Gigabit Ethernet technology ideal for SAN, NAS solutions

In today`s information age, data plays an integral role in an organisation`s success and Forrester estimates that data grows at the exponential rate of 55% a year. Consequently, the ability to store, transmit and manipulate mission-critical data becomes a paramount factor in corporate IT needs.

To serve both mission-critical application servers and end users, companies are relying on both storage area networks (SAN) and network-attached storage (NAS) resources to enable them to compete in today`s economy. Owing to the similarity of their acronyms, the two are often confused, but according to Attie Pienaar, branch manager of networking provider D-Link SA, SAN and NAS are two very different approaches to storage management and address two very different needs.

"A NAS solution provides file level, shared access to workgroup users and application servers that do not need high-speed, block level access," he explains. "NAS typically consists of a storage appliance connected to the user client machines over the existing LAN, providing shared storage via CIFS or NFS protocols. This NAS storage solution would have its own set of storage devices, storage services, and its own management scheme independent of any existing SAN solution.

"A SAN is a network on its own, separate from the traditional LAN or messaging network, and connects all storage and all servers," Pienaar continues. "Because a SAN is able to avoid standard network traffic which often inhibits performance, it is typically deployed for mission-critical application servers requiring high-speed, block level access to storage devices. Fibre channel-based SANs further enhance performance and decrease latency by combining the advantages of I/O channels with a distinct, dedicated network. SANs employ gateways, switches, and routers to facilitate data movement between heterogeneous server and storage environments. Both SAN and NAS can be used to support the storage requirements of different areas of a business."

The arrival of Gigabit Ethernet, which is faster, smarter and more efficient than its Fast Ethernet predecessor, has enabled the delivery of storage solutions that are not only flexible and easy to deploy, but also extremely efficient and incredibly fast. D-Link offers an extensive range of switches for Gigabit Ethernet networks and SAN and NAS solutions.

These switches come with Quality of Service (QoS) and Traffic Priority Queues for Improved throughput.

Traffic Priority Queues, for instance, improve "best-effort" speeds. "Packets can be queued for transmission according to a priority organised by the user," says Pienaar. "Packet prioritisation follows the IEEE 802.1p standard. With this capability, the switch queues traffic as critical and non-critical, permitting users to run data where packets are delivered at the best-effort speeds.

"The switches provide full-line speed, dedicated bandwidth for all connections," he continues. "When the two switching nodes are communicating, they are connected with a dedicated channel between them, so there is no contention for network bandwidth with other nodes. Consequently, the switch considerably reduces the likelihood of traffic congestion.

"Currently implementing Layer 3 Technology, the next generation of Gigabit Ethernet hardware will add even more intelligence and processing power to further reduce network overhead," Pienaar concludes.