International Journal of Computer Science Trends and Technology (IJCST) Volume 4 Issue 4, Jul - Aug 2016

RESEARCH ARTICLE

OPEN ACCESS

A Study Paper on Storage Area Network Problem-Solving Issues

Priyanka Malviya
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
Bharati Vidyapeeth College of Engineering
Pune -India

ABSTRACT
Storage Area Net work (SAN) switches and Storage Arrays have used for many t ime; they have become mo re ab ility of fault
tolerance. These often involve some degree of redundancy. However, there are still issues that can occur and take some t ime t o
resolve that problem co me in the Storage area network applicat ions. The number of Storage Protocols and Storage Interfaces
rapidly increased in a Networking technology field, it avoids the Bottleneck of data centers. This paper focuses on few
guidelines that may help to understand some of the design issues involved in SAN. Those Problems that are abstract and cannot
solve on SAN infrastructure and application run on SAN can solve after understanding all the parameters. Fib re channels also,
make so me concern that is not solvable and creates issues. This paper discusses some of the co mmon problem related to SAN to
prevent the issues.
Keywords:- Storage Arrays, Problems, Problem-solving issues, Fibre Channel, Storage, Performance, Net work, Storage Area
network, Network Attached Storage.

I.

INTRODUCTION

Both the Storage area network (SA N) and the (NAS)

architectures having the designing challenges and the variety
of reasons which include the workload and causes the
problems when developing the new applicat ions or tools.
Some of the co mmon problems are caught and perform so me
troubleshooting in them step by step. First to check an issue in
the SAN or NAS architecture, The behavior of SA N and NAS
when performing various operations, After entire problem
solve possibly performance problem rep roduced, Check the
functioning is correct or something failed on it, What are the
changes come in the SAN or NAS since was it started? How
many and what type of applications are running on SAN or
NAS .If we do quick scan On SAN or NAS, it shows
environment response or not, If any problems co me, check it
is local or remote performance problem, You need outside
help to correct the problem or not, Learn fro m the incident
occur and correct it.

II.

mu ltip le servers of shared pool of storage devices. SANs are

mainly used to enhance storage devices, such as hard disks,
arrays tapes, and junk storage, accessible to servers so that the
devices appear to the operating system as locally attached
devices. SAN work same as a Server in a different way. Data
stored in a disk array, and it is useful fo r getting server backup.
Why Storage Area Network (SAN) Needed:SAN need because a single server can manage and
provide the Hard drives Storages to Multiple Machines, and as
the device computation increases the more storage require a
single server can p rovide that. SAN help the each standard
user it moves the storage resources to the freeway by the high speed network. SA N allo ws each system to access directly as
a shared storage devices do.
How to Access Storage Area Network (SAN):-

LITERATURE REVIEW

About Storage Area Network (SAN):A storage area network is a network technology
which gives you the access to make stronger storage, block
level data storage. SAN is a truly high-speed network or subnetwork that is connected to each other and present in the

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When the host wants to access a storage device on

SAN, it sends the request to the Storage appliance. That
access called as the block-based access request. The storage
area network is designed using the three components: Host
bus adapters (HBAs), cabling and switches. Each of the
storage systems interconnected in the SAN and the physical
interconnections can provide the higher bandwidth levels that

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International Journal of Computer Science Trends and Technology (IJCST) Volume 4 Issue 4, Jul - Aug 2016
can handle the data storage activities, e.g., There is a large
business system may have several o f terabytes of data, that
needs to be accessible by mu ltip le devices on a local area
network (LAN).An another efficient way to increase network
storage, only one hard Drive need to be added to the computer
system by Installing SAN setup in the server.
Understanding the advantages of a SAN: The benefits of utilizing a SAN are nu merous
because a SAN, for the most part, has an exceptional yield on
the venture, makes the aggregate expense of responsibility for
less, and has a compensation back period situated in months
rather than years.
Taking after is a rundown of only a portion of the
ways you can anticipate that a SAN will be valuable.

Evaluates the separation furthest reaches of SCSIassociated circles: The most extreme length of a
SCSI transport is around 25 meters. Fiber Channel
SANs permit you to interface your circles to your
servers over much more noteworthy separations.

More pro minent execution: Fiber Channel SANs

allo w association with plates at up to 200 megabytes
for every second today, with velocit ies of up to 1
gigabyte for every second soon.

Expanded circle usage: SAN empowers more than

one server to get to the same physical plate, which
gives you a chance to distribute the free space on
those circles all the more viable.

Higher accessibility to capacity by utilization of

access different ways: A SAN takes into
consideration numerous physical associations with
plates from a single or various servers.

