Messages in this thread | | | Date | Wed, 23 Jan 2008 20:11:34 +0300 | From | Vladislav Bolkhovitin <> | Subject | Re: Integration of SCST in the mainstream Linux kernel |
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Bart Van Assche wrote: > As you probably know there is a trend in enterprise computing towards > networked storage. This is illustrated by the emergence during the > past few years of standards like SRP (SCSI RDMA Protocol), iSCSI > (Internet SCSI) and iSER (iSCSI Extensions for RDMA). Two different > pieces of software are necessary to make networked storage possible: > initiator software and target software. As far as I know there exist > three different SCSI target implementations for Linux: > - The iSCSI Enterprise Target Daemon (IETD, > http://iscsitarget.sourceforge.net/); > - The Linux SCSI Target Framework (STGT, http://stgt.berlios.de/); > - The Generic SCSI Target Middle Level for Linux project (SCST, > http://scst.sourceforge.net/). > Since I was wondering which SCSI target software would be best suited > for an InfiniBand network, I started evaluating the STGT and SCST SCSI > target implementations. Apparently the performance difference between > STGT and SCST is small on 100 Mbit/s and 1 Gbit/s Ethernet networks, > but the SCST target software outperforms the STGT software on an > InfiniBand network. See also the following thread for the details: > http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_name=e2e108260801170127w2937b2afg9bef324efa945e43%40mail.gmail.com&forum_name=scst-devel. > > About the design of the SCST software: while one of the goals of the > STGT project was to keep the in-kernel code minimal, the SCST project > implements the whole SCSI target in kernel space. SCST is implemented > as a set of new kernel modules, only minimal changes to the existing > kernel are necessary before the SCST kernel modules can be used. This > is the same approach that will be followed in the very near future in > the OpenSolaris kernel (see also > http://opensolaris.org/os/project/comstar/). More information about > the design of SCST can be found here: > http://scst.sourceforge.net/doc/scst_pg.html. > > My impression is that both the STGT and SCST projects are well > designed, well maintained and have a considerable user base. According > to the SCST maintainer (Vladislav Bolkhovitin), SCST is superior to > STGT with respect to features, performance, maturity, stability, and > number of existing target drivers. Unfortunately the SCST kernel code > lives outside the kernel tree, which makes SCST harder to use than > STGT. > > As an SCST user, I would like to see the SCST kernel code integrated > in the mainstream kernel because of its excellent performance on an > InfiniBand network. Since the SCST project comprises about 14 KLOC, > reviewing the SCST code will take considerable time. Who will do this > reviewing work ? And with regard to the comments made by the > reviewers: Vladislav, do you have the time to carry out the > modifications requested by the reviewers ? I expect a.o. that > reviewers will ask to move SCST's configuration pseudofiles from > procfs to sysfs.
Sure, I do, although I personally don't see much sense in such move.
> Bart Van Assche. > - > To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-scsi" in > the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org > More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html >
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