As someone who worked with IBM mainframes for many years, Poole knew that IBM's direct access disk storage has become extremely robust. IBM has a strong presence in Reading, so service for the local Boscov's is excellent. Understanding that the days of spending countless hours fixing disks in the back room were over, Poole figured that a SAN could be the answer because it's capable of taking advantage of a mature architecture. The code in them that runs the device can run a library or a SCSI device and recognize a fiber optic card. It's just a matter of changing code and testing it.
Nothing is ever that simple whenever the industry rolls out a new technology.
Giga Information Group analyst Michael Adams says it will be two to four years before SANs are plug and play. And that kind of investment isn't extreme. Compaq, Hitachi and software vendors like Veritas are laying out a lot of resources, too. Everyone in the storage business is coming out with a SAN, and everyone realizes that no one can do it alone. The challenges include interoperability, data management and user education,'' adds Adams.