SAN supports backup and restore, disk mirroring, data migration, retrieval of the archive data and the sharing of the data between the network servers. SAN is most commonly implemented in the big enterprises and it uses fiber channel technology to handle the storage communications between the servers and the storage devices. A san can be comprised of two servers access the central storage devices to many thousand servers that access the thousands of storage devices.
A SAN is a dedicated network that carries the I/O traffic between the network servers and the centralized storage devices. SAN uses high speed multi mode or single mode fiber optic cables and copper wire for communication between the servers and the storage devices.
Fiber channels support very fast data communication up to 2 GB per second. Fiber supports multiple servers and devices sharing.
Fiber channels have overcome the bandwidth and connectivity limitations that are associated with the SCSI.
Today most of the SAN equipment vendors also support fiber channel routing solutions. Fiber channel SANs provide centralized backup, devices management and storage devices management.
In SANs, the LAN/WAN users can get access to the storage devices through the network servers.
Software for managing the SAN are still not very much popularized but soon it will become a necessity to have SAN management software.
Sharing the storage simplifies the storage administration because the storage devices do not need to be moved physically from one location to another. SANs can also implement the data recovery process.
Centralized management allows diagnosing, isolating and troubleshooting the load management problems from a single place.
The other benefits of the SAN include high availability, cost effectively, resources management, backup and restore, centralized pooling of the storage devices and high speed access to the centralized storage resources.