| A SAN is a specialized high-speed network that enables fast, reliable access among servers and external or independent storage resources. In a SAN, all networked servers share storage devices as peer resources; they are not the exclusive property of any one server. You can use a SAN to connect servers to storage, servers to each other, and storage to storage through hubs, switches, and routers. A SAN carries only I/O traffic between servers and storage devices; it doesn't carry general-purpose traffic such as email or other end-user applications. Thus, it avoids the difficult tradeoffs inherent in using a single network for all applications. |
