Servers and SANs, how they work
Can different operating systems be installed in one SAN? If so, does the SAN depend on the attached server? What happens if the attached server needs to be restarted? Does this mean down time for the data stored in the SAN?

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Just about any server can use a disk located in the SAN for its boot disk. The SAN is OS agnostic. Everything looks like a block of data to the SAN. If a server that has its boot disk located in the SAN is restarted, it will work exactly like any server that is restarted using internal boot disks. Chris

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The views and opinions expressed by Christopher L. Poelker are his alone and not necessarily shared by Hitachi Data Systems.

This was first published in May 2004