IP SANS: A Guide to iSCSI, iFCP, and FCIP Protocols for Storage Area Networks: A Guide to iSCSI, iFCP, and FCIP Protocols for Storage Area Networks

By Tom Clark

A concise guide to a technology that brings SANs into mainstream IP networking. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0201752778
• ISBN13: 9780201752779
• Release Date: November 2001
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
• Length: 312 Pages
• Weight: 0.04 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.1" x 0.7" x 7.4"

Customer Reviews

Good resource on IP storage

IP SANs is still a good reference on IP storage protocols and applications. The description of iSCSI and other protocols is still current, although evidently this book was written before final standardization by the IETF. This book is primarily about IP SANs, not Fibre Channel. For more current information on Fibre Channel technology, I found Clark's Designing Storage Area Networks Second Edition to be a useful and objective reference.

Very good for engineers!

Clear explanation about the RAID, SCSI, FC and IP relations. Very good book. I found it very helpful.

A good vendor-neutral, technology-neutral book

While it purports to be about iSCSI, the book does such a good job of explaining the history of the technologies that lead up to iSCSI (SANs, Fibre Channel, etc.) that I feel confident recommending the book to people that are network geeks that want to learn what all this SAN and Fiber Channel stuff is about, and also want to learn about all this new iSCSI, iFCP and FCIP too.It doesn't go into vendor-specific information, it is _not_ a book about how to run a SAN or how to pick vendors. It is about the technology in general, how it works, what it does, and what it can't do.Someone that deals with SANs all day might read it and say, "Yeah, but I know all that already. I want to know what products work with what equipment, etc." People just getting involved in the technology, on the other hand, really need this book.I highly recommend it.

Worth a read!

This is a really good book on the new area of Storage Area Networking using IP network technology. It starts with a background on SAN and Fibre Channel (FC), then gets into why IP SAN products are coming onto the market, and how they compare to the older FC products. It also covers SCSI, and has several chapters on IP, UDP and TCP, including how they apply to SANs. A large part of the book is devoted to the various protocols and approaches being used to support SANs over IP, including Fibre Channel over IP (FCIP), Internet Fibre Channel Protocol (iFCP), Metro Fibre Channel Protocol (mFCP), and Internet SCSI (iSCSI). There are also chapters on security and QoS.This book could be used by either a "storage head" or a "net head", as it has chapters to bring the reader up to speed in both storage and networking technology. Best of all, it is written in a very accessible, readable style that entirely avoids the dry textbook style some tech authors fall into. While the intro claims the book was written for IT personnel in various capacities, it would also be useful to development engineers and marketing types trying to come up to speed on the parts of IP SANs they are not familiar with.Highly recommended.

Riding the Waves of IP Storage

This book represents an important milestone in the development of IP Storage. Often times, technologies fail to take hold or succeed because they are never understood. Despite the benefits they offer consumers, many technologies fail because the targeted consumers were never educated about them and they never able to appreciate or take advantage of the benefits. IP Storage advocates have been working hard to ensure that consumers understand the technology and appreciate its benefits. This book is a comprehensive reference for the material needed by those working on IP Storage and those who will be using it.Like an artist trying to paint a picture of shifting sand dunes in the middle of a storm, the author covers the subject of IP Storage very well while being mindful of the changing nature of many aspects of the covered material. The book provides a solid review of the subjects needed to create a foundation for understanding IP Storage without dwelling on the specific protocol issues that are most susceptible to change. The result is a work that will withstand the anticipated changes in the protocols and that will remain valid and valuable as the IP Storage industry matures moving forward.IP Storage is a technology that builds on the rich heritage of the storage and networking industries. As a result, understanding IP Storage requires a good knowledge of the basics of both storage and networks. The book devotes several chapters to the task of building the knowledge foundation that is needed for one to understand and appreciate IP Storage technologies. Chapters two through seven cover the basics of storage, including SCSI and Fibre Channel (FC). The same chapters also cover the basics of networks, including gigabit Ethernet, Internet Protocol (IP) and Transmission Control Protocol (TCP). The material is presented in a simple and easy to read manner that makes it possible for non-technical people to absorb. Many diagrams are used to illustrate the presented material in a very helpful way. The diagrams supplement and strengthen the text rather than overwhelm it or substitute for it as often the case in similar books.After a good treatment of the basics of storage and networking, the book, in chapter eight, provides a good review of the three IP Storage technologies being considered by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). The technologies, Internet SCSI (iSCSI), Fibre Channel over IP (FCIP), and Internet Fibre Channel Protocol (iFCP) are outlined in an easy to comprehend manner. Despite the dry nature of the subject, Tom Clark manages to find a way to make the material attractive and easy flowing. Chapters nine and ten treat two basic challenges facing IP Storage technologies: discovery and security. Discovery is the process, or mechanism used by initiators to locate storage resources, or targets, on the network. The process is necessary to establish communication sessions among initiators and targets. After reviewing the pio