Storage Networking Architectures
Storage Area Network
SAN Strengths and Limitations
ƒ Servers and storage can ƒ Initial implementation
scale independently costs higher than NAS
ƒ Does not impact and is ƒ Can be complex to
not impacted by LAN manage
traffic
ƒ Typically requires
ƒ Provides higher specialized training
availability
ƒ Interoperability is an
issue in heterogeneous
environments
Strengths of SANs:
The underlying benefit of SANs is that they allow servers and storage to
scale independently: Adding new storage does not require adding new
servers, and multiple servers can access the same storage devices.
Because storage traffic is routed over a separate network, storage traffic
does not compete for bandwidth with data networking applications. This
makes it easier for storage administrators to guarantee sufficient
bandwidth for storage and ensures that bandwidth-intensive storage
traffic does not disrupt other applications.
Access to storage is not subject to the failure of a single server,
operating system, or application, and systems can be geographically
separated for disaster tolerance.