iSCSI - technical definition

A network protocol specified by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) in RFC 3347 (July 2002) for the use of the Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) protocol over TCP/IP networks.As data exits the computer, headed toward the storage device, a host bus adapter (HBA) converts the data to a SCSI format, enclosed in an Internet Protocol (IP) packet, and transmitted over an Ethernet network.An advantage of iSCSI is that it is transparent, as the server software sees what looks to be a SCSI controller and the network sees only IP traffic.The protocols employed at Layers 2, 3, and 4 are Ethernet, IP, and Transmission Control Protocol (TCP). Further, iSCSI is intended to run at speeds up to 10 Gbps over 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GigE), over IP wide area networks (WANs), and at lower cost than Fibre Channel. See also 10 Gigabit Ethernet, IETF, IP, OSI Reference Model, protocol, SCSI, TCP, Transport Layer, and WAN.