But analysts say the number is substantial, considering that Microsoft's iSCSI partners already had copies of the software in their labs. In addition, the average consumer isn't likely to download an iSCSI initiator just to test it out, so the majority of the downloads were probably by businesses interested in testing the new technology.
"It's extremely significant," says Enterprise Storage Group Inc. analyst Nancy Marrone. "This is one of the key things that the iSCSI technology has needed for adoption. I think we'll see a significant ramp in adoption over the next year."
The iSCSI protocol, which sends block-level SCSI commands over IP networks, has long been viewed as a cheaper, less complex alternative to Fibre Channel since it allows companies to leverage their existing IP networks and claims to offer the broad interoperability that Fibre Channel has so desperately been lacking. Microsoft's new initiator is a big step toward complete iSCSI interoperability, observers say. The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) officially approved the iSCSI specification as a proposed standard in February (see iSCSI Gets Go-Ahead).
Beyond the obvious importance of Microsoft throwing its Goliath weight behind the emerging technology, the move is especially significant for the small to medium-sized businesses, remote offices, and workgroup environments, which are the most likely candidates to embrace iSCSI.
"The majority of these environments are very heavily populated with Microsoft," says Marrone, pointing out that many potential users have been scared off in the past by proprietary iSCSI initiators that only worked with proprietary iSCSI hardware targets. "Now it's much more likely that you can use anybody's target with the Microsoft initiator."
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