SAN (Storage Area Network)

"Storage Area Network" is architecture that attaches remotecomputer storage devices such as disk arrays, tape libraries andoptical jukeboxes to servers in such a way that, to the operatingsystem the devices appear as locally attached devices.

A storage architecture that connects servers and storage devices via a network for enhanced reliability, scalability and performance.

Storage-area network. A network dedicated to providing and managing storage and backup for business or carrier networks. Because they're dedicated networks, SANs offer greater capacity and better performance than traditional storage and backup techniques, in which mainframes, servers, or other host computers are attached directly to disk and tape drives and managed via special software. Most SANs today are based on Fibre Channel switches and hubs, configured to occupy the "back end" portion of a network, behind the data center or server farm.

An acronym for Storage Area Network, a high-speed network that is typically part of an overall network of computing resources for an enterprise, in which the software knows the characteristics of storage devices and the quantity and value of data stored in those devices

A storage area network (SAN) is a specialized network that provides access to high performance and highly available storage subsystems using block storage protocols. The SAN is made up of specific devices, such as host bus adapters (HBAs) in the host servers, switches that help route storage traffic, and disk storage subsystems. The main characteristic of a SAN is that the storage subsystems are generally available to multiple hosts at the same time, which makes them scalable and flexible. Compare with NAS and DAS.

a centrally managed network that allows any-to-any interconnection of servers and storage systems.

A high-speed subnetwork of shared storage devices. A storage device is a machine that contains nothing but a disc or discs for storing data. A SANs architecture works in a way that makes all storage devices available to all servers on a LAN or WAN. As more storage devices are added to a SAN, they too will be accessible from any server in the larger network. In this case, the server merely acts as a pathway between the end user and the stored data. Because stored data does not reside directly on any of a n

A high-speed sub-network of shared storage devices. In large enterprises, a SAN connects multiple servers to a centralized pool of disk storage. Compared to managing hundreds of servers, each with their own disks, SANs reduce system administration overhead. By treating all the company's storage as a single resource, disk maintenance and routine backups are easier to schedule and control. In some SANs, the disks themselves can copy data to other disks for backup without any processing overhead at the host computers.

A storage area network (SAN) is a high-speed special-purpose network (or subnetwork) that interconnects different kinds of data storage devices with associated data servers on behalf of a larger network of users. Typically, a storage area network is part of the overall network of computing resources for an enterprise.

a collection of storage resources connected to computers through a high-speed network to facilitate storage provisioning and increase overall utilization.

A high-speed, high-available storage system, able to serve multiple computers at a time, dedicated to backup and archival purposes. It can be reached by Fibre Channel (FC) or iSCSI protocols.

A storage system connected to a dedicated network designed for storage attachment. SAN systems are usually block-based, and typically use the SCSI command set over a Fibre Channel network (though other command sets and network types exist as well). See also Network-Attached Storage.