Storage Area Network Information Center

You likely already have a storage infrastructure in place today that is not meeting your business needs. Fortunately, you may be able to re-deploy some of this existing infrastructure in your Storage Area Network (SAN). SANs can interconnect your existing components with new components to form a solution that meets your business requirements. Alternately, you might choose to simply buy all new components for your SAN.

Inventorying and analyzing your current environment will help you determine which existing components still meet your business needs and are capable of connecting to a SAN. And, even if your approach is to use all new components, inventorying your physical environment will help you assess size limitations and cabling distance requirements.

Enlist the Help of SAN Vendors

• Understands your business requirements
• Understands SANs
• Has a proven SAN track record
• Has the ability to put together a total SAN solution including hardware, software, education, professional services, and support
• Is familiar with the existing components you plan to use and is able to integrate them with new ones to form your SAN solution

Begin Your Inventory With a Broad List

• Storage devices
• Hosts
• Sub-components, like Host Bus Adapters (HBAs), bridges, etc.
• Locations and geographical considerations like size limitations and distances
• Applications, including their traffic patterns, performance, and availability requirements

Gather Detailed Information About Each Component

Continue to fill in your SAN Components Inventory Worksheets with specific information about each of the components. Details should include but not be limited to:

• Operating system
• HBA count and drivers (include driver version level)
• Type of connections supported (loop or fabric)
• Applications list
• Initial and projected storage requirements
• Dimensions, weight, etc.

• Make, model, and firmware version
• Type of connections supported (loop or fabric)
• Number of hosts it can serve
• Ports and number of hosts per port
• Capacity (used vs. free)
• Number and type of Fibre Channel interfaces
• Number and type of Ethernet interfaces
• Dimensions, weight, etc.

Analyze Your Inventory Information

Analyze each component in your inventory to determine if it meets your business requirements and is capable of connecting to a SAN. You can record this analysis in your SAN Components Inventory Worksheets. The following questions will help in your analysis:

• Is the component Fibre Channel ready?
• How old is the equipment? Is it nearing the end of its lifecycle, or can it still meet my business requirements?
• If it's a storage device, does it meet my capacity needs now and in the future?
• Does it meet my availability and reliability requirements?
• Does it meet my performance requirements?
• Is this a proprietary attachment, or does it meet current industry standards?
• Is this a legacy device (SCSI)?
• What are my space considerations? Can I fit this device as well as my other SAN components in the available space?
• Are the applications SAN aware?

When this inventory and analysis is complete, you should have an idea of which existing components you may want to use in your SAN and what physical environment requirements you will want to consider as you choose new components.