Lesson One: Building a SAN -- Click here to listen to the podcast

A storage area network can use existing communication technology such as IBM's optical fiber ESCON or it may use the newer Fibre Channel technology. Some SAN system integrators liken it to the common storage bus (flow of data) in a personal computer that is shared by different kinds of storage devices such as a hard disk or a CD-ROM player.

SANs support disk mirroring, backup and restore, archival and retrieval of archived data, data migration from one storage device to another, and the sharing of data among different servers in a network. SANs can incorporate subnetworks with network-attached storage (NAS) systems.

Getting started with SANs

To explore how SANs are used in the enterprise, here are some additional resources:

Choosing the right switch for an iSCSI SAN: This article offers information about choosing an iSCSI switch and a user case study.

Troubleshooting SAN performance issues: This tip reviews common problem areas with SANs, describes how to diagnose problems and offers some suggestions about how to prevent the problems in the first place.

Choosing a SAN-in-a-box: Logan Harbaugh explains how an all-in-one storage area network (SAN) kit provides a simple solution for new SAN administrators.

How to boot from a SAN: With the growing adoption of iSCSI storage, some SMBs moving to networked storage are reconsidering booting their servers from shared storage.

Read more about it:
>>	SearchStorage.com has a SAN school.
>>	At TechOnLine, Bob Walder provides an overview of the storage area network.
>>	SearchStorage.com has a "Learning guide to SAN-based backups."
>>	The Storage Network Industry Association provides information about storage area networks on behalf of the storage network industry.
>>	An industry consortium called FibreAlliance aims at developing standard methods for managing storage area networks.