LinuxWorld: Future Computing: The warp and woof of data storage

“The major transition that datacenters are currently undergoing
is the loss of the ability to say, “This hard disk is attached to
that computer.” Personal computer storage topologies have been
simple: controllers plug into the main bus and manage hard disks.
SCSI “fans out” the complexity slightly. That’s hardware jargon
that recognizes that various SCSI standards allow a small number of
drives to connect to one host, and one host — or, in unusual
cases, two — to connect to a single drive.”

“Now processing power and mass storage increasingly need
many-to-many interconnections, or a fabric of computing and
storage. Advanced SCSI standards supply limited sharing — so, for
example, a hot backup can access live data for failover….”

“Two new standards, with their own arcane labels, should
proliferate during the next year. It’s unclear whether they’ll
provide healthy competition for NAS and SAN, or just complicate
purchasing decisions. Cisco is working with IBM and several smaller
companies on “SCSI-over-IP” (sometimes called “IP storage”), a way
to build SANs with familiar SCSI block protocols.”

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