Storage Area Networks: Designing and Implementing a Mass Storage System

2.1. How Did We Get to Networking Storage Anyway?

Remember your very first computer class where the teacher talked about the three basic elements of a computer (Figure 2-1)?

Figure 2-1. Basic Elements of a Computer

Then the teacher said there were three functions to the processing element. That processing consisted of the:

• control function

• arithmetic logic unit (ALU)

• memory

This is where it all began—with the core memory, the internal storage. It was also called “short-term storage.” This short-term storage, also known as “volatile storage,” was used by a program during the processing of instructions, and then it was made available for the next ...