The Benefits of Storage Networking
Highly available bandwidth and the falling costs of storage devices have made Internet Protocol (IP) an increasingly attractive storage mechanism for many organisations. Advancing this goal calls for a new, yet standard way of accessing storage devices through IP networks. Businesses can now turn to IP storage networking as a way to get better control over their stored data. Intelligent IP SANs, that move traditional host based volume management into an purpose built IP SAN engine, allow companies to pool existing and new storage assets, providing more efficient utilisation, streamlined management, rapid deployment and reconfiguration of storage, and reduced backup and restore times.
The following list identifies some key trends driving the adoption of storage networking:
• A diverse range of users and application that require sharing of common information.
• The growing use of single-function computing elements that provide performance, reliability, and lower cost of ownership.
• The use of common network standards like TCP/IP and ubiquitous interconnect technologies such as Ethernet
• A desire to deploy solutions with features that provide competitive business
advantages and minimum downtime on an application-by-application basis.
• Response to the growing body of regulatory requirements for data storage of email, financial records, medical records, etc.
• The need to reduce storage management costs and complexities through central simplified administration.
• The demand to scale infrastructures easily, without adding technical resources.
• The repositioning of resources within an infrastructure to take advantage of cost savings in existing hardware and expertise.
