World of Computer Science and Information Technology Journal (WCSIT)

ISSN: 2221-0741
Vol. 1 No. 7, 292-296, 2011

Storage Area Network Implementation on an

Educational Institute Network Computer Networking
and Communication
Dr. Safarini Osama
IT Department, University of Tabuk
Tabuk, KSA
[email protected], [email protected]

Abstract — the storage infrastructure is the foundation on which information relies and therefore must support a company’s
business objectives and business model.
In this environment, simply deploying more and faster storage devices is not enough; a new kind of infrastructure is needed, one
that provides more enhanced network availability, data accessibility, and system manageability than is provided by today’s
infrastructure. The SAN meets this challenge.
The SAN liberates the storage device, so it is not on a particular server bus, and attaches it directly to the network. In other words,
storage is externalized and functionally distributed across the organization. The SAN also enables the centralizing of storage
devices and the clustering of servers, which makes for easier and less expensive administration. So the idea is to create an
intelligent SAN infrastructure that stretches to meet increased demands, allows highly available and heterogeneous access to
expanding information.

Keywords-: SAN - Storage Area Network, RAID - Redundant Array of Independent Disks, FAStT600 - Fibre Array Storage
Technology, ESCON - Enterprise Systems Connection.

 Availability: properly designed SAN storage is always

I. INTRODUCTION available, which make it possible for many servers to
Networks are spread all over the world, satisfying the needs access the same data pool with the same availability.
of enterprises and companies, by offering facilities of using  Efficiency is provided by SAN storage by supporting a
computers and networks to meet their purposes and functions. large number of operating systems and servers.
Many challenges face these networks, which make it difficult  High-speed is the ultimate goal in any network. SAN
to handle and manage the requirements of any company. provide a very high speed by reducing the application
SAN is a development of networks in areas of speed, response time, improving the processing throughput,
expandability, flexibility, storage, portability etc… it is like a support high performance back up, and enable new
link between present networks and future networks where we concepts as zero back up time.
will have faster and more reliable networks. In the present time  Security: as the interconnections in the SAN based on
SAN is a heart of a network that we have, it can be connected fibre channel, it will provide a very high level of
to a LAN or WAN and improve the network that it is added to. security, and it supports the latest storage security
In Other Words a SAN is a centrally managed, high-speed measures.
storage network consisting of multi-vendor storage systems,  Management: it is the most important feature in SAN,
storage management software, application servers and network as we can manage the SAN easily and from any point in
hardware that allows you to exploit the value of your business the network or outside it, such as using web-based tools
information [1]. from any location.
Storage Area Network comes out to give us many
These features are complementary and cumulative; that is
advantages on the traditional networks, such as [2]:
any SAN design can use all these features, or can start with a
 Flexibility in management: so we can add or remove simple SAN design then can change, add, remove or re-assign
servers without affecting data, storage can be easily any feature we want in the future [3].
increased, changed or re-assigned, and back up servers
can access a common storage pool.

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As mentioned earlier that there are many challenges faced
by the network, such as protection and communication between
different platforms of operating systems. With SAN we
recognize the split between presentation, processing and data
storage.

SAN is used to perform traditional network bottlenecks. It

supports high-speed data transfers between servers and storage
in the following three ways:
1- Server to storage: storage devices can be accessed
serially or concurrently.
2- Server to server: for high speed, high volume
communication between servers.
3- Storage to storage: outer transfer of data is done
without the need of interference the work of the server.
Figure 2. SAN Components

II. STORAGE AREA NETWORK (SAN) SAN Servers

A SAN is a dedicated high performance network to move
data between heterogeneous servers and storage resources. A The server Infrastructure is the underlying reason for all
Fibre Channel based SAN combines the high performance of SAN solutions. This infrastructure includes a mix of server
an I/O channel and the advantages of a network (connectivity platforms such as Windows NT, UNIX (various flavors) and
and distance of a network) using similar network technology OS/390. With initiatives such as Server Consolidation and e-
components like routers, switches and gateways. As shown in Business, the need for SAN will increase. Although the early
figure 1. SAN solutions only supported homogeneous environments
(e.g. future Educational institute e-mail account servers for
students and e-learning based on widows NT), SAN will
evolve into a truly heterogeneous environment [5].

In the last few years we were in the early SAN technology

life cycle. The technology is still relatively immature and there
is also a lack of accepted industrial standards. Data integrity is
an important issue. Today, many current implementations rely
on the physical wiring only for security, but other security
schemes are being developed [6]. For example, some vendors
are developing a logical partitioning approach called zoning.
Most of the SAN solutions on the market today are limited
Figure 1. Connectivity and distance of a network
in scope and restricted to specific applications. Interoperability
is not possible in many of these solutions [7]. Some of the
currently available solutions are:
Storage Area Network Environment
• Backup and recovery
Storage subsystems, storage devices, and server systems • Storage consolidation
can be attached to a Fibre Channel Storage Area Network. • Data replication
Depending on the implementation, several different • Virtual storage resources
components can be used to build a Storage Area Network [4].
A Fibre Channel network may be composed of many different Most of the SAN management packages available today are
types of interconnect entities, including switches, hubs, and limited in scope to the management of one particular element
bridges. or aspect of the SAN. Most of these solutions are proprietary
and are lacking in interoperability.
SAN Components
III. IMPLEMENTATION OF SAN
SAN components are illustrated in figure (2): The first stage is introducing the two networks that the
educational institute

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Owns: the Hub-based and the switch-based networks to be
discussed, and then introduce the implementation of new
proposed network SAN.
The Second stage is to perform a survey, which specifies
the infrastructure of the proposed SAN, depending on the
following factors:
I. Homogeneous environments: is based on the fact
that has the same Operating Systems (Platforms),
and the same vendor (maker) of the SAN.
II. Heterogeneous environment: is based on the fact
that has different Operating Systems (platforms),
and different vendor (maker) of the SAN.

