[ANNOUNCE][RFC] kvblade-alpha-2 / ATA Over Ethernet kernel "target" module

["roland" <devzero@web.de>]

Hello !

If you don`t know about AoE and being interested in network-based
Storage/SAN technology, you may take a look at
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8149 first. This article gives a nice
introduction into AoE technology.

Kvblade is the kernel-based equivalent of (userspace)vblade and also a
second approach (there is another at http://lpk.com.price.ru/~lelik/AoE/) to
build an kernel-based AoE "target" (a vblade in AoE terminology is similar
to iscsi-target or nbd-server, exporting a block-device over the network,
but working on ethernet-layer instead of TCP/IP)

Kvblade is counterpart to the AoE driver which is in 2.6 for some time now
and it basically does in software, what "Coraid EtherDrive® Storage" does in
hardware.

Kvblade is now part of the aoetools project at
http://aoetools.sourceforge.net . It`s at an early alpha stage and the
initial creator, Sam Hopkins from Coraid just decided to release it to the
public due to lack of time working further on this.

Unfortunately i`m no kernel hacker, but maybe there is someone who likes to
give it a try, make a little code-review, pick it up and contribute or even
rewrite it from scratch. :)

regards
Roland Kletzing
(sysadmin/engineer, independent linux enthusiast, not related to Coraid)