iSCSI: The Universal Storage Connection

Rating:
Summary: Highly Recommended iSCSI Source for Technical Reader
Review: iSCSI is a new SAN architecture that combines two popular network and storage technologies into one. Many technical people found the IETF technical specifications hard to read, since it requires backgrounds from both the networking world and the storage world to fully understand them.

As one of the iSCSI authorities in the IETF, the author has done a very good job in describing the technologies and the ratioale of the specifications one step at a time in a very detailed and organized way. This makes them much easier to understand by the technical people from two different worlds.

I fully appreciate John's efforts for creating such a great works that will be highly recommended for the time to come.

Rating:
Summary: Good Starting Point on iSCSI
Review: John has done a very good job of covering the basics of the iSCSI protocol. This is a good book for someone who is trying to get an introduction to this protocol. However, the material is presented from the viewpoint of someone who has NEVER actually built a storage system. For those people who are trying to either build an iSCSI system or want to get a comparison of this protocol with either Fibre Channel or Infiniband, this is not the right place to start. This is an excellent book for starters but is not good for serious iSCSI implementors.

Rating:
Summary: The future of storage networking
Review: This work is a thorough and insightful review of the iSCSI protocol by someone who has been a major contributor to the standard and knows the protocol parameters inside out. I highly recommend this work to anyone who wants to understand the future direction of storage area networking. Over the next few years we will see the convergence of SANs with mainstream IP networking, with iSCSI and IP SANs paving the way for much tighter integration of applications, operating systems, storage and networks. As stated in the book's title, iSCSI will be the universal connection for bringing storage into this synthesis.