What is iSCSI
iSCSI is an abbreviation of Internet Small Computer System Interface, an IP based storage networking standard for linking data storage facilities.
- Developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF),
- It enables a server to send SCSI commands and data to a storage device over a TCP/IP based network in IP packets.
- iSCSI is among key technologies expected to bring about rapid development of storage area network by increasing capibilities and performance of storage data transmission
- iSCSI builds on the two most widely used protocols from the storage and the networking worlds
- From the storage side, iSCSI uses the SCSI command set, the core storage commands used throughout all storage configurations
- On the networking side, iSCSI uses IP and Ethernet, which are the basis for most corporate networks
What does this mean for you?
- iSCSI is the prefered storage networking protocol for small and medium businesses and will probably stay thay way for the next decade
- iSCSI is readily avaliable including being an option on most operating systems, so new software or programming needed
- iSCSI is supported on inexpensive 1GB Ethernet networks
- Also supported on a large number of target storage devices
- iSCSI can be implemented on your existing Ethernet LAN reducing costs
- With the recent development of the iSCSI protocol and silicon-based TCP/IP offload engines, SANs based on IP networks are now possible
