4.3. SAN Topologies

For the development of SAN topologies, we won’t show the workstations or the LAN in the illustrations.

4.3.1. Working Up to a SAN

Let’s begin with a fundamental Fibre Channel connection.

Figure 4-2. A Simple Point-to-point Connection

This is a simple point-to-point connection, with one server and one disk array. Now a point-to-point connection isn’t much to write home about. It is not quite a SAN, but it is a useful server/storage connection.

Our connection is fast, and more convenient to cable than a SCSI connection, but it isn’t very reliable. The single points of failure are: server, FC HBA, cable, disk array controller. ...

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