Section 8.4. Summary | Inside Windows Storage: Server Storage Technologies for Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003 and Beyond

8.4 Summary

IP storage, a group of technologies for accessing storage devices over IP-based networks is growing in importance, as standards are defined and vendors start shipping products. Microsoft has indicated Windows NT native support for at least iSCSI, one of the core constituents of IP storage.

With the increased use of IP storage, it becomes even more imperative to have an implementation of the TCP/IP stack (and related protocols) that is as efficient as possible. One way to have a more efficient implementation is to have some of the protocol processing in hardware. With NDIS 5.1, Microsoft has indicated native Windows NT support for TCP offload network cards.

InfiniBand is a new standard that defines a switched-fabric interconnect that may be used to provide connectivity between host CPU and storage peripherals. Although some of the industry is continuing InfiniBand development, Microsoft has decided to refrain from shipping native InfiniBand support in the Windows NT operating system.

Top