Designing Storage Area Networks

A Practical Reference for Implementing Fibre Channel SANs

Tom Clark

202 pages, parution le 10/09/1999

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Résumé

The following work focuses on the practical implementation of SANs and will, when necessary, indicate when abstract features diverge from practical benefits. The value of any new technology is not realized until real products solve real problems. SANs have already been deployed to solve tape backup, data mining. disaster recovery, server clustering, and other applications that exceed the capability of traditional server/storage connectivity. Leveraging the practical experience that has already been won will facilitate designing and implementing viable solutions for these and other applications.

The predominant server-to-storage connection is parallel SCSI cabling. A parallel cabling scheme is limiting. Since typically only a single server has access to its attached storage. The parallel SCSI model is server-centric.
Storage Area Networks represent a paradigm shift from legacy SCSI configurations. SANs provide scalable bandwidth and the flexibility of networking that enable a data-centric model to emerge.
SANs may be built with other architectures, but are based primarily on Fibre Channel. Fibre Channel SANs are already deployed in enterprise networks and have proven functionality.
Separating Fibre Channel features that exist only as standards from those engineered into available products is an essential first for designing and implementing SANs.