Overview
Introduction
LIO (linux-iscsi.org) is an open source Linux iSCSI target. It is being merged with STGT and scheduled to go upstream into Linux v2.6.37. LIO has become the Linux target of choice for many volume storage appliance vendors, such as Netgear, QNAP and Data Robotics.
LIO is sponsored by the Silicon Valley high tech company RisingTide Systems, which offers complete IP SAN solutions. RisingTide also offers a powerful yet easy CLI (incl. a library and
API) for configuring and managing highly available clustered storage based on LIO.
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Key Features
Architecture
- High-performance, non-blocking, multithreaded architecture scales up to >10 GbE or >8 Gb/s FC wire speeds
- Supported CPU platforms: x86, PPC (e.g., PS/3), ARM, etc.
- No single point of failure within either logical or physical connections
Standards Compliance
- Full compliance with IETF RFC‐3720
- Full implementation of SPC-4 PR and ALUA
Advanced Feature Set
- Perstintent Reservations (PR)
- Asymmetric Logical Unit Assignment (ALUA)
- Protocol and Intra-Nexus multiplexing, load‐balancing and failover (MC/S)
- Full Error Recovery (ERL=0/1/2)
- Active/active task migration and session continuation (ERL=2)
- I/O Fencing
Multiprotocol Target
- iSCSI
- FCoE (from Cisco)
- FC (Emulex HBA)
Storage Media Independence
- Virtualization of all storage media
- Transparent mapping of I/O to LUNs
- Unlimited LUNs per target
- Supported backstores: SATA, SCSI, SAS, FLASH, DVD, BluRay, USB, Loopback, etc.
High Availability / Clustering
- HA is deeply embedded – the stack is optimized for it
- Scale-out clusters via aggregating LUNs
- Powerful single-image storager cluster management CLI and API
Compatibility & Certifications
LIO is in deployments with the following operating systems:
- Microsoft: Windows Server 2003/2008/R2, Windows XP/Vista/7
- Apple OS/X Leopard (via 3rd party initiator)
- Linux: RHEL 4.x/5.x, SLES 10.3/11
- Unix: Solaris 10, OpenSolaris, HP-UX
- VMs: VMware ESX 4.0 and vSphere, Microsoft Virtual PC, Red Hat KVM, Oracle xVM/VirtualBox, Xen
LIO has obtained VMware ESX 4.0 and vSphere certifications with Netgear, QNAP and Data Robotics. It has also obtained Microsoft Server 2008 Failover Cluster cetification on a number of platforms.