IP based SAN Technologies:

On request by few of my blog readers, i will be posting iSCSI specific information in my upcoming posts.

Storage Neworking technologies from past few decades was dominated by the high speed serial Fibre channel [FC] & SCSI [Small Computer System Interface], the implementation use to be for limited enterprises because of high cost of implementation.
over the period of time, Technology evolved & more enterprise inter-network demands resulted in rapid innovations for implementing the storage networks to work on traditional & highly conventional TCP/IP protocol technology.
As a initial innovation result FCIP & iFCP were implemented. the TCP/IP protocol is used as Gateway protocol on Gateway devices that inter connect the two or more FC SAN sub-networks.

FCIP: Fibre Channel over TCP/IP
* A TCP/IP based tunneling protocol for connecting geographically distributed Fibre Channel SANs transparently to both FC and IP.
* Provides a mechanism to tunnel Fibre Channel over IP based networks
* Leverage IP infrastructure to interconnect and extend FC SAN.
* FCIP Gateways enable to connect to a standard Gigabit Ethernet/IP network.
* Cost effective
* The FCIP gateway can be a separate device, or its functionality can be integrated into the Fibre Channel switch.
* Can be deployed over LANs, MANs and WANs

iFCP: Internet Fibre Channel Protocol
* iFCP is TCP/IP based Session protocol for connecting two or more FC SANs, two devices from two different FC SANs.
* Fibre Channel devices (e.g., switches, disk arrays, and HBAs) connect to an iFCP gateway or switch. Each Fibre Channel session is terminated at the local gateway and converted to a TCP/IP session via iFCP.
A second gateway or switch receives the iFCP session and initiates a Fibre Channel session.
* Sessions include device-to-device, device-to-SAN, and SAN-to-SAN communications.

Pictures attached with this post will give you brief idea about FCIP, iFCP & iSCSI.

The latest & hottest TCP/IP implementation is iSCSI protocol & the entire SAN can be designed on Ethernet or TCP/IP technology using iSCSI Protocol structure.
i will be posting detailed information about iSCSI technology in the upcoming posts, watch out this space.....