iSCSI in Exile: Page 2 of 6

So how did iSCSI go from being the hottest, most eligible technology on the market – a Colossal Opportunity akin to the transition from minicomputers to PCs! – to being the hot stove nobody wants to touch?

Blame the wobbly economy, for starters. Enterprises say they aren't much interested in investing in new technologies, so the vendors are in no rush to burn R&D and marketing dollars only to be first in line with an iSCSI storage device that won't sell.

"What would really help iSCSI is if Alan Greenspan were to drop the interest rate to 1 percent," jokes Jeffrey Schnabel, VP of marketing at StoneFly Networks Inc., an iSCSI gateway startup. "Half the problem is the economy."

Also holding up iSCSI is the fact that the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) hasn't ratified the final iSCSI 1.0 spec. That's expected to happen sometime in September, and that development alone should put some grease to the wheels. Related to this are concerns – still – that iSCSI interoperability and performance isn't up to scratch.

Another theory floated by some industry watchers is that the storage systems guys are fearful that any new iSCSI products they introduce will cannibalize sales of higher-margin systems.