Network Storage The Network Revealed

The concept

of storage area networks has the potential of being a good investment

for ebusinesses and really putting data to work.

When award-winning

busi-ness writer Thomas Stewart called information the ultimate





weapon in today's competitive environment, he was merely repeating
what most people take to be true. For several years now, analysts

have been saying that we have left behind the Industrial Age and

entered the Information Age. Increasingly, information is the raw

material for developing competitive differentiation and value addition.

But in today's

rapidly evolving business environment, making effective use of information

is an increasingly challenging task. The pace of change is so fast-and

the volume of information has become so great-that IT systems can

become choke points rather than enablers of efficient information

exchange.

To flourish

in the Information Age, a company must be able to make information

as pervasive and easily accessible as electricity or telephone services.

Such a corporate 'information utility' would permit on-demand exchange

of information across functional and departmental lines, forging

new connections to customers and suppliers. Finding practical and

affordable ways to link everyone to the flow of information has

become a strategic necessity.

The

changing environment



The advent of internet technology has transformed today's business
environment into a highly competitive, expanding and unpredictable

networked economy. Over the past few years it has become apparent

that success in this new business environment depends on one thing-adaptability.

Successful businesses

around the world have been transforming themselves through a series

of stages, from traditional 'make-and-sell' organizations into 'sense-and-respond'

organizations-more responsive, more flexible, in a word, more adaptive.

Ultimately, these businesses view the enterprise as a dynamic and

adaptive collection of capabilities that can be quickly reconfigured

to create customer value.

The key to adaptability-and

delivering increased value profitably-is to become what Gartner

Group calls a zero latency organization, one that has the ability

to exchange information immediately for purposes of gaining an edge.

Success in today's extremely competitive business environment depends

on a company's ability to adapt-continuously and rapidly-to changing

conditions by immediately accessing and processing information for

driving strategic business decisions.

Unfortunately,

many organizations are finding an unexpected roadblock on the way

to zero latency-their IT systems. Many corporate computing environments

are built to solve specific tactical, rather than strategic, concerns.

The result is separate 'islands' of information that can leave a

company at a competitive disadvantage.

What's required

is a zero latency computing environment, one that enables the free,

immediate exchange of information. But the development of such a

system poses a number of challenging technical and management questions.

The

challenges



Probably the single greatest challenge to the development of a zero
latency computing environment is the enormous growth of business

data. Even before the advent of electronic commerce, it was estimated

that new front-office business applications-such as ERP suites-were

resulting in an annual doubling of corporate data.

With ebusiness,

that rate of increase is compounded. Information is the currency

of ebusiness, the elemental medium of exchange. And, as organizations

make the transition from traditional business to static web serving

to performing actual business transactions via the internet or extranets,

they can see information volume increase eight-fold.

Before they

can profit from this unprecedented wealth of information, most organizations

face the challenge of finding an affordable way to store and manage

it.

These challenges

define a new set of requirements for a corporate computing environment.

In order to enable a company to make efficient use of increasing

volumes of information, a corporate computing system must:

• Provide a
  
  solution that addresses strategic business needs rather than individual
  
  computing requirements.
  
  
  
  
• Be transparent
  
  to business applications.
  
  
  
  
• Reuse existing
  
  hardware, software and skills.
  
  
  
  
• Provide centralized
  
  management of information and devices.
  
  
  
  
• Work across
  
  a heterogeneous environment.
  
  
  
  
• Provide flexibility
  
  necessary for rapid response to changing conditions while controlling
  
  costs.
  
  
  
  

The distributed

computing environments typical in business today, which tie information

to a single server, lack the flexibility to meet these needs. But

a relatively new approach to information management, known as the

storage area network (SAN), promises to provide the foundation for

the development of the corporate information utility.

What is a SAN?

A SAN is a dedicated, centrally managed, secure information infrastructure,

which enables any-to-any interconnection of servers and storage

systems.

A SAN provides

the following benefits:

• Facilitates
  
  universal access and sharing of resources.
  
  
  
  
• Supports
  
  unpredictable, explosive IT growth.
  
  
  
  
• Provides
  
  affordable 24 × 365 availability.
  
  
  
  
• Simplifies
  
  and centralizes resource management.
  
  
  
  
• Improves
  
  information protection and disaster tolerance.
  
  
  
  
• Enhances
  
  security and data integrity of new computing architectures.
  
  
  
  

SAN is based

on a systematic approach to data storage management pioneered by

IBM in the S/390 environment almost 30 years ago. Now SANs are rapidly

being integrated into distributed network environments using fiber

channel technology.

