IP SAN: The Wait and Watch Game

When the old and complex fiber channel had to die, a new promise-of using
the Internet Prototol in a storage area network over the Gigabit Ethernet-promised
an era of new storage architectures and greater benefits. Not to forget the ooh
aahing over the cheaper new technology!

Even as the storage industry is still polarized into pro and anti-iSCSI
(Internet SCSI) categories, there is one fundamental realization: The prophecies
have largely gone haywire. Yes, IP SAN (Storage Area Network) is coming, but it
is yet to enjoy the market acceptance that many expected. Enterprises like
financial institutions and hospitals, the world over, continue to bank on fiber
channel for high storage performance, mission critical reliability and large
complex connectivity.

The hardware components of IP SAN come cheap compared to fiber channel. It
operates in a known network, has fewer interoperability issues and is simple. So
why is the adoption rate so slow?

B. Chandrasekhar, country manager with Intransa, feels it is because the
Indian market has always been slow in adopting any new technology. IP SAN is a
relatively new concept. It needs a protocol called iSCSI, which became a global
standard only in 2003. For the last 15 years, people have been using DAS (direct
attached storage) or a fiber channel (FC)-based storage network. "IP SAN
brought about a radical shift in terms of price points and cost of ownership.
But the existing players who invested in fiber channel SAN or in the NAS
(Network Attached Storage) market, couldn't shun their product lines
overnight.

Server vendors were slow to introduce native iSCSI device drivers. (Microsoft
was the first to come out with one in its operating systems. But now, many
global players are in the race.)

Sudhakar S. Rao, Consulting Director with Hitachi Data Systems India, feels
the low rate of adoption is because the iSCSI is stabilized solely for the
Windows and Linux markets. Besides, there are currently not many IP-based
products from the major storage vendors. "One offers an IP connection by
using an IP-FC header. So there is a cost of storage and the additional header.
Another inhibitor is the performance issue. iSCSI is good when one needs to
consolidate multiple windows servers and when one does not have high performance
needs," he opines.

That is a view widely circulated. A CIO typically first examines his
differing storage requirements. For storage needs of data-a database, for
example, which is online and needs to be accessed fast-he would, in all
probability, veer towards fiber channel storage. For old data that needs to be
accessed with more time in hand, a more reasonably priced solution like IP NAS
is thought of. Right now, a CIO would really want to implement SAN when he is
looking at recovery between two sites in real time. Though this is a mindset
that will change soon, vendors say.

George Thomas, country manager with Network Appliance, believes that people
will gradually move IP SAN towards more mission-critical applications.
"Currently, IP SAN adoption is towards a certain set of applications
outside the data center," he says. Ajaz Munsiff, product marketing director
with EMC, South Asia, feels the same way: "Small to medium sized companies,
where cost is an issue, may take to it. But no large corporation will replace FC
with an IP SAN. Bigger servers that run critical applications will continue to
run on FC."

“Bigger servers that run critical applications will continue to run on FC”  -Ajaz Munsiff, product marketing director, EMC, South Asia “People will gradually move IP SAN towards more mission-critical applications” -George Thomas, Country Manager, Network Appliance “The industry is positively looking at IP SAN as a solution and is expecting an increase in adoption in the next one year” -Sanjay Kharade, Principal Consultant, Cisco Systems, India and SAARC

Country-specific problems could be a hindrance in its adoption too. Says M
Vidyasagar, executive VP, Advanced Technology, TCS, "The advantage of IP
SAN is that, whatever you would want to retrieve, can be done through the
Internet. This essentially means there is need for very high-speed Internet
connectivity at the last mile, and at the enterprise level, which is not there.
The national connectivity in India is impressive but it doesn't seem to
translate into last-mile connectivity at the individual or the enterprise level.
IP SAN will come only when high-speed bandwidth is delivered right to the
customer's doorstep."

Problems in the way

The implementation of IP SAN needs a significant amount of software overhead
content that has to be executed by the initiating server. "This software
has different elements, including the requirement for checking lost packets,
interrupt handling on each packet transmitted, integrity check generation and
verification, and buffer movement of data, among others. In a FC implementation,
this is implemented in the hardware," says Sudhakar Rao of Hitachi Data
Systems.

Traditionally, SANs require a separate dedicated infrastructure to
interconnect hosts and storage systems. The primary transport protocol for this
interconnection has been. FC networks provide a serial transport for the SCSI
protocol. In addition, IP data transport networks have been built to support the
front end and back end of IP application servers and their associated storage.