After doing this survey, we can supply the client with the
most COST EFFICTIVE SOLUTION
Hub-based network
The Hub-based network (old Network) as shown in the
figure (3) below:

Figure 4. switch-based network (attached to the servers)

Figure 3. hub-based network

It is a weak, slow network, and is featured as one-user

controls at a time, besides broadcasting, management is not
easy and maintenance is also so difficult, as it is using the old
wiring type.
Figure 5. switch-based network
Switch-based network

On the other hand the switch-based network (The New The suggested SAN for Our Case Study (an Educational
LAN) is greater than the old one (Hub-based), it is shown in institute)
figures (4) and (5).
The main properties are high speed, with more Security and Finally is suggested the inclusion of the SAN technique for
easy to manage than the old one. Many users can work the educational institute. This will make it more powerful than
together at the same time, besides it easier to maintain any the previously mentioned networks. The implementation of
failure in the network. SAN on the institute network is shown in figures 6 and 7
below. This improvement will give the following advantages
for the Educational institute network services.

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 Drive Enclosure
Is essentially a specialized chassis designed to hold and
power disk drives while providing a mechanism to allow them
to communicate to one or more separate computers, Drive
enclosures provide power to the drives therein and convert the
data sent across their native data bus into a format usable by an
external connection on the computer to which it is connected.

Figure 6. SAN implementation in Educational Institute (attached to the

servers)

 FAStT600 (IBM FAStT600 Storage Server)

It the cheapest storage area network and supported all
requirement, that we can consider the fastt600 is the
storage area network device; it containing the following
equipment:

 RAID
There are two sample of RAID, [RAID3&RAID5] every
one having a private architecture, and also perform
backup recovery among all hard disks by RAID
Figure 7. SAN Network implementation
controller.
IV. CONCLUSIONS
 Hard disk
Its storage device in SAN, they using a SCSI technology Advantages of Implementing SAN on the Network of
among them, and we can connect 28 hard disks in storage Educational institute can be summarized as follows:
device, and RAID controller managing all tasks among
them.
SAN can improve the speed of the network, reduces errors,
make the management much more effective, it makes the
 power supply backup efficient, security is greatly improved, and raises the
It support s a storage device in a power 220V-240V OR bandwidth into a greater amount. More security involved,
110V-120V. especially when connecting the SAN from a far distance
(remote connection). Increase number of users to access server
 Fibre channel and data. Server is processed among user demands and data in
It a fibre cable that consist of ESCON, it is connecting SAN only, also increases performance of the server for other
among all equipment in SAN. tasks, since the SAN removes some of the burden of the server.
 HBA(host bus adapter) Backup and recovery is improved greatly in SAN, Storage
It’s a card setting on server, using to connect between consolidation in database server and mail-internet server.
servers that having data to SAN storage by a fibre cable,
and it also using a SCSI technology. Advantages of Hub Network:
The network was easily implemented with hubs. It was
 SCSI (Small Computer System Interface) simple and inexpensive. A group of computers could be
It’s a development technology that having a high connected to the internet. Software could be shared
performance and reliability, this technology specially used among users. A single hardware could be connected to all
in servers because it enables to connect a large number of computers.
user with a high speed to access the server.

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Disadvantages of Hub Network: networks will get faster, more reliable, but at the moment SAN
Only one port works at a time so users are waiting to get is the heart of the existing networks, SAN can be connected to
control for a long time. The speed depends on number of users any network, such as (WAN, LAN), so we recommend
on the network if the number of users increases the speed goes continuous developing of SAN to become more effective.
down. Low bandwidth (data carrying capacity), the network
maximum speed is 10 mbps. It depends on broadcasting for
transmission so data are sending to all connected devices. REFERENCES
There was no management so when users send data it is not
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have low speed. Internet maximum speed on this design is only [4] Kim Banker Sr. Principal Engineer; Gadzoox Microsystems,
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more better than the hub based network it is much faster more SAN-environment-for-high-availability
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Advantages of the new design (switch based network): [7] Charlie Schluting : Storage Networking Basics: Configuring SAN-
Switch is smarter than hub; it reduces traffic on the network, Attached Servers: November 15, 2007
which is a good factor for speeding the network. Security and
management are factors available in switch configuration.
Many users can work together over the network at the same AUTHORS PROFILE
time, with larger bandwidth. Provide greater transmission rate
that reaches 100 mbps. When any device fails at any time it Dr. Osama Ahmad Salim Safarini had finished his PhD. from The Russian
can be easily known and be maintained. Internet speed reaches State University of Oil and Gaz Named after J. M. Gudkin, Moscow, 2000, at
to 10 mbps. a Computerized-Control Systems Department.
Disadvantages of the new design (switch based network): He obtained his BSC and MSC in Engineering and
Computing Science from Odessa Polytechnic National
The only disadvantage in this network is that it is much State University in Ukraine 1996. He worked in different
more expensive than the hub network. universities and countries . His research is concentrated on
Automation in different branches.
SAN is the development of the network in particular
aspects of speed, flexibility and storage. So similar is the link
between existing networks and future networks, where

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