What are the requirements for an initial SAN design?
Simon Gordon: There are a number of initial questions. At the simplest level you need to ask: 1) how many physical locations? 2) how many server ports at each location? 3) how many storage ports are needed at each location? CLICK for advice on narrowing down your SAN topology selection. I have to implement a SAN at a site with no previous Fibre Channel infrastructure. What new technologies might be of interest to me (i.e. 10-Gigabit Fibre Channel, Infiniband, iSCSI)? Simon Gordon: Working at a green field site, you have the happy situation of making a decision based on where we are now. In terms of storage networking, I think we are really looking at Fibre Channel and iSCSI. Most of what I hear is that Infiniband is still mostly inside the server/cluster. iSCSI: I think this will have a big year. With the Microsoft announcements (.NET) and support coming, I think by the middle of this year this will be a serious contendor. There is now wire speed iSCSI capability out there for a number
