Introduction to Storage Networking Storage Consolidation
Solution Requirements For Storage Consolidation
• Data sharing: – Concurrently access the same data from multiple hosts – Usually software-based solutions (such as clustering) – Network Attached Storage (NAS) architectures – Next-generation SAN solutions
When looking at our requirements for storage consolidation, we need to consider the requirement of concurrent access to the same data from multiple hosts. These hosts could be running different operating systems, or alternatively they could be clustered to provide a high availability solution.
With storage area networks the creation of a shared data environment requires the addition of a clustered file system or a SAN aware file system. This will provide a common allocation table and a distributed lock manager for data protection.
Network attached storage has a centralised file system and lock manager, to protect data access from heterogeneous hosts, and therefore data sharing is part of its generic architecture.