Storage Networking Architectures Storage Area Network
SAN Strengths and Limitations
Servers and storage can scale independently
Does not impact and is not impacted by LAN traffic
Provides higher availability
Initial implementation costs higher than NAS
Can be complex to manage
Typically requires specialized training
Interoperability is an issue in heterogeneous environments
Strengths of SANs:
The underlying benefit of SANs is that they allow servers and storage to scale independently: Adding new storage does not require adding new servers, and multiple servers can access the same storage devices. Because storage traffic is routed over a separate network, storage traffic does not compete for bandwidth with data networking applications. This makes it
easier for storage administrators to guarantee sufficient bandwidth for storage and ensures that bandwidth-intensive storage traffic does not disrupt other applications. Access to storage is not subject to the failure of a single server, operating system, or application, and systems can be geographically separated for disaster tolerance.