13.5 Chapter Summary

Standardization

• Standardization of architectures, protocols, and interconnections is the foundation of open systems.

• Standards compliance is often a mandatory requirement for technology acquisition.

• Standardization applies to infrastructures but rarely to upper-layer applications that run over those infrastructures.

• Vendors must comply with industry standards while simultaneously asserting their product's unique added value.

• The standards process is vulnerable to vendor-specific interests.

• Standards for storage networking are governed by a diversity of standards organizations.

Interoperability

• Standards compliance and interoperability are two distinct states.

• Implementations of products on the same standard may vary because of differing interpretations of the standard.

• Concurrent standards compliance and interoperability testing via plugfests help to ensure compatibility between standards-based products.

• The diversity of SAN products and applications makes it impossible to ensure interoperability for every configuration.

Management

• Management of SANs includes data transport management and data placement management.

• Uniform storage networking management may be possible through adoption of CIM/WBEM as a common management interface.

• Upper-layer management frameworks depend on standards-compliant end devices.

• Management frameworks need not be interoperable.

Convergence

• SANs are the result of technology convergence between networking and storage architectures.

• Convergence is an ongoing process, as shown by the emergence of IP SANs, storage virtualization, InfiniBand, and NAS/SAN hybrids.

• Ultimately, convergence will generate a new uniform architecture for shared storage.

• Convergence is providing new options for customers and is expanding the potential market for SANs.