What is a SAN - Storage Area Network

As the amount of data collected and stored on corporate networks increases, there is more and more a need to have that data available and ready at all times. This need has begun to if not already influence the way companies design their internal and external networks. In the past it was sufficient for many organization to buy servers with large amounts of hard drive space, but as the data demands for companies grows this solution for soem has reached its limit.

In comes the SAN - Storage Area Network or its close cousin the NAS - Network Attached Storage. This article will deal with the question, What is a SAN? We will post a future article on “What is a NAS?”. 

So, what is a SAN? A SAN is an easy to manage, flexible, scalable, intelligent storage solution that offers some or all of the following features:

• Allow multiple servers to share storage for greater efficiency and increased availability, ensuring that your data and applications are fully accessible at all times, even during backup.
• Create a high-performance, resilient infrastructure that you can easily scale as your needs change.
• Consolidate data into a disk array that provides increased available capacity as well as simplified management.
• Highly utilize disk capacity to improve cost efficiency and provide near-instant returns on your investment, even in the event of component failure.
• Utilize centrally managed, high-performance tape backup to reduce your backup window.
• Manage your consolidated storage from one location to enhance your efficiency.
• Restore data faster to return your business to full productivity in the event of a failure or data loss

I have also posted an article by HP that is called My First SAN. The article describes SAN technology and how it can assist organizations in there storage needs.

I will continue to post more information on SAN’s, what they do, how they are usefull and who may need them.