iSCSI Enters The Mainstream

While the majority of today's SAN customers still use Fibre Channel technology, iSCSI has gained a substantial foothold and increasing momentum in the market. Despite iSCSI's success, however, ESG continues to see a high level of confusion in the market. As a result, ESG conducted a comprehensive research project to determine current and future trends related to the adoption of iSCSI storage-based network solutions.

Based on a survey of 511 IT professionals, iSCSI Enters The Mainstream represents ESG's most comprehensive research into and analysis of the iSCSI market to-date. Among the many questions this report answers are:

• What are users' current and future deployment plans for iSCSI-based SANs?
• What business and technology considerations are driving end-users towards - or away from - iSCSI?
• Will future iSCSI deployments augment or replace existing SAN infrastructure?
• How is iSCSI being utilized? Is it being utilized for tier-1 or tier-2 applications? For primary or secondary storage? For digital archiving?
• Which features/attributes of iSCSI storage systems are most important to users? How important is multi-protocol support (e.g. iSCSI, FC, CIFS, NFS)?
• What is the state of 10Gb Ethernet usage and what is the current and expected impact on iSCSI adoption?
• Are users aware of / interested in networked SAS as a potential networked storage alternative?
• Who makes iSCSI purchasing decisions and from what budgets are purchases typically funded?
• . . . and much more!

This comprehensive and timely report is 81 pages in length and includes 80 figures and tables. The report also includes insightful quotes taken directly from the transcripts of ESG's in-depth interviews with end-users.

For more information on the contents and findings of this report, please download the executive summary below.

Executive Summary