QUALITY OF SERVICE FOR iSCSI

A system adapted to provide quality of service (QoS) for an Internet Small Computer System Interface (iSCSI) environment, the system comprising:

• one or more initiator nodes, each said initiator node comprising;
• an iSCSI initiator comprising an initiator QoS shaper, said initiator QoS shaper for shaping one or more Protocol Data Units (PDUs) using QoS policies and providing shaped PDUs;
• and
• a Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) layer for receiving said shaped PDUs from said iSCSI initiator, and comprising a QoS marker for marking said shaped PDUs using to said QoS policies;
• and
• one or more target nodes for receiving said PDUs from said initiator node over an IP network, each said target node comprising;
• a first QoS component in an iSCSI target for handling I/O resources, said first QoS component for shaping one or more read commands and one or more write commands extracted from said PDUs using QoS policies;
• and
• a second QoS component in a TCP layer for handling network resources, wherein iSCSI PDUs are shaped and marked using QoS polices for iSCSI.

A quality of service (QoS) system adapted for an Internet Small Computer System Interface (iSCSI) environment, said QoS system comprising:

• a QoS shaper in an iSCSI initiator, for shaping one or more Protocol Data Units (PDUs) according to QoS policies and providing shaped PDUs;
• a QoS marker in a Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) layer at an initiator node, for receiving said PDUs from said iSCSI initiator, and for marking said shaped PDUs according to said QoS policies;
• and
• a first target QoS component in an iSCSI target node, for receiving one or more read commands and one or more write commands extracted from said PDUs, and for shaping said commands according to QoS policies.

A computer program embodied on computer readable medium software, the computer program comprising:

• a first segment operative to shape one or more Protocol Data Units (PDUs) in an Internet Small Computer System Interface (iSCSI) initiator at an initiator node according to quality of service (QoS) policies;
• and
• a second segment operative to mark in a Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) layer at an initiator node said shaped PDUs according to said QoS policies, and further comprising:
• a third segment operative to receive over an IP network said PDUs at a target node;
• and
• a fourth segment operative to shape in an iSCSI target one or more read commands and one or more write commands extracted from said PDUs according to QoS policies, thereby providing QoS for non-compliant traffic.