RE: another question (was Re: patent question)

[[e-mail]]

> i have another quick question. for a local area application, 
> why hasn't anyone done scsi over ethernet? (ie encapsulating 
> scsi commands into the ethernet package). why use a higher 
> level protocol and work with all the latency and overhead problem?

Check the list archives for info on an Adaptec demo of this, and I'm
sure Paul von Stamwitz can provide additional information (off the
list, please).  Encapsulating directly on Ethernet runs into scaling
problems - the first time one needs to get off the LAN or VLAN that
the traffic started on, one discovers that an IP header is an immensely
useful thing to have.  Assuming that the "latency and overhead"
comment is about TCP, I suggest reading:

http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-floyd-cong-04.txt

A lot of lessons about congestion control have been learned the
hard way; as has already been indicated a number of times, congestion
control is REQUIRED in protocols standardized by this WG.

--David

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David L. Black, Senior Technologist
EMC Corporation, 42 South St., Hopkinton, MA  01748
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