SANs

addressing business challenges



The move to SANs has been motivated by the need to manage the dramatically
increasing volume of business data and to mitigate its effect on

network performance. Key factors include:

• Ebusiness:
  
  securely transforming internal business processes and improving
  
  business relationships to expedite the buying and selling of goods,
  
  services and information via the internet.
  
  
  
  
• Globalization:
  
  the extension of IT systems across international boundaries.
  
  
  
  
• Zero latency:
  
  the need to exchange information immediately for competitive advantage.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Transformation:
  
  the ability to continually adapt, while immediately accessing
  
  and processing information to drive successful business decisions.
  
  
  
  
  
  

Distributed

computing, client-server applications and open systems give today's

enterprises the power to fully integrate hardware and software from

different vendors to create systems tailored to their specific needs.

These systems can be fast,



efficient and capable of providing a competitive edge.

Unfortunately,

many enterprises have taken a far less proactive approach with their

storage systems. Storage, unlike a web application server or a database

system, is rarely viewed as a strategic tool for the enterprise.

This view, however, is beginning to change.



With the explosive growth of ebusiness, IT managers are working
intensely to keep pace with managing the significant growth of data,

which touches multiple terabytes per year. They are installing high-performance

storage systems to meet demands for smaller backup windows and greater

application availability.

However, these

systems are sometimes complex and expensive to manage. In addition,

they are often single platform, restricting access to data across

the network. To improve data access and reduce costs, IT managers

are now seeking innovative ways to simplify storage management.

The SAN is a promising solution.

Benefits

from SAN



SANs remove data traffic, like backup processes, from the production
network giving IT managers a strategic way to improve system performance

and application availability.



SANs improve data access. Using fiber channel connections, SANs
provide the high-speed network communications and distance needed

by remote workstations and servers to easily access shared data

storage pools. IT managers can more easily centralize management

of their storage systems and consolidate backups thus increasing

the overall system efficiency.

The increased

distances provided by fiber channel technology make it easier to

deploy remote disaster recovery sites. Fiber Channel and switched

fabric technology eliminate single points of failure on the network.

With a SAN, virtually unlimited expansion is possible with hubs

and switches. Nodes can be removed or added with minimal disruption

to the network.

By implementing

a SAN to support your business you can realize:

• Improved
  
  administration: consolidation and centralized management can result
  
  in cost savings. Any-to-any connectivity, advanced load balancing
  
  systems and storage management infrastructures can significantly
  
  improve resource utilization.
  
  
  
  
• Improved
  
  availability: with a SAN, high availability can be provided at
  
  lower cost.
  
  
  
  
• Increased
  
  business flexibility: data sharing is increased while the need
  
  to transform data is reduced.
  
  
  
  

The

promise of SANs



A SAN is a high-speed network dedicated to information management.
More formally, a SAN is a combination of technologies-including

hardware, software and networking components-that provides any-to-any

interconnection of server and storage elements.

By separating

information management from information processing, a SAN provides

flexibility to meet the new computing requirements defined above.

More to the point, by enabling free and immediate exchange of information,

a SAN provides the foundation for a zero latency computing environment.

SANs are based

on a 'fabric' of fiber channel hubs, switches and gateways connecting

storage devices-such as disk arrays, optical disks or tape libraries-and

servers on a many-to-many basis. Application and transaction servers

are attached to both the SAN and to local area networks or wide

area networks, creating what appears to be a massive pool of data.

SANs can be

configured to provide servers in different locations with direct

access to huge amounts of shared storage resources. A SAN can also

enable direct storage-to-storage connectivity-for example, between

multiple disk arrays or between a disk array and a tape library-allowing

management activities such as backups and archiving to take place

independent of any server.

Inherent in

the promise of SANs are two compelling advantages. The first is

the creation of a true information utility. By eliminating the one-to-one

relationship between individual servers and critical business data

to create a corporate information 'bank', a SAN can make that information

readily available across the enterprise.

The second advantage

is that a SAN can provide a faster and effective way to deal with

rapidly increasing volumes of information. With a separate information

management network, additional capacity can be 'plugged in' as needed

with minimal impact on the performance of application or transaction

servers, LANs or WANs.

SAN's

compelling role



Storage area networks today are where ebusiness was just a few years
ago. It is clear that they can play a critical part in establishing

a competitive edge in today's dynamic global business environment.

But many organizations regard them with confusion or outright skepticism.

Like ebusiness,

the promise of SANs is compelling. A SAN offers the ability to connect

to people, handle the incredible growth of business data and respond

quickly to customer wants and needs. But like ebusiness, it will

require a holistic, multidisciplinary approach to deliver the full

benefits of SANs in the least amount of time.

Courtesy:

IBM Corp