Windows Support for iSCSI Improves

Version 2 of the Microsoft iSCSI software initiator for Windows Server 2003 is now available for download. This release is important because it makes it possible to build iSCSI-based SANs with the same degree of redundancy as the more expensive Fibre Channel technology.

What Is iSCSI?

iSCSI is an Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standard protocol that allows computers to communicate with block storage devices, such as disk arrays and tape units, over a standard TCP/IP network. iSCSI support makes less-expensive storage devices possible by lowering the cost of the interconnect infrastructure and offering a higher degree of hardware interoperability and manageability than the more prevalent Fibre Channel protocol.

iSCSI traffic can travel over dedicated storage networks or can share media with normal data traffic, as long as sufficient bandwidth is available. It works over both the current Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) and the emerging IPv6 protocol, and it can be secured using IP Security (IPSec) authentication and encryption services.