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To: chaz who wrote (17378)	2/7/2000 9:06:00 AM
From: buck	Respond to of 54805

RE: Fiber and SAN are new ways for a PC to write to a disk or tape First, I hope that my FC/SAN stuff didn't read like a press release! It was my first attempt to present an industry from a GG perspective. I thought I achieved those goals while I was writing it and after I posted. Since most of the discussion has been on the tech mumbo-jumbo (to which I plead WAY guilty), I need to go back to study hall. I would appreciate some input on what I need to do to refine that, because I don't want to be just a hypester. - Fibre Channel allow servers (big PCs) to share their storage on a new kind of network, a Storage Area Network SAN.) - It is significant because it breaks the linkage between a server and the storage it uses. To use a PC analogy, it's like four PCs in a home all connected to one big C: drive. - The reason that breaking the link is important for large companies is because it allows companies to consolidate their storage (since it's on a network and it's shared). This drives storage costs down, thanks to economies of scale. Imagine four c: drives inside PCs. If I fill up MY hard drive, I have to get a new one for the new data. But, if I combine those four c: drives into one big drive on a SAN that everyone shares, an administrator can give me more storage without adding a new drive to my PC. That lowers maintenance costs. An administrator can add another big drive at any time without making everyone turn their machines off, too, so more maintenance savings accrue. SANs also allow many MORE large disk drives to be available than the old way, so it's easier to administer. SANs also allow an administrator to put the big disk drives in a room in the basement that he can lock. That means that guys like me can't start poking around and messing up other people's data. - This concept of storage on a network is important to any customer group that spends a lot of time adding hard drives to PCs because the data on them just keeps growing. Remember, PCs and hard drives are the analogy for servers and RAID devices. Without SANs, adding more storage capacity means that the server has to go down, have cards added to it, and then brought back up. This is not good if that server is a web server, or a 24x7 database server. - Now add tape drives and tape libraries to this network, so each user can back up his PC whenever he wants, just as if he had a tape drive in his PC. With tape libraries, though, I don't have to hire a guy to go around to each PC and make sure the backup is actually done, that the tape is properly labeled, and that it is stored somewhere and cataloged properly. Plus, each of those tape drives in the shared tape library are usable by anybody else at any time. - I believe it is important now, because we are starting to see pragmatists commit to these SANs. They have business problems that preclude other options, such as a) standing pat, or b) re-working the old way. Funny thing...I was the one who asked about the bte acronym. "Hoist on my own petard" is the phrase you are looking for here. buck