\u00a0 FC as a protocol is the right tool for
\na lot of jobs – but it’s not the right tool for every job.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following was just a short note I wrote in an internal discussion about FCoE vs. iSCSI vs. NFS – and spurred by Tony Bourke’s discussion about methods for implementing FCoE. This wasn’t intended to be a detailed analysis, just a couple of random musings.\u00a0\u00a0 Comments as always are welcome. —– While NFS and iSCSI … Continue reading FCoE vs. iSCSI vs. NFS<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[23,32,40],"class_list":["post-264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous","tag-fcoe","tag-iscsi","tag-nfs"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.unifiedcomputingblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.unifiedcomputingblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.unifiedcomputingblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.unifiedcomputingblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.unifiedcomputingblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.unifiedcomputingblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.unifiedcomputingblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.unifiedcomputingblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.unifiedcomputingblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}