Chapter 6. Storage Area Networks

Organizations are experiencing an explosive growth in information. This information needs to be stored, protected, optimized, and managed efficiently. Data center managers are burdened with the challenging task of providing low-cost, high-performance information management solutions. An effective information management solution must provide the following:

  • Just-in-time information to business users: Information must be available to business users when they need it. The explosive growth in online storage, proliferation of new servers and applications, spread of mission-critical data throughout enterprises, and demand for 24 × 7 data availability are some of the challenges that need to be addressed.

  • Integration of information infrastructure with business processes: The storage infrastructure should be integrated with various business processes without compromising its security and integrity.

  • Flexible and resilient storage architecture: The storage infrastructure must provide flexibility and resilience that aligns with changing business requirements. Storage should scale without compromising performance requirements of the applications and, at the same time, the total cost of managing information must be low.

Direct-attached storage (DAS) is often referred to as a stovepiped storage ...

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