Hey, you just answered my question (spoofing), now I'm answering yours, or I'll try to answer yours......
It's networking in that it uses a switch - but it's not networking at all like cisco stuff. The switch in a SAN connects servers to a storage processor and a storage processor is connected to the disks. A storage processor is nothing more than a standard mother board, cpu, memory and a small disk running a stripped down version of NT 4 (if you can believe that). The switch has fiber coming into it from the servers, and fiber coming out of it going to the storage processor. The servers have a HBA (Host Bus Adapter) which is basically a scsi card that you connect a fiber cable to. The other end of that cable attaches to the switch. So the switch allows the server to speak to the storage processor. The storage processor allows the server to see disks. server ---- switch ----- storage processor ----- disks I manage an EMC Clariion, which is their middle range SAN. The advantage to is you can add disk space to an existing server quickly and easily, sometimes without a reboot if it's already connected to the SAN. You can also easily move a volume from one server to another. Another use is something they call snap. Snapping is taking a volume and creating a second, virtual copy that you can allow another server to see. Say you had a database you wanted to test something out on, you could snap it and then allow another, test server to see the snap copy. Then you test what ever you want without actually affecting the original, production data. Another advantage is better use of disk space. You could create a RAID 5 and then chop it up into 4 volumes and give one volume to four different servers, or you could give them all to one server, or whatever else. You do have to worry about contention, but it's possible to take better advantage of disk space. Basically you're right, it's a new way of managing hard drives, with added capabilities. If you'd like feel free to email me with any questions. I think SANs are pretty cool, so I'm happy to talk about them. -Aaron Message Posted at: http://www.groupstudy.com/form/read.php?f=7&i=56860&t=56857 -------------------------------------------------- FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html Report misconduct and Nondisclosure violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
