SCSI:

In computing, iSCSI (pronounced /aɪˈskʌzi/ "eye-scuzzy"), is an abbreviation of

Internet Small Computer System Interface, an Internet Protocol (IP)-based
storage networking standard for linking data storage facilities. By carrying SCSI
commands over IP networks, iSCSI is used to facilitate data transfers over
intranets and to manage storage over long distances. iSCSI can be used to
transmit data over local area networks (LANs), wide area networks (WANs), or the
Internet and can enable location-independent data storage and retrieval. The
protocol allows clients (called initiators) to send SCSI commands (CDBs) to SCSI
storage devices (targets) on remote servers. It is a popular Storage Area Network
(SAN) protocol, allowing organizations to consolidate storage into data center
storage arrays while providing hosts (such as database and web servers) with the
illusion of locally-attached disks. Unlike traditional Fibre Channel, which requires
special-purpose cabling, iSCSI can be run over long distances using existing
network infrastructure.

Functionality

iSCSI uses TCP/IP (typically TCP ports 860 and 3260). In essence, iSCSI simply
allows two hosts to negotiate and then exchange SCSI commands using IP
networks. By doing this iSCSI takes a popular high-performance local storage bus
and emulates it over wide-area networks, creating a storage area network (SAN).
Unlike some SAN protocols, iSCSI requires no dedicated cabling; it can be run over
existing switching and IP infrastructure. However, the performance of an iSCSI
SAN deployment can be severely degraded if not operated on a dedicated
network or subnet (LAN or VLAN). As a result, iSCSI is often seen as a low-cost
alternative to Fibre Channel, which requires dedicated infrastructure except in its
FCoE (Fibre Channel over Ethernet) form.

Although iSCSI can communicate with arbitrary types of SCSI devices, system
administrators almost always use it to allow server computers (such as database
servers) to access disk volumes on storage arrays. iSCSI SANs often have one of
two objectives:
Storage consolidation

Organisations move disparate storage resources from servers around their

network to central locations, often in data centers; this allows for more efficiency
in the allocation of storage. In a SAN environment, a server can be allocated a
new disk volume without any change to hardware or cabling.

Disaster recovery

Organizations mirror storage resources from one data center to a remote data
center, which can serve as a hot standby in the event of a prolonged outage. In
particular, iSCSI SANs allow entire disk arrays to be migrated across a WAN with
minimal configuration changes, in effect making storage "routable" in the same
manner as network traffic.

In computer storage, a logical unit number or LUN is a number used

to identify a logical unit, which is a device addressed by the SCSI protocol or
similar protocols such as Fibre Channel or iSCSI. A LUN may be used with any
device which supports read/write operations, such as a tape drive, but is most
often used to refer to a logical disk as created on a SAN. Though not technically
correct, the term "LUN" is often also used to refer to the drive itself. [1]

Contents

[show]
[edit] Examples

To provide a practical example, a typical disk array has multiple physical SCSI
ports, each with one SCSI target address assigned. Then the disk array is
formatted as a RAID and then this RAID is partitioned into several separated
storage volumes. To represent each volume, a SCSI target is configured to provide
a logical unit. Each SCSI target may provide multiple logical units and thus
represent multiple volumes, but this does not mean that those volumes are
concatenated. The computer that accesses a volume on the disk array identifies
which volume to read or write with the LUN of the associated logical unit.
Another example is a single disk drive with one physical SCSI port. It usually
provides just a single target, which in turn usually provides just a single logical
unit whose LUN is zero. This logical unit represents the entire storage of the disk
drive.

[edit] Form

In current SCSI, a LUN is a 64-bit identifier. (The name Logical Unit Number is
historical; it is not a number). It is divided into four 16-bit pieces that reflect a
multilevel addressing scheme, and it is unusual to see any but the first of these
used.

People usually represent a 16-bit single-level LUN as a decimal number.

In earlier versions of SCSI, and with some transport protocols, LUNs can be 16 or 6
bits.

[edit] Use

How to select a LUN: In the earliest versions of SCSI, an initiator delivers a

Command Data Block (CDB) to a target (physical unit) and within the CDB is a 3-bit
LUN field to identify the logical unit within the target. In current SCSI, the initiator
delivers the CDB to a particular logical unit, so the LUN appears in the transport
layer data structures and not in the CDB.