Conceded circle acquisit ion: Because you can utilize

plate space all the more adequately, no space goes to
waste, in this way you don't have to purchase plates
as frequently as you used to.

Lessened server farm rack/floor space: Because you

don't have to buy large servers with space for heaps
of plates, you can purchase less, litt ler servers, which
consumes up less space.

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New calamity recuperation abilities: This is a unique

advantage. SAN gadgets can reflect the informat ion
on the plates to another area. It can make your
information safe if a fiasco happens.
Online recuperation: By utilizing online mirro rs of
your information in a SAN gadget, you can in a split
second recoup your information if it gets to be
degenerate.

III. STUDY ON ISSUES IN STORAGE AREA

NETWORK (SAN)
The millions of the thing go wrong while running
any technology as the compound storage system have. So we
check the each area and try to resolve some prob lems each
failures type can group in the following sectors:Issues by Compatibility in the SAN:In the network storage technology, the compatibility
issues are more tricky and complicated to establish. There are
some of the things you should consider when integrating the
new technology into the network. Check the vendors network
work properly and adjustable to the storage device, and
operating system co mplains the application of these type of
storage or not. Ask the vendor for everything and listen to the
suppliers' instruction accurately what they want fro m that
storage device, everything you do writ ing on it and make a
proper documentation on each and every aspect, Check how
compatible first just ask things to do anything which you need.
The FC SAN are present around for 15 years, and not all the
devices are working well. It is very common for all the storage
area network technologies that give the incorrect result
sometimes. All the storage vendors provide some of the
matrices which are used to solve the issues in the SAN.
Increase the capacity Limits of the storage area network: In the storage area network client wants to increase
the capacity limits of their storage area network, but how to do
that it is a b ig question for everyone this depends on the some
of the storage networking factors. To expand the Fibre
Channel and IP storage is the complex and costly tasks.
The network storage provider first needs to know that what
the client and how much data want to store and how they
spent for that storage system.ie. First Qualifying your

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International Journal of Computer Science Trends and Technology (IJCST) Volume 4 Issue 4, Jul - Aug 2016
customer's Qualifying your customer's class (like business
customer home network, infrastructure based storage
client).Use three tier architecture for Ethernet SAN and two
tier design for FC SAN.
Marking the incorrect configuration of SAN network: These also called as the Zoning; it is the logical
traffic separation between the host and resources. Zoning in a
SAN provide the admin istration tools and the security. Zoning
can do in several ways. Plan available in device level or LUN
level. Zoning can do in two ways (Soft and hard) soft zoning
having the server database and hard zoning having the routing
table.

provides the access to the machine to a local area network

(LAN) or the wide area network (WAN).
Host bus adapters contain different configuration settings and
options are as follows: SAN topology
FC Link Speed
Fibre channel tape support enabled
A lot of the things go wrong to the storage server. The server
contains a large nu mber o f stack co mponents of storage,
having the volume manager, operating system, HBA driver
Multi-pathing software co mponents, HBA Hard ware. Each of
the components specified by the vendors, and there may be
many troubles and issues facing them.
SAN hardware failures issues: -

To do the wrong plan is the causes the problem in storage

area network. The changing of zoning every time is tough
because it contains the 16 b its of Hexadecimal code in
common Worldwide Names (WWNs) networks.
Issues in the connection and cable in Storage area network:The storage area network contains the Fiber cables
for the connections of networks to each other. But the fiber
cables also seem to be having a lot of problems, and it may
fail. That may give the slow network, Painful waiting to the
storage device and intermittent death of network. To
overcome this problem the new connection or cables are
needed provide the maintenance to this regard by every t ime
changing it. So we use the Flakey connections and cables to
overcome the problems issues in Storage area network.
Storage array problem in storage area network: Each storage devices are having the different types
of technologies to store the data. Logical unit nu mbers are the
terms used to provide the storage, and it is a very fundamental
issue in the SAN. The LUN is not the matter to create the
volumes.LUN created and assigned to the host bus adapter
(HBAs) by through the front end SAN port. Problems arise
when a typo is a configuration the array by the storage
administrator.
Host Bus Adapter (HBAs) configuration issues in storage
area network: Host Bus Adaptor is used by the devices to access the
Storage area network. The host bus adapter is function same
as the network adapter present in the networking field, and it

