Section 8.3. Practical Implications

   

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8.3 Practical Implications

The IT administrators and procurement officials should note that Microsoft intends to have native support for iSCSI in the post-Windows Server 2003 time frame. Hence, any iSCSI solutions they procure before then will need to be designed wholly by the vendor, and how these solutions interact with the native Windows iSCSI support, once it is indeed available, is something only time will tell.

Vendors interested in developing an iSCSI solution for the Windows platform are in for an interesting time. There is still some confusion here, and very often opportunities await where there is confusion. Vendors should contact Microsoft at [e-mail] to participate in the iSCSI development process that is still evolving. Current indications from Microsoft are that when it designs an iSCSI solution, it will natively support iSCSI for both the Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003 platforms. Given that some vendor solutions will require the vendor to develop a miniport driver, these vendors should keep in mind that the Storport driver model (described in Chapter 2) is not available for Windows Server 2003. Hence they need to decide whether to develop their miniport driver to accommodate the lower common denominator of the SCSIPort driver, which runs on both, or to accommodate both SCSIPort and Storport.

It is highly likely that IP storage will mature rapidly , once there is widespread native operating system support. Some Linux versions already support iSCSI, and hence, in this sense, Windows is playing catch-up. The new opportunities created by wider adoption of IP storage are likely to attract a lot of attention, and consume a lot of resources.

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