IBM was the first one to bring out iSCSI device in the year 2000. In fact we have been in touch with other companies in this space and updating them on standards. One of the first storage networking company to adopt this on their devices was NetApp, three years ago. In IBM System Storage N series there is complete iSCSI support and in the high-end storage there will be both fibre channel and iSCSI adapters provided. On a worldwide level, there are currently 30,000 iSCSI implementations happening.

With the SNIA academy, do you think it will be easier for customers to learn and adopt such technologies into their environment?

There will be information given out to business partners, customers and they will know the direction these technologies are taking. Most of the time customers don’t pick up new technologies due to low awareness levels. In the case of iSCSI, standards kept changing and each time the codes had to be modified. But now the draft has been finalised with a strong standard without any further modification.

What are the challenges to iSCSI adoption?

There is nothing stopping iSCSI, but we have to also consider the fact that fibre channel is a bigger market. It will take some time for iSCSI to take over sales of fibre channel. Both will coexist, as large organisations have spent millions of dollars on fibre channel installations and therefore would not throw it away. For new server installations iSCSI gateways will be considered, as it offers a much cheaper option.

In terms of infrastructure, lot of organisations in the Middle East are still in the setting up phase, which makes it a potential ground for vendors to push their technology and products. What are your comments?

Middle East is definitely a good ground for new technology implementations. Companies are ready to make huge investments and also have the knowledge base. Therefore customers here looking at storage implementations will prefer iSCSI and Ethernet is anyway available on the network as it is free in most servers.