Fibre channel hardware is expensive and complex to manage. NetWare iSCSI lets you consolidate storage and improve the management of your storage infrastructure on the well known TCP/IP infrastructure. It is a lower cost, more flexible alternative to fibre channel. With NetWare iSCSI, you can easily add storage and partition existing storage between systems and logical groupings. If one user volume is growing too rapidly, storage from another area can be allocated to it.
Some of the benefits of implementing iSCSI include
Low-cost hardware requirements
Longer distance storage connectivity
Easy-to-manage SAN solution
Scalability and flexibility
Reduced SAN management training requirements
Increased flexibility in storage management and growth
Ability to create a SAN from existing direct-attached storage servers
The benefits NetWare iSCSI provides can be better understood through the following scenario:
John is responsible for the network at the marketing ad agency he works at. For five years, a 70 GB hard disk in a server with an attached tape backup unit has met the needs of the small firm of 10 account reps and support staff. Then one of the account reps decided to create a proposal using digital video for a client, and the rest of the staff decided to do the same. One month later, all of the 70 GB was used up. John purchased 136 GB of additional disk space and directly attached it to his server. He had to bring the server down to plug in the new adapter card, hook up the storage, and configure the additional adapter and storage. Two months later, he noticed that he again needed additional storage. He purchased another 364 GB, and had to configure it and get it added into the system. System backups had started taking longer than a weekend, so he added another tape drive for backup. A few months later, he determined that another 1.3 TB was needed, and this would need to be on a SAN with LAN Free backup in order to manage the large amount of data. John started looking for an easy solution with lower costs, because the firm did not have the financial resources to purchase a 1.3 TB SAN. He is now stuck between a rock and a hard place.
John needs a cost-effective mass storage solution that can be easily managed. This includes data protection (backup or archival) that doesn't require John to learn a lot of new skills.
John expects to be able to add storage to his network without going through complex tasks to configure and install the storage, and he cannot succumb to down time. Adding storage should also automatically deal with his data protection problems.
With NetWare iSCSI, John's problem is solved. His SAN infrastructure investment is no more than Gigabit Ethernet. He is already trained on 100 MB Ethernet for his LAN topology, so the required training for the hardware infrastructure is not needed. For iSCSI, the training is minimal. With Novell's LDAP-enabled iSCSI solution, management is simplified. The greatest cost is for the 1.3 TB disk array, which is much less expensive than a fibre channel SAN solution. Coupled with Novell's snapshot technology included in NetWare 6.5, he has an inexpensive solution for managing his rapidly growing data needs.