A study of Storage Area Networks and issues in its management

Abstract

A data center has hundreds of servers and storage devices running on virtual machines that can be deployed and migrated over servers as per the requirement. If each server uses local storage, migration of this storage and restoration is mandatory. An attempt to organize and track storage throughout the data center is quite tedious. Using a dedicated storage system like a storage array, it possible to collectively monitor and manage such a network. A storage area network is essentially a network dedicated to storage devices. A storage area network can interconnect devices in all its layers, therefore improving storage availability. Interconnecting all elements in SAN also reduces the chances of a single point of failure. Using the storage devices collectively improves their utilization. SAN offers to manage and maintain all devices in the network. Although SAN is beneficial, it has drawbacks when configuring, monitoring, and managing components in a large-scale network. This paper consolidates the problems associated with SAN and offers possible solutions to overcome them.