iSCSI Moves Toward Standard

EyesWideOpen writes "The iSCSI technology, which allows computers to connect to hard drives over a network connection such as a company Ethernet network or the Internet, requires only minor changes before the Internet Engineering Task Force endorses it as a formal version 1.0 standard. A final round of comments has been completed on the technology according to the Storage Networking Industry Association, the subgroup that led the creation of the iSCSI, and as a result companies now can start building iSCSI products."

Comments

One cable fits all.

[VortexVertigo]

I've noticed that the convergence of data transfer cables seems to be increasing. We have Serial ATA, iSCSI, 10/100/1000 Ethernet, USB, FireWire and also HyperTransport. These are all attempts to simplify the cabling while increasing speed, with the exception that the current HyperTransport implementations are all hardwired on motherboards. Personally, I think it would make life easier if there was one thin 2 to 4 wire cable that was useable by all electronic devices both external and internal. *Sigh* It will probably be another 10 years before it's actually a single cable, if ever.

Re:One cable fits all.

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, dosen't FireWire already have the capacity to transmit uncompressed digital video? Granted, it's limited to NTSC, PAL and SECAM resolutions, but future incarnations could possibly handle high resolution (eg. monitor scale) digital video, and multichannel audio at the same time.

What we really need is something like SGI's XIO, but foolproof, and not prone to contamination from touching the contacts...

Security of iSCSI

[XNormal]

There is an important difference between my SCSI chain and an IP network - you won't find many SCSI chains with the kinds of security threats that are quite common on networks these days. Remember that block devices live below the OS permissions level - it's deeper than root access.

I hope that iSCSI has good security measures *enabled by default*. I remember some discussion on iSCSI mailing lists about using SRP and potential intellectual property problems. I hope it's in the final standard.