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iSCSI, still an SMB favourite
Markets, New and Now
Considering its inherent cost advantage, SMB forms the core of the iSCSI market opportunity in India. According to Mukhija, early adopters of iSCSI include the SMBs and the IT/ITeS verticals, and will continue to be the mainstay market in the foreseeable future. “The SMBs are beginning to require block-level access. Hence, they will ultimately need a solution, which will be able to address issue, which NAS could not and for which fibre channel is too expensive,” he elaborates.
While iSCSI will not replace fibre channel in large enterprises, it will compliment it by catering to specific requirements. While large enterprises who have already invested in FC SAN may not be do a forklift migration to IP SAN, they will certainly be looking at it for newer applications, or for moving some existing ones.
Sometimes, it is not viable for an enterprise to invest in fiber channel connectivity for all servers. Here, iSCSI provides cost-effective connectivity for additional servers.
According to Agarwal, for enterprises, which have already deployed NFS or CIFS, and are looking to add block-based access for certain applications, iSCSI is a logical choice. And for those enterprises, who have already deployed FC SAN at the core of the data centre, iSCSI forms an attractive choice for SAN expansion or for deployment at regions or departments.
Market Facts
According to industry experts, iSCSI SANs will proliferate the market in 2006 and beyond. As per IDC, the worldwide iSCSI market will more than double this year, reaching $842 mn, up from $314.1 mn in 2005. Expected to surpass the $1 bn mark in 2007.
According to IDC, in India, the IP SAN market stood at $4.54 mn in 2005, a growth of almost 200% over the previous year. According to Manoj Chugh, president, EMC India & SAARC, the adoption rate has picked up considerably over the last two years and is bound to grow in the coming years. “It has grown from being a connectivity tool to a niche in itself,” he adds.
Vasan, co-founder of Sanat Technologies, explains that in the technology adoption curve, iSCSI is in a place where the market is getting educated about the technology, and is curious to know more and adopt.
Storage vendors are gung ho about the Indian iSCSI market opportunity, foreseeing faster growth rates as compared to the other markets worldwide. “Part of the reason is that there is a huge market in India that will deploy networked storage for the first time and can straightaway migrate from Direct Attached to iSCSI, without having to necessarily consider FC SAN,” says Soumitra Agarwal, director, Marketing, NetApp.
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