SECURING FIBRE CHANNEL FABRICS - Brocade

Security Basics forStorage Professionals4To the uninitiated, security may seem like a highly complex conceptwith specialized jargon, but security really boils down to commonsense applied through the use of some basic principles. Certainly,implementing security solutions may not be quite that simple, butunderstanding the general concepts can go a long way toward understandingthe issues. SAN security must be approached from a holisticperspective. There is no point in implementing strict access controlsand mechanisms in the SAN if the management interface is relativelyunprotected. All components of the SAN--from the infrastructure itselfto management tools and physical security--must be considered if youwant to create a comprehensive SAN security plan.This chapter is addressed primarily to the storage professional whomay have little or no knowledge of security concepts. Security professionalsmay also find this chapter useful to better understand howbasic security concepts apply specifically to the world of Fibre Channelfabrics.IT security is an extensive field consisting of multiple domains of knowledge.According to the International Information Systems SecurityCertification Consortium ((ISC)2), which is responsible for the CertifiedInformation Security Professional (CISSP) certification, there are tenfundamental domains composing a body of knowledge for IT security:• Access Control and Methodology• Applications and Systems Development• Business Continuity Planning• Cryptography• Law, Investigations, and Ethics• Operations SecuritySecuring Fibre Channel Fabrics 45