Patent ID: 8359379

Claim:
An apparatus comprising: a receive unit to receive IP packets from a plurality of hosts directed to an IP-based SAN, wherein each received IP packet includes an encapsulated SCSI command, a local IP address corresponding to a host from which the IP packet was received, and a storage device identifier of a storage device within the IP-based SAN to which the IP packet is addressed; and an impersonation unit to, for each received IP packet: map the local IP address of the received IP packet to a single globally unique IP address of the apparatus; modify the received IP packet by removing the local IP address; and send the modified IP packet to the storage device to which the IP packet is addressed; wherein each modified IP packet sent by the apparatus to the IP-based SAN includes the storage device identifier and includes the single globally unique IP address that identifies the apparatus as the host from which the IP packet is sent.