"But unlike IP SAN, FC cannot be easily transported over lower bandwidth
long-distance WAN networks in its native form, and therefore, requires special
gateway hardware and protocols. The use of iSCSI over IP networks does not
necessarily replace a FC network but provides a transport for IP-attached hosts
to access fiber channel-based targets," says Sanjay Kharade, principal
consultant, Cisco Systems, India and SAARC.

10 GB Ethernet in future may help alleviate some of the performance issues,
but at an additional infrastructure cost. Network interface cards that can open
up more bandwidth for transporting data between storage devices and application
servers are already making inroads with corporate users.

The major drivers

Economic pressures will force customers to look at alternatives, analysts
say. The price difference between an FC and an IP SAN is fundamentally on three
points: cost of acquisition, cost of managing the network and cost of adding the
components. The cost of acquisition for FC has been coming down, but is still
double the price of an NIC (Network Interface Card). A gigabit NIC card is
available at $60-70 today. A Fiber HBA (Host BUS Adapter) would not cost less
than $300-400.

Intransa expects the IP SAN market to touch about 27% of the global storage
market by 2007. "With IP network gaining ground (10 gigabit NIC card, 10
gigabit IP-based switches are expected by the middle of the next year) the
market is all set to see tremendous explosion. 10 GB in FC is a pipedream-even
though some are talking about it, the volume is missing to bring down the
prices. There is also no innovation," Chandrasekhar says.

Cisco feels that the industry is positively looking at IP SAN as a solution
and is expecting an increase in adoption in the next one year. What is driving
the IP SAN market is its ability to deliver SAN at a fraction of the cost and
complexity of FC and its superior performance and scalability over NAS.
Initially, very few FC vendors embraced iSCSI, but now they're interested.

IDC predicts that the overall storage systems market will be worth $250 mn by
2005 at a CAGR of 76%. NAS products will account for 32% and SAN 49% of the
market share in the total storage pie.

"With the global ratification of iSCSI standards, we expect to see a
gradual adoption of IP SANs, particularly with SMB customers who see IP SAN as a
cost-effective alternative. We expect different rates of adoption across the
Asia Pacific depending on the degree of market maturity. However, even with its
numerous advantages, iSCSI will take some time to catch on. 2005 will be key
year for iSCSI in India," says Kharade.

So vendors are now busy educating prospective buyers, convincing them that IP
network over NAS was a compromise, and rooting for the power of the IP. But will
it be hot enough? Only 2005 will decide.

Goutam Das

IP SAN Success Stories

Wipro Spectramind decided on an Intransa IP SAN solution to manage its
growing need for additional storage, rising storage costs and shrinking backup
windows. The solution provided the company with all the features and
functionalities of a traditional SAN but at a fraction of its cost and
complexity.

The company detached its storage from each direct host server to enable
dynamic storage allocation from a centralized pool of storage resources. With
Intransa's IP5000, it is now able to grow and provision its storage to
individual hosts and expand volumes for individual applications or users with no
disruptions or downtime on the server.

Each time Wipro Spectramind needs to add more storage capacity, all it needs
to do is mount a new DE5200 (a 3U, rack-mount, sixteen drive Disk Enclosure with
four high-performance network attached dual-port disk controllers) in the rack
and plug the Ethernet cable to the Gigabit Ethernet switch. The IP5000 storage
controller will automatically recognize the new disks and make free space
available for the IT staff to provision to host servers.

HDFC Standard Life (HDFCSL)

 The residential mortgage finance institution selected FileNet advanced
content management and business process management solution to manage all
disparate data and facilitate online access for its customers, policyholders and
shareholders. Working with Wipro Infotech, a Network Appliance partner, HDFCSL,
replaced its existing direct-attached storage servers by deploying a NetApp
fabric-attached storage (FAS) system to support its Windows 2000 application
environment.

The NetApp IP SAN solution provides private network access via an iSCSI LUN
to a FileNet Image Services server and supports scanned document images stored
in both FileNet repository and FileNet database storage. The NetApp FAS system
simultaneously provides high-speed network-attached storage for other types of
FileNet images, application data, and Oracle database volumes used for workflow
management in the TIBCO Staffware Process Suite. Thus, the same NetApp system is
used in both NAS and SAN configurations to meet different storage needs for
different kinds of data.