iSCSI has been the hot topic in storage for quite some time and companies such as EqualLogic and Xiotech have achieved great success in the marketplace with their storage arrays. They've been giving more established storage vendors a run for their money, but now these new players have to start looking over their shoulder at some competitors that are offering iSCSI software solutions that can run on a server.
I ran across an article in the Search Storage section of the TechTarget.com website that discussed some of these up & coming vendors and their solutions. StorMagic was founded in May 2006 and is a fast-growing developer of iSCSI SAN management software. Unlike some of their counterparts, it appears that StorMagic is focusing their efforts on SMBs. The article described one small customer, financial publishing firm Weiss Group Inc., selecting the StorMagic solution to support secondary storage and backup because of their server-based approach and automation features. Also according to Weiss Group systems administrator James Santillo cost also proved to be a key factor:
"For 6 TB of storage, StorMagic's price comes out to between $8,000 and $10,000," he said. "We'd be talking about $45,000 for the same amount of storage in an iSCSI array, and for a small business, that would have a big impact on the bottom line."
Open-E and Seanodes are other companies to keep an eye on. I would expect other companies will emerge as well and Sun Microsystems didn't ignore this trend when they merged their server and storage engineering groups last year.
So, how much of your storage infrastructure is supporting iSCSI? Has it proved to be the promised cure to your storage needs or does it need to mature?
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