According to Peter Polanowski, Data Storage/ ITE business unit manager at Percept, “At Percept, we’re committed to providing quality testing and consulting for today’s most complex and advanced data storage and ITE technologies. Percept’s specialized iSCSI testing at both the interface and protocol levels helps our clients optimize the performance of their products, giving them an edge in this highly competitive industry.”

The iSCSI protocol is one of the enabling technologies expected to pave the way for growth in the SAN (Storage Area Network) market, by adding capabilities and improving the performance of data storage transmission. Because IP networks are so widely used, iSCSI can be used to transmit data over LANs (local area networks), WANs (wide area networks) or the Internet – offering flexibility for network users. By carrying SCSI commands over IP networks, iSCSI allows companies to leverage existing infrastructure and administration expertise, thus lowering the cost of the SAN implementations, and providing an inexpensive alternative to Fibre Channel-based SANs.

Building on proven expertise and years of working with leading data storage companies, such as Quantum, StorageTek/Sun, Maxtor, Seagate, Overland Data, ADIC, Exabyte, Cornice, Lefthand Networks, iMation, QualStar and ExcelStor, Percept continues in its commitment to offer new services to address testing issues for emerging products and technologies.

Percept now delivers specialized iSCSI testing at both the command level and protocol level, as well as interoperability testing:

• Command-level Testing – Using custom test tools, Percept runs systematic tests to verify that all required and optional commands are being communicated and executed properly. Percept test tools support both disk and tape device testing with a collection of exhaustive test scripts. Any potential problems discovered during testing can be addressed and fixed, pre-empting expensive field problems and customer satisfaction issues.
• Protocol-level Testing – In addition to command-level testing, Percept is able to test the iSCSI link at the protocol level. Using specialized tools, experienced staff simulates protocol errors and verifies that systems recognize and recover link-level exceptions as they occur. This type of testing allows Percept to exercise additional functionality that may have significant impact on the stability and robustness of the data subsystem.
• Interoperability testing - Percept can also verify that iSCSI devices function correctly with the wide variety of iSCSI equipment currently available on the market – assuring seamless integration into the customer environment, and avoiding product launch surprises and future support problems.

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