SANs ready for take off
IBM believes that storage area networks will take off this year. They are now able to work with a variety of host servers on a heterogeneous network, but there are still a number of technological hurdles to be overcome
A storage area network (SAN) pools an enterprise's data and allows access to it over a Fibre Channel network running parallel to the LAN. However, there is still a gap between the theory of SANs and the reality. Although there are already many solutions on the market, there is still plenty of room for improvement in interoperability.
But 2000 could be the year that SANs take off. That is certainly what IBM and market research firm IDC believe. The two companies teamed up to survey enterprise IT managers and found that the majority have adopted, or are planning to adopt, SAN technology.
Some 90 percent thought SANs offered improved data manageability and easier options for expanding storage capacity. About the same number felt that SANs were a credible solution for improving data sharing and data access. A smaller number thought the technology would also reduce costs and lead to better exploitation of existing server and storage investments.
