Storage Infrastructure - A key component of an Intelligent Business Infrastructure (Data Availability)

The information stored in your organisations IT systems represents the lifeblood of your business and in general is probably growing in size at typical rates in excess of 70% pa.

Managing and protecting this important data has led to a growth in the number of computer servers required to support it and the knock on effect of more IT management time and cost to administer it.

Advances in Storage technology over recent years have however given us the opportunity to get back in control, as functionality and capacity has increased, so cost has decreased making it possible for even Small Business operations to take advantage of the latest Storage technology.

Block Level Vs. File Level

Users never deal with data at the block level; however, database and network administrators may require that type of low level management. Block level access enables them to stipulate where data is stored for performance issues.

The term "block level" is widely used to contrast this lower level, physical method with the higher level, or logical, "file level" or "file access." The operating system's file system keeps track of data in a directory of file and folder names. Access to data by an application is by file name and location within the file, which is translated into block level for physical reading and writing.

Although a separate unit with its own disks, a network attached storage (NAS) device uses file level access. Block level transfers in a SAN are faster than file level transfers in a NAS because there is no file system or network overhead

Storage Technology can be divided into the following areas,

Storage Area Networks (SAN) - Fibre Channel or iSCSI
Network Attached Storage (NAS) - File Serving over Gigabit Ethernet
Content Addressed Storage (CAS) - Active Archiving for files, email or database
Replication - Enabling business continuance and DR
File System Archiving - Freeing expensive storage

Original banner photo taken by JOHNNIE W@LKER and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution license.