You can improve reliability by going with multiple power supplies and redundant cooling fans. Backup
solutions can be direct-connected or network-based, depending on your needs, usage patterns and LAN bandwidth.
Best of all, you can have a basic NAS up and running in minutes. Ease of management is a strong selling point, as is the low price--solid solutions can be had for $5,000 to $30,000. For small and midsize sites, NAS can be a simple, easily justified centralized solution that doesn't require you to venture into the SAN world. (For more details, see "First-Class NAS".)
SAN
A storage area network is dedicated solely to data storage and retrieval. Its main components are storage devices and an independent network. The storage components include fast disk drives and large-scale tape backup devices, with storage-management software tying it all together. Network hardware may include switches (Fibre Channel in FC SANs, Ethernet in iSCSI) that let components talk to one another, as well as connectivity bits such as HBAs (host bus adapters), which connect external devices to the SAN.
Ideally, the switching fabric makes it possible for storage devices from multiple vendors to interconnect and function with multiple operating environments--letting, say, IBM AIX, MVS, Sun Solaris and Windows 2000-hosted applications access common physical storage environments.
Bob Friday, Chief AI Officer for Juniper Networks, explains how the advanced technology is transforming operations.
Contact center leaders from 8x8, Awaken Intelligence, and 360insight discuss the importance of agent experience.
AI may force enterprises to rewire parts of their data centers so they are fully optimized to run such workloads. The question is do you use Ethernet or InfiniBand?
