Storage Area Networks: An Innovative Approach to Backup and Recovery

Overview Many organizations have faced the challenge of having to back up growing data within shrinking backup windows. Some have found themselves unable to cost-effectively back up all their data as consistently as they would like. Instead, they have been forced to devise different backup strategies for various types of data, depending on their importance.

Traditionally, backup and recovery models have featured dedicated disk and tape systems for each host server, with each host backing up its own data to its own locally attached tape drives or library. This design uses tape resources poorly — but the SAN method enables bulk data transfer from each server to shared SAN storage, while the LAN is used only for communication (not data) traffic between the servers. The result is a fast, scalable, and reliable backup and recovery solution, which uses storage, server, and LAN resources effectively. The ability to protect and recover data—and