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Strategies & Market Trends : Gorilla and King Portfolio Candidates -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DownSouth who wrote (30175)	8/21/2000 11:33:33 AM
From: jhg_in_kc	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 54805

Untangling the SAN v NAS Web..EMC'S take...Any thoughts? By Eric Woodman Woodman_Eric@emc.com August 21, 2000 — NAS v. SANs -- It's being increasingly portrayed as the major battle in the world of information management. Truth is, however, it's largely hype. Network-attached storage and storage area networks are rivals no more than sight and sound were in the early days of cinema. And with apologies to Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplin, the cinema hit its golden age only after audio was added to the images. The thing to remember is that it's all about the information -- how it's moved, managed, enhanced and presented. A SAN is a specialized network that deals with blocks of data. NAS is a specialized server, dedicated to serving files. If a SAN is a movie theater, then NAS is a way to serve popcorn. And the two are already merged in an EMC Enterprise Storage Network (ESN). SANs were introduced in 1998 with the goal of eliminating islands of server-bound storage. The idea was to free up the servers to do what they do best -- process data -- while managing information from a central location where it can be protected, shared and mined. SANs also reduce much of the bulk server-to-server data movement that has been clogging corporate networks for years. The end result is a far more effective data network, where critical information is readily available and substantial savings are possible. At the most basic level, however, some SANs fall short of expectations. Interoperability issues remain. Some vendors' SANs remain server specific, and limited interoperability with other server platforms and operating systems greatly reduces their potential. Compare it to a group of people on a conference call, where nobody speaks a common language. Network-attached storage is an old idea that has gained new popularity with the rise of the Internet. If you've ever called up a file from a shared drive on Windows -the "G:\drive," for example -- then you've used a simple form of network-attached storage. NAS allows multiple users to access the same files through the use of a specialized server. This arrangement holds a natural attraction for dot-coms, which need to send files (web pages) to many users simultaneously. Some NAS servers are packaged with small storage devices. This configuration harks back to a server-centric world and creates yet again islands of information and storage management headaches. The EMC NAS approach allows for a range of options, including tapping a SAN for backup, recovery and centralized management. With its ESN, EMC offers a storage network that supports both general-purpose servers (SAN) and dedicated file servers (NAS). And by centrally managing information — whether NAS or SAN-based — companies can gain greater control over far greater amounts of information while saving money on staffing, training and redundancy. IT Centrix, an independent IT efficiency consulting firm, concluded in August 1999 that centralized storage leads to a nearly 10-fold increase in productivity, when compared to the server-based distributed model; and the more information is generated, the greater the savings. That's a lot of popcorn. Just as you don't see a lot of silent films coming out of Hollywood anymore, for those who have invested in an ESN, there is no turning back to the old way of doing business. It simply doesn't make sense