NAS Concepts
NAS Concepts
NAS Gateways
NAS Gateways (NAS Heads) provide File access to SAN
devices:
– Allows existing SAN (block) devices to offer File Storage
– Similar to traditional NAS device, but uses external disks
– NAS for accessibility - SAN for scalability
Block I/O
NAS
GATEWAY
File I/O
NOTE:
Some storage platforms
provide integrated NAS
and SAN in same device
NAS gateways or “heads” provide an NFS gateway to SAN storage—like a file
server with back-end SAN storage, but with the performance advantages of
NAS. The SAN storage appears as a LUN to the NAS head, and the NAS
head presents the LUN as a network file system.
NAS heads combine the accessibility of NAS storage with the scalability of
SAN storage.
Some new storage platforms are in development that can provide both NAS
and SAN interfaces in an integrated product.