Fiber Optic Wiki

ISCSI targets

July 26, 2011

Most iSCSI targets involve disk, though iSCSI tape and medium-changer targets are popular as well. So far, physical devices have not featured native iSCSI interfaces on a component level. Instead, devices with Parallel SCSI or Fibre Channel interfaces are bridged by using iSCSI target software, external bridges, or controllers internal to the device enclosure.

Confidentiality and integrity

July 26, 2011

For the most part, iSCSI operates as a cleartext protocol that provides no cryptographic protection for data in motion during SCSI transactions. As a result, an attacker who can listen in on iSCSI Ethernet traffic can:

Authorization of iSCSI

July 26, 2011

Because iSCSI aims to consolidate storage for many servers into a single storage array, iSCSI deployments require strategies to prevent unrelated initiators from accessing storage resources.

Physical network isolation

July 26, 2011

While iSCSI can be logically isolated from the general network using VLANs only, it is still no different from any other network equipment and may use any cable or port as long as there is a completed signal path between source and target. Just a single cabling mistake by an inexperienced network technician can compromise the barrier of logical separation, and an accidental bridging may not be immediately detected because it does not cause network errors.

Opaque switching of traffic between fiber links

July 25, 2011

Transparent switching of traffic between fiber links.Traditional transport networks are made of optical fiber-based links between telecommunications offices, where multiple wavelengths are multiplexed to increase the capacity of the fiber.