
68 Understanding the IBM TotalStorage Open Software Family
even intervene. Once a client has obtained access to a file, all I/O will go directly
over the SAN to the storage devices.
Metadata is often referred to as data about the data; it describes the
characteristics of stored user data. A Metadata server, in the SAN File System, is
a server that offloads the metadata processing from the data-storage
environment to improve SAN performance. An instance of the SAN File System
runs on each engine, and together the Metadata servers form a cluster.
3.1.4 Storage Networking Industry Association
The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) was ...