Performance Support

Storage: SAN Components & Interconnections

Transcript
Much like a Local Area Network or LAN a SAN is a Storage Area Network. It consists of networking components and attached devices. A SAN consists of storage networking devices like switches SAN storage devices like SAN arrays and SAN attached host computer systems like application servers. A SAN often utilizes Fi re !hannel fa ric technologies. "his is an infrastructure specifically designed to handle storage communications# it provides fast and relia le access to storage and is therefore very well suited for performance oriented workloads with high availa ility needs. "he SAN fa ric is similar in concept to a network segment on a Local Area Network. A typical Fi re !hannel SAN fa ric is made up of a num er of Fi re !hannel switches and$or Fi re !hannel routers. In order to demonstrate the components of a SAN in the way that it will make the most sense# I%ll draw out the asics of a Local Area Network to help reinforce the concepts and ideas. A LAN typically consists of client computers connected to &thernet switches with &thernet patch ca les connected to internal Network Interface !ards or NI!s. "he servers on the LAN are connected in the same fashion. And devices are a le to communicate to each other over the network. In SAN there are also client devices ut in this case we%re talking a out SAN attached host servers in most cases. "he servers are also connected to SAN switches# in this case Fi re !hannel switches# and instead of using network interface cards and patch ca les the servers use 'ost (us Adapter cards and are connected with fi er patch ca les. Instead of servers communicating to other servers over the SAN they communicate to the SAN storage devices. "he SAN storage devices are connected to the SAN in the same way that the SAN attached host are connected using fi er patch ca les to attach to the Fi re !hannel switches. 'owever# rather than installing '(A cards in the SAN storage device# they already have connections uilt into the SAN storage devices called storage processors or S)s. So at this point we have a SAN# one or more host computer systems# and one or more SAN storage devices oth connected to one or more Fi re !hannel switches in the middle. Now the storage from the SAN storage device can e made accessi le to the SAN attached host server# and the server operating system sees the storage as local disk. "hat is SAN components and interconnections. "hanks for watching.

* + ,-*. Skillsoft Ireland Limited