LUN vs. SCSI Device ID: The LUN is not the only way to identify a logical unit. There
is also the SCSI Device ID, which identifies a logical unit uniquely in the world.
Labels or serial numbers stored in a logical unit's storage volume often serve to
identify the logical unit. However, the LUN is the only way for an initiator to
address a command to a particular logical unit, so initiators often create, via a
discovery process, a mapping table of LUN to other identifiers.

Context sensitive: The LUN identifies a logical unit only within the context of a
particular initiator. So two computers that access the same disk volume may
know it by different LUNs.
LUN 0: There is one LUN which is required to exist in every target: zero. The
logical unit with LUN zero is special in that it must implement a few specific
commands, most notably Report LUNs, which is how an initiator can find out all
the other LUNs in the target. But LUN zero need not provide any other services,
such as a storage volume.

Many SCSI targets contain only one logical unit (so its LUN is necessarily zero).
Others have a small number of logical units that correspond to separate physical
devices and have fixed LUNs. A large storage system may have up to thousands of
logical units, defined logically, by administrative command, and the administrator
may choose the LUN or the system may choose it.

Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) is a computer bus used to move data to

and from computer storage devices such as hard drives and tape drives. SAS
depends on a point-to-point serial protocol that replaces the parallel SCSI bus
technology that first appeared in the mid 1980s in data centers and workstations,
and it uses the standard SCSI command set. SAS offers backwards-compatibility
with second-generation SATA drives. SATA 3 Gbit/s drives may be connected to
SAS backplanes, but SAS drives may not be connected to SATA backplanes.

The T10 technical committee of the International Committee for Information

Technology Standards (INCITS) develops and maintains the SAS protocol; the SCSI
Trade Association (SCSITA) promotes the technology.

Contents

[show]
[edit] Introduction

A typical Serial Attached SCSI system consists of the following basic components:

1. An Initiator: a device that originates device-service and task-management

requests for processing by a target device and receives responses for the
same requests from other target devices. Initiators may be provided as an
on-board component on the motherboard (as is the case with many server-
oriented motherboards) or as an add-on host bus adapter.
 2. A Target: a device containing logical units and target ports that receives
device service and task management requests for processing and sends
responses for the same requests to initiator devices. A target device could
be a hard disk or a disk array system.

3. A Service Delivery Subsystem: the part of an I/O system that transmits

information between an initiator and a target. Typically cables connecting
an initiator and target with or without expanders and backplanes constitute
a service delivery subsystem.

4. Expanders: devices that form part of a service delivery subsystem and

facilitate communication between SAS devices. Expanders facilitate the
connection of multiple SAS End devices to a single initiator port.

[edit] SAS Domain and World Wide Name (WWN)

A SAS Domain, an I/O system, consists of a set of SAS devices that communicate
with one another by means of a service delivery subsystem. Each SAS device in a
SAS domain has a globally unique identifier (assigned by the device manufacturer
and similar to an Ethernet device's MAC address) called a World Wide Name
(WWN or SAS address). The WWN uniquely identifies the device in the SAS
domain just as a SCSI ID identifies a device in a parallel SCSI bus. A SAS domain
may contain up to a total of 65,535 devices.

[edit] Comparison with parallel SCSI

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 The SAS bus operates point-to-point while the SCSI bus is multidrop. Each
SAS device is connected by a dedicated link to the initiator, unless an
expander is used. If one initiator is connected to one target, there is no
opportunity for contention; with parallel SCSI, even this situation could
cause contention.
  SAS has no termination issues and does not require terminator packs like
parallel SCSI.

 SAS eliminates clock skew.

 SAS supports up to 65,535 devices through the use of expanders, while

Parallel SCSI has a limit of 8 or 16 devices on a single channel.

 SAS supports a higher transfer speed (3 or 6 Gbit/s) than most parallel SCSI
standards. SAS achieves these speeds on each initiator-target connection,
hence getting higher throughput, whereas parallel SCSI shares the speed
across the entire multidrop bus.

