1. Storage Area Network
(SAN)

2. SAN Definition
SAN components
Fibre Channel Network
Host Bus Adapter (HBA)
Enterprise Storage
A SAN is an intelligent network environment in which storage
resources are deployed and managed independently of any single
server . . . .

3. SAN Components
Fibre Channel (FC) Network
Fibre Channel Network - Host Bus Adapter (HBA) - Enterprise Storage
A high performance (200 MB/sec) redundant network
made up of fibre channel switches for deploying and
sharing enterprise resources

4. SAN Components
Host Bus Adapter (HBA)
Fibre Channel Network - Host Bus Adapter (HBA) - Enterprise Storage
Similar to a SCSI adapter card or a LAN
network interface card (NIC), provides the
server with a FC interface to the SAN

5. SAN Components
Enterprise Storage
Fibre Channel Network - Host Bus Adapter (HBA) - Enterprise Storage
Any storage device with FC interface that is
interoperable with the switches, HBAs, servers
and server operating systems in the network

6. User Requirements
Increased storage capacity
Support for multiple storage/server architectures
Continuous/High availability
Cross-platform solutions
Why SAN ?

7. Why SAN ?
User Requirements
Support higher levels of I/O activity
Higher performance backup/restore
Data sharing
Secure Assets

8. SAN Benefits
Performance
FC @ 200MB/sec vs SCSI @ 40MB/sec
Availability
Redundancy, non-disruptive upgrades
Scalability
Add or re-deploy storage as needed

9. SAN Benefits
Flexibility
New, advanced SAN devices can easily be added as
older devices wear out or become obsolete
Backup/restore/archive
Move data at FC speed vs LAN (up to 100x)
Centralized storage management
Manage SAN as a single entity (shared resources)

10. SAN Benefits
Reduced costs
Storage management, capacity overhead
Data sharing
Access to any data on SAN
Secure Assets
Multiple layers of security to ensure data integrity

11. SAN Benefits
Remote Replication
Geographical data replication for disaster recovery
SAN to SAN Copy
Copy data from disk to disk geographically using
SAN technology

12. Solaris
AIX
HP-UX
NT/
W2K
LAN (Ethernet)
SAN (Fibre Channel)
Open Systems Servers
SAN Servers – Operating
Systems
NIC NIC NIC
NIC
HBA HBA HBA
HBA
FABRIC SWITCHES

13. SAN Storage –
Performance Connectivity
Hundreds of 2-Gbit/sec Fibre Channel interfaces
allow thousands of MB/sec aggregate data rates
Reliability/Availability
Fully redundant components allow for non-disruptive
maintenance and upgrades
Scalability
28 TB disk storage now installed and growing
28 GB cache, can scale to 32 GB cache memory
9960 Storage

14. The Network – Brocade Switches
Performance/Connectivity
Hundreds of 2-Gbit/sec
ports provide SAN
connectivity to HDS storage
and Enterprise-class tape
Reliability/Availability
Brocade is the market leader
in FC switch technology
Multiple switches provide
redundancy for SAN
components

15. SAN Storage – Backup/Recovery
Veritas Net Backup
Lan-free, server-free backup, directly from SAN
storage through the switch to Enterprise-class
StorageTek Automated Tape Library
Performance
Backup data moves at fibre channel speed, up to
100 times faster than LAN backup, 5 times faster
than SCSI

16. SAN Replication – Disaster Recovery
LAN (Ethernet)Primary SAN Site

17. SAN Replication – Disaster Recovery
Alternate SAN Site LAN (Ethernet)

18. SAN Replication – Disaster Recovery
…are linked together via the USDA Wide Area Network.
The link is an asynchronous channel extension for
distance and secured with encryption.