Another notable statistic that the Storage magazine purchasing intentions survey uncovered was the growing acceptance among users of iSCSI SANs for production applications. In only six months, the number of users who expressed an interest in using a production iSCSI SAN jumped from 30% to 42%, and the interest of those who wanted to use it for email increased to 37% -- 9% higher than the previous survey. Most significant within these statistics was the revelation that nearly half (46%) planned to build dedicated iSCSI SANs, as can be seen in the following chart.
(For additional chart details, visit SearchStorage.com.)
Reldata, a provider of IP storage virtualization appliances, attributed this trend to increased customer understanding about the impending impact of 10 Gigabit Ethernet (GigE) on their infrastructures. Reldata's CEO Boris Anderer said, "This will give users close to Fibre Channel speed at a much lower cost."
Storage Buying Guide
Part 1: What are your customers buying?
Part 2: Increased SATA hard drive adoption
Part 3: Hard drive replacement
Part 4: Production iSCSI SAN interest rises
Part 5: Less data storage management spending
Part 6: Respond to customers' storage buying habits
About the author: Jerome Wendt is an independent writer and analyst specializing in the field of open systems storage and storage area networks. He has managed storage for small and large organizations in this capacity.
