The Effects of Storage Networks on IT Organizations

A quote for your consideration: “Storage networking? Why yes, storage has always been networked. I know every morning when I come in and log in to the network, I access the sales tracking files positioned on the server. I also know that when the server goes down, I can’t get to those files shared by the sales territory managers. Networked storage being new? It’s always been in the computer systems I’ve used. Yep, couldn’t live without it.”

This manager of computer applications is obviously commenting on the new concept of networking storage. In his mind, storage has always been networked and is certainly not a new concept to him. In fact, as you’ve probably deduced, he’s developed his professional activities to be dependent on storage shared on a network, across departments, and accessible to both headquarters and remote personnel. What he’s talking about is the concept of the client/server storage model that has existed for many years and is now taken for granted in most global 2000 companies within the world.

And now, another quote from another IT professional: “Storage networking? No, we haven’t gone in that direction yet. We’re still waiting for the technology to become more mature and stable. However, we have plans to implement a SAN within the next year’s planning cycle. We’re still relying on our direct attached storage systems to get us through these next budget cycles. Now, to be fair, I’m not sure what the web guys are doing. They may have some other configuration they’re working with.”

What this IT manager of technical services is commenting on is the company’s direction in implementing storage networking in the form of a SAN. Same company, same network, as described by his peer in the applications area, although in his mind, storage networking is a completely different animal than the traditional client/server storage model of storage networking.

If we next talk to the Internet/intranet infrastructure manager, we may yet find another story.

“Storage networking? Well, not really. We have Network Attached Storage that supports our web servers. That’s really different from storage networks, isn’t it? I’m not sure. In any event, our NAS storage boxes serve us well in allowing multiple storage locations that the web servers can go to for web pages, storing customer transaction data, customer files, and profiles. Of course, much of the transactional data gets downloaded to the application servers for processing accounts and updating the real financial records. So, I guess, yes we have networked storage across our enterprise. I think the server guys are looking at SANs though, so you may want to talk with them.”

The point is that storage networking can and will be implemented across a broad range of services within the data center. Although it is increasingly available through two distinct architectural models, SAN and NAS, it is not readily recognized or understood within the data center. In order to utilize this new technology effectively, you must understand what’s driving the storage infrastructures, as well as the details of each storage networking model, which will allow you to design and implement effective solutions.

Most managers responsible for application design and development think of storage as a necessary systems infrastructure—one that should always be there—so we must proceed with the knowledge that some things can be changed, while others can only be influenced.