I’ve been hearing a lot of dribble about how good iSCSI is for VMware and how excited we should all be. While I won’t take the bait today, I will point my reader to this article from VMware on iSCSI design considerations. While most people are kidding themselves if they think they’ve done the necessary design before jumping on the network storage bandwagon, there’s a lot of very useful information in the document. My favourite quote is on page 6 “As a very economical, low-performance block I/O solution, iSCSI drivers can be run on an off-the-shelf Ethernet adapter”. VMware offers support for basic software iSCSI and a Qlogic hardware iSCSI adapter but nothing for software iSCSI with TOE cards: “Support for iSCSI software with TOE cards is under consideration and may change in the future. It is also likely to become more of an option as jumbo frame support and the faster interconnect speeds of 10 gigabit Ethernet are adopted more widely in the industry”. I could make a joke about the sound your body makes after hitting the floor from holding your breath too long but it would be clumsy. Anyway, read the article if an architect or sales guy is whispering sweet iSCSIs in your ear. Do some testing. Be alert, not alarmed.