On 7/22/08, Kurt Tunkko <kurt.tunko AT web DOT de> wrote:

>
>  :-o ... wait, not THAT simple ... simple is something like: throw in
>  coin here -> get a beer  :-)
>
mmm, Beeeeer!

AOE stands for "ATA over Ethernet" and is a means of building a poor
mans Storage Area Network (SAN).  Look at
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ata_over_ethernet"; for the details.

At one time the world was flat, and we used ATA disks to make it spin.
 In particular, we used Parallel ATA (PATA).  These drives used a
ribbon cable and transferred data down the wires a bit per wire (hence
parallel).  Then Christopher Columbus set out and discovered the new
world, Serial ATA.  In this world data was transferred down a single
wire serially.  The beauty of this was that by using serial
communications the length of the wire could be drastically increased
(literally from inches to miles).

What AOE does is replace the serial interface normally found within
the box and extends it across the network (which is itself a serial
communications link).  Now when your dealing with a interface in a box
you have a straight forward point-to-point link so you don't require
any discovery mechanisms.  When you introduce  the network a number of
protocol related things get added to allow a provider to advertise
resources and consumers the ability to discover resources.  This puts
the "simple" into the equation. Once the AOE serves up a device it
looks to the Linux kernel like its just another locally attached disk.
 All of the standard mkfs/lvm/etc utilities can be used to integrate
it into your environment.

Caveats - It is normally recommended that you have a separate network
interface for AOE devices and it should be a minimum of 100MB and even
better would be GigE.  Disk IO is notoriously chatty and can
disrupt/overburden a shared network interface.

-- 
Jonathan Craig

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