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The hardware is the most important task in any of

the devices so more focus given on it, May causes the less no
of issues. Because if the device failed in any of the storage
devices means you will lose your whole work. So backup and
redundancy come first while considering the hard ware
issues.SAN hardware is very reliable than the other storage
technologies, but it may be failing. The SAN hard ware
common failures that can affect the pacing of a host are SPF
Port failures, port card failure, and complete switch failure.
SAN boot Issues: There is the booting issue presents in the Storage
area network, th is issue called the" boot for an issue, it
becomes Windows limitation issue when storage comes for
the configuration. Booting problems fro m the local d rives
make server easier to manage and usually faster to restore the
room. The booting of SAN has involved in Windows
operating System. The boot also requires the HBA drivers in
the Windows OS.
SAN Connectivity Issues: The SAN connectivity issues are also known as the
SAN-based backup it creates the biggest problems in the
storage area network. The shared drives also disconnect the
connectivity when the backup is interrupted. Becaus e of this
we have to replace all the co mponents but the symptoms, not
changes, the connectivity include some of the setups as
follows: Qualstar library using OEM Chapparel SCSI bridges
Legato Networker
Emulex HBAs
McData switches

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International Journal of Computer Science Trends and Technology (IJCST) Volume 4 Issue 4, Jul - Aug 2016
Problem determination On SAN: To understand the issues in storage area network, so
it requires first knowledge about each and every term involve
in a particular storage system. The System contain each
configuration and expected behaviors, So when issues come
into the system, then it formalized and learned each
component and able to solve the part icular set of challenges,
and eliminates the part wh ich is not properly work in essential
areas as SAN, host and storage devices.

After every day of changes, to store switch

configuration create the backup safely(Like logs).It is the right
way when any failure occur you can easily rollback the
changes and started again without any errors, So you will not
mess up during the changes. It is a good idea to take a backup
every time.

IV. STUDY FINDING ON PROBLEM SOLVE

ISSUES IN SAN

Check the Performance support metrics: Solving Congestion Problems in Storage Area Network : Issues on the performance can be measured as
regularly check Logs, storage matrices, checking the
configuration of the ports, network, and other devices that
support SAN. These types of manufacturers find the new bugs
and get filled by the new code generated. Keep your
configuration always update, and supportable. So it may
provide a lot of support to avoid issues.
Make Documentation of SAN: These are the huge problem in the SAN to create the
documentation of each and every term. It necessary when the
troubleshooting problem co me and you do not have anything
to do. To read this documentation clearly, you can understand
the structure and design of SAN. You have to make sure that
the each component (Hosts, HBAs, and WWNs) in the SAN
having documentation record and the connection logs and at
the definitive, the SAN documentation must describe the ISLs,
FC, Zoning, and Zone members.
Determine the SAN Performance: Instead of record every point every day. It's hard to
determine that using port is creating the problem or not. It
always makes the problem in baseline performance issue in
SAN.
Plan for the change: When
you
imp lemented
the sophisticated
technologies, issues come on it always expect to change.
These methods avoid the help of administration or the outage
help. Use the SAN documentation to the changes before it
happens. Every t ime documentation not perfect to do changes,
when you are executing the changes it will be going wrong.
Configuration Backup Problem solves:-

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This incredible develop ment puts the considerable

weight on Storage Area Networks (SANs), wh ich must have
the capacity to handle the blossoming activ ity loads between
the processes and function layers. To keep up top
effectiveness, Storage managers should have the ability to
distinguish rapidly and resolve moderate channel and other
typical SA N clog issues. If not tended to in a convenient
manner, these can have a falling impact, notwithstanding
corrupting the execution of utterly remote applications.
Storage Problem in Storage Area Network: The Storage Area Network Provide the pliab ility to
amalgamate and match Storage System suppliers, furthermore
sanctioning storage to be robust and secure.
Using storage area networks to reduce congestion and
increase performance: In the Storage area network substantial amount of
data in terabytes are Incrementing nu mbers, and it obstructs in
subsisting networks.

V. CONCLUSIONS
Every technology is having some issues which can
solve after understanding comp lete knowledge. The SAN is
the high-end storage technology. If you see that SAN changes
occur recently, Check the SAN Logs and compare the running
configuration and the previously created documentation. If the
SAN co mponent fails, to look for the faulty port and log -out
fro m it. The storage in SAN creates a question how it reports
for errors if any changes occur. So after initialization on SAN
is always having design Issues at some conditions which we
discuss in this paper. So the SAN issues can become non issues when you follow the instruction which shows in this

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International Journal of Computer Science Trends and Technology (IJCST) Volume 4 Issue 4, Jul - Aug 2016
article (documentation, Co mpat ibility). It is the best practice
to prevent massive issues when something goes wrong.

[10]

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
To prepare the Survey Paper of-"Survey on problemsolving issues in storage area network (SA N) has been
prepared by Priyanka Malviya.
I would like to thank my faculty as well as my whole
department, parents, and friends for their support and
confidence in me. I have obtained a lot of knowledge during
the preparation of this document.

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