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Vladislav Bolkhovitin f0da641f63 Web updates. Particularly, "Contributing" page was added
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<title>SCST: Generic SCSI Target Middle Level for Linux</title>
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<h2 id="slogan">SCSI Target Middle Level for Linux</h2>
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<h1>SCST vs STGT</h1>
<p><strong><a href="http://stgt.berlios.de/">STGT</a></strong> is alternative, independent from SCST implementation
of SCSI target framework for Linux. It has different architecture, where SCSI target state machine is placed in
the user space, while in SCST all the processing done in the kernel. Such architecture was acknowledged as a
"right" one by the Linux SCSI subsystem maintainers, so kernel's part of STGT quickly found its way to the kernel.
But such architecture has two inherent problems, namely performance and complexity.
See thread <a href="http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_name=472F7FA4.7040303%40wpkg.org&forum_name=scst-devel">
"Relationship between SCST and in-kernel SCSI_TGT"</a> and <a href="http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.scsi/36417/focus=37273">
this</a> message in thread "Open-FCoE on linux-scsi" for more details.</p>
<p>See also the following important discussions:<ul>
<li><span><a href="http://news.gmane.org/find-root.php?message_id=%3c43987F75.2000301%40vlnb.net%3e">
"Stgt a new version of iscsi target?"</a>, especially pay attention to
this message: <a href="http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.scsi/21073">
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.scsi/21073</a> for motivation why STGT's architecture was considered "right".
</span></li>
<li><span><a href="http://news.gmane.org/find-root.php?message_id=%3c463F36AC.3010207%40vlnb.net%3e">
"Question for pass-through target design"</a></span></li>
<li><span><a href="http://news.gmane.org/find-root.php?message_id=%3ce2e108260801170127w2937b2afg9bef324efa945e43%40mail.gmail.com%3e">
"Performance of SCST versus STGT"</a> for performance comparison.</span></li>
</ul></p>
<p>Also you shouldn't be deceived by the fact that some (small) part of STGT was accepted in the kernel.<br>
It doesn't mean that STGT has the <strong>"kernel quality"</strong>. In fact, STGT as a whole similarly to any other
out-of-tree project lives on its own, hence has its own quality level, which isn't necessary better, than the
quality level of <strong>SCST</strong>. Actually, from such important aspect of quality as simplicity, it
might be quite contrary: e.g. SCST isn't required to support HIGHMEM (nowadays it
isn't necessary, but required for all in-kernel components), which allowed to simplify memory management a lot.</p>
<p>Interesting, on 2008 Linux Storage & Filesystem Workshop, namely in
<a href="http://www.usenix.org/event/lsf08/tech/lsf08sums.pdf">"Storage Track"</a> and
<a href="http://www.usenix.org/event/lsf08/tech/IO_bellinger.pdf">"Linux/iSCSI and a Generic Target Mode Storage
Engine for Linux v2.6"</a> documents, a special emphasis was put on the fact that SCST has "older" design,
while STGT has the "current" design. Well, this seems to be a good sign, because SCST opponents have come to so
little to say against it, so they started to use psychological arguments, exploiting the fact that most people
think that "newer" is always better.</p>
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