SAN - FAQ

1.WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF FIBRE CHANNEL SANS?

 

Fibre Channel SANs are the de facto standard for storage networking in the

corporate data center because they provide exceptional reliability,

scalability, consolidation, and performance. Fibre Channel SANs provide

significant advantages over direct-attached storage through improved

storage utilization, higher data availability, reduced management costs,

and highly scalable capacity and performance.

 

 

2.WHAT ENVIRONMENT IS MOST SUITABLE FOR FIBRE CHANNEL SANS?

 

Typically, Fibre Channel SANs are most suitable for large data centers

running business-critical data, as well as applications that require high-

bandwidth performance such as medical imaging, streaming media, and large

databases. Fibre Channel SAN solutions can easily scale to meet the most

demanding performance and availability requirements.

 

3.WHAT CUSTOMER PROBLEMS DO FIBRE CHANNEL SANS SOLVE?

 

The increased performance of Fibre Channel enables a highly effective

backup and recovery approach, including LAN-free and server-free backup

models. The result is a faster, more scalable, and more reliable backup

and recovery solution. By providing flexible connectivity options and

resource sharing, Fibre Channel SANs also greatly reduce the number of

physical devices and disparate systems that must be purchased and managed,

which can dramatically lower capital expenditures. Heterogeneous SAN

management provides a single point of control for all devices on the SAN,

lowering costs and freeing personnel to do other tasks.

 

4.HOW LONG HAS FIBRE CHANNEL BEEN AROUND?

 

Development started in 1988, ANSI standard approval occurred in 1994, and

large deployments began in 1998. Fibre Channel is a mature, safe, and

widely deployed solution for high-speed (1Gb, 2Gb, 4Gb) communications and

is the foundation for the majority of SAN installations throughout the

world.

 

 

5.WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF FIBRE CHANNEL SANS?

 

Fibre Channel is a well-established, widely deployed technology with a

proven track record and a very large installed base, particularly in

highperformance, business-critical data center environments. Fibre Channel

SANs continue to grow and will be enhanced for a long time to come.The

reduced costs of Fibre Channel components, the availability of SAN kits,

and the next generation of Fibre Channel (4Gb) are helping to fuel that

growth. In addition, the Fibre Channel roadmap includes plans to double

performance every three years

 

6.WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF 4GB FIBRE CHANNEL?

 

Benefits include twice the performance with little or no price increase,

investment protection with backward compatibility to 2Gb, higher

reliability due to fewer SAN components (switch and HBA ports) required,

and the ability to replicate, back up, and restore data more quickly. 4Gb

Fibre Channel systems are ideally suited for applications that need to

quickly transfer large amounts of data such as remote replication across a

SAN, streaming video on demand, modeling and rendering, and large

databases. 4Gb technology is shipping today.

 

 

7.HOW IS FIBRE CHANNEL DIFFERENT FROM ISCSI?

 

Fibre Channel and iSCSI each have a distinct place in the IT

infrastructure as SAN alternatives to DAS. Fibre Channel generally

provides high performance and high availability for business-critical

applications, usually in the corporate data center. In contrast, iSCSI is

generally used to provide SANs for business applications in smaller

regional or departmental data centers.

 

8.WHEN SHOULD I DEPLOY FIBRE CHANNEL INSTEAD OF ISCSI?

 

For environments consisting of high-end servers that require high

bandwidth or data center environments with business-critical data, Fibre

Channel is a better fit than iSCSI. For environments consisting of many

midrange or low-end servers, an IP SAN solution often delivers the most

appropriate price/performance.