Storage Area Networks, or SANs, are an important part of modern enterprise data storage systems. They allow large amounts of data to be stored and accessed efficiently by multiple servers simultaneously. Despite their importance, many people may not have a clear understanding of how SAN storage works. This article will demystify this technology and provide a beginner’s guide to SAN storage.
What is SAN
SAN storage is a type of storage network that connects multiple servers to a shared storage device. This shared storage is typically a large array of disk drives, though it can also be solid-state memory, tape, or other storage devices. The SAN allows multiple servers to access this shared storage, which provides benefits like centralized backups, disaster recovery, and high availability.
SAN storage networks use a special type of network called a fiber channel to connect servers to storage devices. Fiber channel is a high-speed technology that provides fast and reliable connectivity with low latency. In a SAN, servers are connected to fiber channel switches, and the storage devices are also connected to these switches. This allows servers to send data to and retrieve data from the shared storage over the fiber channel network.
The Benefits
One of the key benefits of SAN storage is that it allows storage to be virtualized. This means that the physical storage devices are abstracted from the servers, and servers can access logical units, or LUNs, which are created from the physical storage. This virtualization allows more flexible storage management, as LUNs can be created, resized, and moved between physical storage devices without requiring changes to the servers or applications that use them.
SAN storage also provides advanced features like data replication, snapshots, and tiered storage. Data replication involves copying data from one storage device to another at a remote location for disaster recovery purposes. Snapshots allow administrators to capture a point-in-time image of the data stored in the SAN, which can be used for quick backups or for creating virtual test environments. Tiered storage involves automatically moving data between different types of storage devices based on its importance or access frequency, which allows more expensive and faster storage to be used for frequently accessed data, and cheaper and slower storage to be used for less frequently accessed data.
Conclusion
SAN storage is a powerful technology that can provide many benefits to businesses, from centralized data management to flexible storage virtualization and advanced features like data replication and tiered storage. By understanding the basics of how SAN storage works, businesses can make informed decisions about implementing this technology in their IT infrastructure. And with the ongoing explosion of data growth in today’s digital world, SAN solution will only become more important in the years to come.