Carnival Cruise Lines recently finished switching out its storage area networks from a Fibre Channel-based system to an Ethernet-based storage architecture using a virtualized server infrastructure. With the new Internet SCSI SAN technology, the company has improved system performance and reduced hardware/software/maintenance costs by 60 percent, reports Computerworld's Lucas Mearian.

The storage area network migration began at the company's data center in Miami and then moved to 22 ships, Mearian explains in a very detailed account of the changes made throughout the architecture. Before the swap out, each ship housed 13 to 22 servers supported by direct-attached storage. Now, each ship has three servers attached to an iSCSI SAN, saving a considerable amount in hardware. 

The main driver was the savings, according to Robert Torres, storage architect at Carnival. With iSCSI technology, an organization can deploy commodity Ethernet switches rather than the costlier Fibre Channel switches. 

Torres said he believes iSCSI technology is robust enough for "all but the most demanding performance requirements," and it shouldn't just be viewed as an option for small or mid-sized businesses.  However, if an enterprise plans to upgrade to iSCSI, it should make sure the storage team and networking team are well-integrated because there will be a common set of core switches to work with.

For more:
- see Lucas Mearian's article at Computerworld

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