Declining costs of magnetic media, the rise of heterogeneous networks, and the deluge of Web-based solutions challenge IT managers to provide reliable distributed file services throughout their organizations. Users and customers are demanding 24 x 7 availability of in-house data resources. Alliances and consolidations in storage and networking enable more cost-effective solutions. LANs may become congested when large files are transferred through them. Maintaining SANity IDC defines a SAN as a configuration of two or more servers connected through a hub or switch to one or more storage arrays.
SANs often deploy redundant drives, switches, and channels to provide failover service.
This growing sophistication tends to hinder interoperability of storage systems, and industry-wide SAN standards have yet to solidify. Consequently, architectures for SAN data management all too often must be developed from the bottom up. Recent Industry Activity SAN vendors are partnering intensively to distinguish themselves at the same time they are leveraging trade organizations to make their solutions open, consistent, and attractive to a wider array of customers. Open standards are a key ingredient in IBM's recently announced SAN Gateway initiative. SNIA's effort is intended to inspire customer confidence that storage systems will be interoperable and reliably managed.