Summary

As computing environments have changed with the advent of the Internet, storage requirements have also changed to increase the availability of data. Five-nines availability is not easy to achieve, considering that it allows a maximum of only 5 minutes of downtime a year. Even four-nines availability is very difficult, allowing less than an hour per yearincluding the time needed for normal system maintenance.

Legacy DAS storage connectivity architectures have been exposed as being too inflexible and costly for businesses that have adopted the Internet as a major element of their businesses. Companies need storage network solutions to improve the availability, scalability, and utilization of their storage resources.

Connectivity options with storage networks vastly exceed those of DAS storage buses. Sharing storage resources allows administrators to respond faster to capacity-full situations while simultaneously increasing the utilization of storage products.

One of the primary differences between legacy DAS storage and SAN technology is the ability to create data-centric storage topologies where data is viewed as the center of the network. This type of topology can be supported with multiple access paths to create centrally managed storage with excellent data availability capabilities.