Storage Area Networks For Dummies®

Chapter 4. What Makes a SAN Stop

This chapter deals with the things that can give you grief with your SAN. Sometimes it's Murphy's Law — Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong, and when it does, it will be at the worst possible moment. Sometimes you'd swear it's gremlins — those little magical creatures that make your socks disappear from your clothes dryer and cause all those funny engine noises in your car. When it comes to computer systems and networks, these guys work overtime. If it seems your computer's hard drive is likeliest to crash only after a long work session, just before you save your work, on a weekend, when no support is available and you were working on a brilliant movie script with a deadline tomorrow ... well, you get the drift.

So here's where you get a handle on how to steer clear of Murphy and the gremlins during the implementation of your storage area network (SAN).

Discovering What Causes SAN Problems

Yup, even though all those storage vendors out there will tell you that implementing a SAN is the greatest thing since sliced bread and will save you billions of dollars in decreased downtime, the inevitable !*#^* still happens. Sure, using correctly implemented SAN-based storage will save you tons of money over the long run — and keep your applications running longer and faster — but you still have no control over Murphy. Sooner or later, some dope is going to trip over one of those orange fiber-optic cables and pull out the connection to your disks. And yeah, ...