What is a SAN?
A Storage Area Network (SAN) is a high-speed special-purpose network or sub-network that interconnects different data storage devices with associated data servers on behalf of a larger network of users. In a SAN, dedicated storage devices, such as disk arrays, tapes, and optical jukeboxes, are consolidated to a storage network that is generally heterogeneous in nature, with different vendors' storage devices being part of the fabric. The key goals of a SAN include improved scalability and manageability of storage resources, simplifying storage administration, improved resilience and availability through redundancy of data, and faster storage access using dedicated high-performance cabling.
Benefits of Storage Area Network (SAN)
There are numerous benefits offered by a SAN system for enterprises:
Centralized data storage: A Storage Area Network (SAN) provides centrally located, consolidated storage resources that are accessible to multiple servers. This helps eliminate the need for direct-attached storage in each server. Centralized data management and administration become easier.
Greater storage utilization: As storage devices are pooled into a SAN, they can be better utilized across servers. Underutilized storage on one server can be released and assigned to another server with higher demand. This leads to better overall storage utilization rates compared to directly attached storage.
Increased scalability: Storage capacity and performance can be scaled up easily by adding more storage devices to the SAN fabric without disrupting applications. Servers can also be added to or removed from the SAN without affecting data access.
Higher availability: By implementing technologies like RAID, servers can gain continuous access to data files even if a single storage component fails. This improves the overall resilience and availability of storage resources.
Faster data access: A SAN deploys high-speed bridging technology and block-level protocols like Fibre Channel to deliver faster access to data from servers compared to other solutions. This boosts the performance of storage intensive applications.
Simplified backup and recovery: Centralized data in the SAN simplifies backup, remote replication and disaster recovery processes across all connected servers through coordinated management capabilities.
Technology and components
The core technologies and components that make up a SAN network include:
Fibre Channel: Dedicated high-speed network used for connecting storage devices and servers via Host Bus Adapters (HBAs). Supports speeds up to 128 Gbps with new generations of Fibre Channel.
Network switches: Fibre Channel switches act as the core networking infrastructure to interconnect various nodes in the SAN fabric.
Network servers: Special servers that access and manage data in consolidated storage arrays over Fibre Channel.
Storage arrays: Arrays containing hard disks, SSDs or tapes that provide block-level data storage services to servers through the SAN.
Backup servers: Dedicated servers that carry out centralized backup of all data in the SAN and secondary storage for disaster recovery.
Network management software: Tools used to configure, monitor and manage the complete SAN infrastructure including storage arrays, networks and connected servers.
Host bus adapters: Fibre Channel HBAs installed in servers to connect them to the SAN network and access consolidated storage.
Data protection and replication technologies like snapshotting, CLONEing and remote mirroring enable continuous availability and disaster recovery capabilities across sites over extended SAN networks.
Implementing and managing Storage Area Network (SAN)
Setting up a successful SAN involves careful requirements analysis, design, implementation and ongoing maintenance phases:
- The specific performance, capacity and connectivity needs of applications are studied to size the SAN infrastructure. Fabric design considers both current and future capacity needs.
- Individual storage arrays, HBAs and Fibre Channel switches are installed and connected according to the design. Zoning is configured to control network traffic between devices.
- LUN masking controls access to logical unit numbers (LUNs) at a storage array by specific servers. Multi-pathing software enables failover if primary paths fail.
- Storage resources like disks and file systems are configured, formatted and made available as volumes or file shares to servers over the SAN.
- Network monitoring tools track health and utilization of devices. Regular maintenance like firmware updates are performed to ensure uptime. Additional resources are provisioned proactively based on usage trends.
- Backup infrastructure and synchronous or asynchronous replication is set up for business continuity across sites over extended SAN fabrics.
So in summary, a Storage Area Network (SAN) helps organizations improve scalability, storage management ease, availability and data access speeds by pooling disk arrays into a centralized, high-performance network accessible to multiple applications servers. With proper planning and maintenance, SANs are mission critical for many enterprise storage environments today.
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