A storage router and storage network provide virtual local storage on remote storage devices to Fiber Channel devices. A plurality of Fiber Channel devices, such as workstations, are connected to a Fiber Channel transport medium, and a plurality of storage devices are connected to a second Fiber Channel transport medium. The storage router interfaces between the Fiber Channel transport media. The storage router maps between the workstations and the storage devices and implements access controls for storage space on the storage devices. The storage router then allows access from the workstations to the storage devices using native low level, block protocol in accordance with the mapping and the access controls.