The Implementation Of Embedded ISCSI Initiator's Driver For Transplantation To Windows Platform

Data storage has been focus in computer Science field. Now there are different types of architecture for network storage, Network Attached Storage and Fiber Channel Storage Area Network are two of the most mature and widespread technologies. The iSCSI protocol is able to combine advantages of both technologies and used to construct IP Storage Area Network which can get better performance and less cost.The iSCSI storage system can be divided to two parts: Initiator and Target. Initiator and Target diliver data packets and command packets by TCP/IP network. Usually, iSCSI Initiator is implemented by software, running in application server host. As network transmission speed over 1Gbps, hosts have to spend more time on procedures in TCP/IP and iSCSI protocol, which seriously affect the I/O performance of application server. For this, Intel and other famous manufactures introduce intelligent I/O architecture which can offload the process of some protocols from the host. Protocol of intelligent I/O is given, and the specification for it has been made.Embedded iSCSI initiator, which resides on Linux Server, based on I2O protocol has been implemented. For transplanting the embedded iSCSI initiator to Windows application server, Windows host side driver should be developped. For this, after studying Intel XScale core hardware platform, analyzing intelligence I/O specification and iSCSI protocol, the design and implementation of host side driver for the embedded iSCSI initiator on Windows Server2003 platform are given later.At last performance of embedded iSCSI initiator transplanted is tested and compared with the software implementation in 100Mbps LAN, and the results show that the prototype reach basic goal of design, but the performance is not good enough, it need to be improved in the future.