SAN

Storage Area Networks

SAN introduces the flexibility of networking to enable one server or many heterogeneous servers to share a common storage utility, which may comprise many storage devices, including disk, tape, and optical storage. And, the storage utility may be located far from the servers that use it.

SAN allows any-to-any connection across the network, using interconnect elements such as routers, gateways, hubs, switches, and directors. It eliminates the traditional dedicated connection between a server and storage, and the concept that the server effectively owns and manages the storage devices.