 SAS controllers may support connecting to SATA devices, either directly

connected using native SATA protocol or through SAS expanders using SATA
Tunneled Protocol (STP).

 Both SAS and parallel SCSI use the SCSI command-set.

[edit] Comparison with SATA

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 Systems identify SATA devices by their port number connected to the host
bus adapter, while SAS devices are uniquely identified by their World Wide
Name (WWN).

 SAS protocol supports multiple initiators in a SAS domain, while SATA has
no analogous provision.

 Most SAS drives provide tagged command queuing, while most newer SATA
drives provide native command queuing, each of which has its pros and
cons.
  SATA uses the ATA command set; SAS uses the SCSI command set. ATA
directly supports only direct-access storage. However SCSI commands may
be tunneled through ATA for devices such as CD/DVD drives.

 SAS hardware allows multipath I/O to devices while SATA (prior to SATA
3Gb/s) does not. Per specification, SATA 3Gb/s makes use of port
multipliers to achieve port expansion. Some port multiplier manufacturers
have implemented multipath I/O using port multiplier hardware.

 SATA is marketed as a general-purpose successor to parallel ATA and has

become common in the consumer market, whereas the more-expensive
SAS targets critical server applications.

 SAS error-recovery and error-reporting use SCSI commands which have

more functionality than the ATA SMART commands used by SATA drives.

 SAS uses higher signaling voltages (800–1600 mV TX, 275–1600 mV RX)

than SATA (400–600 mV TX, 325–600 mV RX). The higher voltage offers
(among other features) the ability to use SAS in server backplanes.

 Because of its higher signaling voltages, SAS can use cables up to 10 m
(33 ft) long, SATA has a cable-length limit of 1 m (3 ft) or 2 m (6.6 ft) for
eSATA.

[edit] Characteristics

[edit] Technical details

The Serial Attached SCSI standard defines several layers (in order from highest to
lowest):

 Application

 Transport

 Port

 Link
  PHY

 Physical

Serial Attached SCSI comprises three transport protocols:

 Serial SCSI Protocol (SSP) — supporting SAS disk drives.

 Serial ATA Tunneling Protocol (STP) — supporting SATA disks.

 Serial Management Protocol (SMP) — for managing SAS Expanders.

For the Link and PHY layers, SAS defines its own unique protocol.

At the physical layer, the SAS standard defines connectors and voltage levels. The
physical characteristics of the SAS wiring and signaling are compatible with and
have loosely tracked that of SATA up to the present 6 Gbit/s rate, although SAS
defines more rigorous physical signaling specifications as well as a wider allowable
differential voltage swing intended to support longer cabling. While SAS-1.0/SAS-
1.1 adopted the physical signaling characteristics of SATA at the 1.5 Gbit/s and
3 Gbit/s rates, SAS-2.0 development of a 6 Gbit/s physical rate led the
development of an equivalent SATA speed. According to the SCSI Trade
Association, 12 Gbit/s is slated to follow 6 Gbit/s in a future SAS-3.0 specification.

[edit] Architecture

Architecture of SAS layers

SAS architecture consists of six layers

 Physical layer:

o defines electrical and physical characteristics

o differential signaling transmission

o Three connector types:

 SFF 8482 – SATA compatible

 SFF 8484 – up to four devices

 SFF 8470 – external connector (InfiniBand connector), up to

four devices

 PHY Layer:

o 8b/10b data encoding

o Link initialization, speed negotiation and reset sequences

o Link capabilities negotiation (SAS-2)

 Link layer:

o Insertion and deletion of primitives for clock-speed disparity

matching

o Primitive encoding

o Data scrambling for reduced EMI

o Establish and tear down native connections between SAS targets and
initiators

o Establish and tear down tunneled connections between SAS initiators

and SATA targets connected to SAS expanders

o Power management (proposed for SAS-2.1)

 Port layer:
 o Combining multiple PHYs with the same addresses into wide ports

 Transport layer:

o Supports three transport protocols:

 Serial SCSI Protocol (SSP): supports SAS devices

 Serial ATA Tunneled Protocol (STP): supports SATA devices

attached to SAS expanders

 Serial Management Protocol (SMP): provides for the

configuration of SAS expanders

 Application layer