© Copyright IBM Corp. 2006. All rights reserved. xiii
Preface
The rapid spread and adoption of production storage area networks (SANs) has
fuelled the need for multiprotocol routers. The routers provide improved
scalability, security, and manageability by enabling devices in separate SAN
fabrics to communicate
without merging fabrics into a single, large SAN fabric.
This capability enables clients to initially deploy separate SAN solutions at the
departmental and data center levels. Then, clients can consolidate these
separate solutions into large enterprise SAN solutions as their experience and
requirements grow and change.
Alternatively, multiprotocol routers can help to connect existing enterprise SANs
for a variety of reasons. For instance ...