Storage Networking Architectures
Storage Area Network
What is a
Storage Area Network (SAN)?
• Servers and stand-alone storage devices,
connected by a dedicated network
• Any server can be configured to access any
Storage subsystem
• Servers and storage can scale independently
Tape
device
Storage
Server
subsystem
Storage Area Networks (SANs):
The SAN architecture physically and logically separates storage from
servers.
It uses a Block I/O architecture.
Storage resources are contained in stand-alone SAN storage
subsystems and tape devices that are accessed over a dedicated
network. Storage sits “behind” the server, as in DAS, but the storage can
be accessed from any host attached to the SAN.
Multiple hosts can be configured to access the same storage devices,
allowing servers and storage to scale independently.