A SAN (Storage Area Network) provides block-level storage connectivity between servers and shared storage, commonly using Fibre Channel or iSCSI. Hosts see logical volumes rather than ordinary network file shares. A SAN can centralise capacity and support clusters, but high performance or availability is not automatic: controllers, fabrics, paths, zoning, multipathing, cache and workloads must be designed together. Redundancy should avoid shared failure points and be tested during maintenance and faults. Access controls, firmware, monitoring, snapshots and backup have separate roles; a snapshot on the same array is not an independent recovery copy. Sizing should use latency, throughput, IOPS, queue behaviour and growth. Clear ownership and change procedures reduce the risk of one storage change affecting many systems.
IT glossary
SAN (Storage Area Network)
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