The market is apparently demanding iSCSI now, although EMC's plans to ship iSCSI support next month has probably instilled renewed urgency in HDS to deliver in this area.
However, industry analysts remain confused as to why EMC and HDS are first delivering iSCSI support for their high-end systems. Many believe iSCSI, a protocol that sends block-based storage over IP networks, is best suited for customers that can't afford Fibre Channel or don't want to deal with its complexity -- in other words, those that wouldn't be buying Symmetrix or Lightning arrays in the first place.
The iSCSI-enabled HDS Lightning "is another target -- and that helps the adoption of iSCSI," says Jamie Gruener, senior analyst at Yankee Group. "But a lot of people view iSCSI as a midrange technology. The question is: What's the performance of the blade?" Regarding the positioning of iSCSI for long-distance data replication, Gruener notes: "iSCSI in our view isn't necessarily a WAN link."
But EMC's Chuck Hollis, VP of platforms marketing, says iSCSI is optimal for low-end servers, not necessarily low-end storage.
"People want to connect 'stranded servers' that couldn't access the SAN before," Hollis said in an interview last month. He added that "the biggest shops have the technical resources to do iSCSI today."
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