Implementation and performance evaluation of an iSCSI-Based Storage Virtualization

Abstract

Storage virtualization can be implemented at three layers: server-layer, storage-device-layer and network-layer. iSCSI-based storage virtualization is to implement storage virtualization at network-layer, and the implementation includes three sides: host, manager, and store. Manager manages some stores and generates a unified, logical store pool to provide store services to host. According the method of forwarding at the manager side, iSCSI-based store virtualization was implemented in two ways: in-band and out-of-band. Manager must transmits data stream and command stream to host and store in in-band way. After the two ways of implementation, the performance test results indicated that the performance of out-of-band was better than in-band.