RE: iFCP as an IP Storage Work Item

[Charles Monia <cmonia@NishanSystems.com>]

Hi Y P:

> I have been trying to avoid taking side on this iFCP vs. FCIP 
> debate on the
> technical merits.  May be I can take my technical hat off and 
> debate on the
> business merits.

According to whose criteria? Yours I guess. Others see the world
differently.

> No, the world does not need two standards

I'm glad someone has the inside track on what the world needs. I'm perfectly
content to let the world make that decision.

>................................and the IPS WG 
> should force the
> issue.  While companies will always do their own, the mission 
> of a standard
> committee is to find one and only one standard to make everyone's life
> easier.  

Since when? I suggest you visit the T10 web site and look around (see
http://www.t10.org/scsi-3.htm).  At last count, there were six, count 'em,
six SCSI encapsulations (not including iSCSI), all alive and well -- not to
mention ATA.  Incidentally, by a lot of measures, you'd probably be
justified in concluding that ATA's what the world really needs.

Other stuff below.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Y P Cheng [mailto:ycheng@advansys.com]
> Sent: Saturday, January 06, 2001 2:26 PM
> To: 'Ips@Ece. Cmu. Edu'
> Subject: RE: iFCP as an IP Storage Work Item
> 
> 
> > While it is easy to say that as a vendor it should be 
> possible for them to
> > support iSCSI, iFCP and FCIP protocols, the cost of 
> developing a solution
> > that addresses all three (which includes not just product 
> development but
> > testing, certifying and validating interoperable solutions) 
> is something
> > that we as a vendor would not like to be drawn into. If you think
> > this is a business reason, and should be ignored, we
> > disagree with that opinion.
> 
> I have been trying to avoid taking side on this iFCP vs. FCIP 
> debate on the
> technical merits.  May be I can take my technical hat off and 
> debate on the
> business merits.
> 
> No, the world does not need two standards and the IPS WG 
> should force the
> issue.  While companies will always do their own, the mission 
> of a standard
> committee is to find one and only one standard to make everyone's life
> easier.  Failing to do so does not serve this community.
> 
> If FCIP is good enough, why do I need iFCP?  

Good enough for whom?  Without rehashing this issue yet again, there are
valid constituencies for both solutions.  

>.......Do I really need the
> scalability of 4 billion fibre channel nodes visible to me?  

The iSCSI folks and others planning to build directly attached IP storage
devices are apt to find that argument strange. 

> For Internet
> domain names I may need IPv6, but, for storage devices?  
> 24-bits of D_ID
> with 16 million nodes are a lot of addresses.

That address space disappears fast if you're trying to intergrate a lot of
small FC sans. Each one consumes a 65 K block of FC addresses, most of which
are unused.

>..................................I do 
> understand perfectly if
> one wishes to dominate the FC switch market.  As a consumer, 
> this is not my
> concern unless one can provide me alternatives with a much 
> lower costs.
> 
> As a customer, all I care is to have the ability to access 
> storage devices
> on IP network at lower cost.  I don't care the standard as 
> long as there is
> one that gives me choices of low-cost vendors.  

You also could care less about how many standards there are.

>...........Many people 
> even believe
> among the networks of Ethernet, Fibre Channel, and 
> InfiniBand, there will be
> only one winner.

And many people don't.  I haven't seen the parallel SCSI and FC folks atart
folding up their tents yet.

>.......................Therefore, among iFCP, FCIP, and iSCSI, 
> please give me
> just one.  
> Having said that, I do believe we need fibre channel before
> Ethernet folks taking over the world while InfiniBand lurks 
> on the horizon.
> ISA was wonderful until EISA comes along.  VESA was great 
> until PCI appears.
> Now PCI-X and InfiniBand. We all suffer through technology 
> transitions.
> Therefore, the last thing we need is to have another standard 
> even before we
> start.  Don't repeat VHS and Beta.  I still have a lots of 
> tapes in Beta
> format.
> 
>

And I have a lot of DVDs, VHS, 8MM, etc, etc, etc.

Charles