History 2002: IBM iBoot

IBM’s research lab in Haifa, Israel, has demonstrated a product it calls iBoot, a HDD drive that can connect directly over Ethernet using the next-to-come iSCSI standard, and which, more importantly, allows a diskless computer client on the network to boot off this drive.

The technology is an IBM proprietary solution that currently works with Linux, Windows 2000 and XP.

During the demo, a diskless computer in Haifa booted up an iSCSI target machine near Seattle, WA, over an IP network. More specifically, a small option ROM image was developed, containing iSCSI client code, a TCP/IP stack and BIOS interrupt code, according to IBM.

Upon boot, the BIOS disk 1/0 interrupt goes through the iBoot code to communicate directly with the remote iSCSI target, providing seamless access to the SCSI files.

The most immediate interest of the technology is to prove that it is possible for computers to be operated without an internal disk, a return to the old idea of diskless computers, or X stations, that never quite took off.

Beyond that, however, it is possible to imagine networks in which it would be possible to connect, very simply via simple Ethernet hook-up, as many disk drives as desired, increasing storage capacity as you go along, according to the needs of all network users.

For the moment, no details have been released on the cost, availability or exact performance specs of iBoot.

Apparently, however, it requires little more than the addition of an Internet/NIC card plus a few lines of code, along with an iSCSI HDD.

IBM’s iBoot could well turn out to be the first step towards an era where current interfaces such as IDE, SCSI and FC are replaced by an iSCSI chip inside the storage devices.

Not only would a PC be able to boot off the disk drive, but over the network, all computers could access all iSCSI drives. Thus it would be far easier 1) to update the OS, which would only need to occur on a single iSCSI peripheral from which all users boot, 2) in the same vein, to upgrade any application available on one disk for all the clients, and lastly, 3) to backup more easily entire disks, since they would all be on the network.

Another company, 3Ware, have been working for a while on IP-attached ATA storage and shipped ATA PCI controllers with internal package switching hardware that export virtual SCSI devices. The iSCSI drive, whether bootable or not for now, this isn’t the most pressing question could to a certain extent become the equivalent of a standardized NAS: easily pluggable on Ethernet, but without proprietary NAS OSs.

This article is an abstract of news published on issue 174 on January 2002 from the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter.