Storage Area Network Training Online

A storage area network (SAN) is defined as a set of interconnected devices (e.g. disks and tapes) and servers that are connected to a common communication and data transfer infrastructure such as a fibre channel.

The common communication and data transfer mechanism for a given deployment is commonly known as the storage fabric.

The purpose of the SAN is to allow multiple servers access to a pool of storage in which any server can potentially access any storage unit.

Storage area networks provide a broad range of advantages over locally connected devices. The major benefit is flexible deployment and re-purposing of both serves and storage to suit the current business needs without having to be concerned about buying the right devices for a given server or without re-cabling a datacenter to attach storage to a given server.

A Fibre Channel is a high performance interface designed to bring speed and flexibility to multiple disk drive storage systems.

Often referred to as NAS, it is a special purpose server with lots of storage capacity. It connects directly to the network and can be located anywhere. NAS systems are optimized for file storage and data protection.

Storage Area Networks (SAN) are generally very large storage networks. Basically, a SAN has its own network for transferring data within the SAN. It may be comprised of many individual storage units. A NAS unit can be part of a SAN. SANs generally have many protocols and structures for managing large amounts of data quickly and reliably. NAS units are generally smaller.