Subject: Proposed working group: IP Storage

From: Costa Sapuntzakis <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2000 14:48:56 -0800 (PST)

I have tried to send this to the IETF mailing list a couple times without
luck. I'm sorry if you received duplicate copies.

Announcement of IP Storage (IPS) proposed working group
-------------------------------------------------------

While file storage protocols like NFS and AFS have long operated over
IP-based networks, block storage protocols such as SCSI and ATA have
yet to make the leap from non-IP based interconnects to IP-based
networks. With the emergence of gigabit and 10-gigabit IP networks,
transporting block storage over IP networks is increasingly
attractive.

An IETF working group is the right forum to deal with the many
technical issues associated with IP storage. These issues include the
following.

* A standard, interoperable, high-performance, reliable transport
  protocol for SCSI over IP is needed. Current thinking is that a simple
  protocol over TCP can do the job. Transport of ATA over IP is related,
  but there is no agreement as to need to support it.

* Methods for configuring and discovering storage devices need to be 
  defined. As part of the work, the group will need to determine whether
  and how to leverage other IETF work in this area (e.g. zeroconf, LDAP, 
  Service Location Protocol).

* Methods for the reduction of network stack processing overhead at
  the storage clients and servers need to be considered and possibly
  incorporated into the protocol

* Integration of secure communication mechanisms that support
  high-speed data transfer and restricted access to storage devices 
  -- leveraging existing security solutions (e.g., IPsec, SCSI 
  Access Control) whenever possible.

* Bridging to other SCSI-based interconnects (including Fibre Channel) 
  needs to be defined

* SNMP MIBs and/or CIM object models for SCSI-based devices may be necessary

* QoS issues need to be considered

* IPv6 and NAT interoperability

The ANSI T10, T11, and T13 committees currently control the SCSI,
Fibre Channel, and ATA storage standards. The working group will need
to determine the extent of its collaboration with those committees.

Some progress on these issues has been made already:

* To get the ball rolling, Julian Satran and others have posted a
  preliminary SCSI over TCP draft. It can be found at:
  ftp://ftp.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-satran-scot-00.txt
  ftp://ftp.isi.edu/internet-drafts/draft-satran-scot-00.txt

Birds of Feather (BOF)
----------------------

To discuss these issues further and to gain consensus on a charter for
an IP Storage WG, the IETF will host a Birds of Feather (BOF) session
on IP Storage at the 47th IETF in Adelaide, Australia.

A proposed agenda for the BOF is appended to the message.

Mailing List
------------

The [email-masked] mailing list will act as the focal point for
discussions related to this activity. You can subscribe to
[email-masked] by sending mail to [email-masked] with a blank
Subject line and "subscribe ips" as the first line of the body.

Web Site
--------

CMU is also maintaining an IPS web site. You can find archives
of the mailing lists, IPS documents, and more at
http://www.ece.cmu.edu/~ips/.

BOF agenda (proposed)
---------------------

This will probably change before the final BOF:

5 min Review of BOF agenda and objectives (D. Lee/M. Bradley)
20 min IP Storage Goals (D. Nagle/A. Wilson)
35 min Discussion
20 min Approaches (5 minutes each)
o C. Sapuntzakis
o A. Wilson
o ISI's NetSCSI (?)
o Other (?)
10 min Proposed charter (D. Lee/M. Bradley)
30 min Discussion

---

From: Lloyd Wood <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 10:57:48 +0000 (GMT)

On Tue, 22 Feb 2000, Costa Sapuntzakis wrote:

>   protocol for SCSI over IP is needed.

I have one question here.

Why?

L.

what next? HDLC over HTTP?

<[email-masked]>PGP<http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/L.Wood/>

>   Current thinking is that a simple

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 16:02:56 +0100

>I have one question here.

Because 100 m Cat5 cabling is cheaper than 5 m of current SCSI cabling?

My personal worry is the set of failure modes that can occur when someone 
uses Mobile-IP to move his PC to his GSM phone in his car, while the disk 
remains at the office, and similar absurdities that people *will* try to do.

BTW, SCSI is used for lots more things than storage - my favourite 
application was the one that used SCSI to control a laser rangefinder....

                    Harald

--
Harald Tveit Alvestrand, EDB Maxware, Norway
[email-masked]

---

From: Fred Baker <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 08:25:20 -0800

>Announcement of IP Storage (IPS) proposed working group

I have a quick question. Has any Area Director signed up to support this
proposed working group and schedule a BOF? Or are you announcing that you
have a desire to open a working group and would like people to support you?

---

From: John Stracke <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 13:20:20 -0500

Harald Tveit Alvestrand wrote:

> [...]

So write a laser rangefinder protocol over TCP, rip out the SCSI interface, and
put in Ethernet.  The silicon's cheaper, and you'll probably get better
performance by reducing the layers.  Alternatively, if you've got a legacy
device, attach it to a host running the laser rangefinder protocol in software
(which'll probably be easier to write than a generic SCSI bridge).  Only
problem is if you've got an existing laser rangefinder GUI that you want to run
remotely, and that you can't convert to use the new protocol.

The second most common SCSI application (after disk drives, for which we have
NFS) seems to be scanners, for which remote use doesn't make much sense; you
have to be physically at the scanner to put the paper in.

Mind you, if people want to work on this, I'll assume they have a use for it;
I'm just bemused.

--
/==============================================================\
|John Stracke    | http://www.ecal.com |My opinions are my own.|
|Chief Scientist |=============================================|
|eCal Corp.      |If at first you don't succeed, don't go      |
[email-masked]|skydiving.                                   |
\==============================================================/

---

From: Tripp Lilley <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 15:05:04 -0500 (EST)

> have to be physically at the scanner to put the paper in.

Actually, there are valid scenarios for remote scanning. Specifically,
the high-volume document management scanners are often hooked up in such a
way that you dump a load of paper in them (ie: several thousand sheets),
hit the "go" button, and they're whisked away to somewhere else on the
'net where they're actually processed.

It's easier on the vendors if they only have to support one command set
(ie: SCSI) with potentially multiple transports, than if they have to
throw in new core firmware for each transport. 

-- 
   Tripp Lilley  *  [email-masked]  *  http://stargate.sg505.net/~tlilley/
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