IBM’s Fibre Channel Storage Area Network (FC SAN) solutions help clients create an infrastructure that delivers insights in seconds through systems built to process a variety of data at scale. IBM System Networking FC SAN solutions are designed to optimize performance and economics by matching workloads to the best platform to meet specific requirements. As cloud computing comes to the fore, IBM System Networking offerings embrace cloud technologies that are essential to improve service quality, speed of delivery and efficiency.
The network matters. Mission-critical infrastructures are built on the SAN. Efficient storage infrastructures require purpose-built Fibre Channel fabric architectures to ensure reliability and performance for critical applications and data. FC SAN fabrics enable advanced data center technologies, flash storage, and server virtualization.
- Big Data:To help attain business insights faster through smarter networking, enterprises need to quickly manage and analyze massive amounts of data with scalable FC SANs tuned to the workload. For these big data requirements, clients can equip IBM’s server and storage platforms with Cloud-optimized Fibre Channel backbones delivering 16Gbps performance.
- Improved Economics: High-speed, virtualized and open server and storage connectivity improve economics by reducing complexity. Consolidation achieved using high-performance SAN components delivers greater bandwidth and significant power savings while reducing rack space and cabling requirements – at a lower price than competitive offerings.
- Extending the SAN to the Server: Deployment of server and SAN resources and ongoing change management is simplified through automated discovery and streamlined image management. Consolidating adapters optimizes server footprints and reduces rack space requirements. Improved diagnostics minimize downtime, and unified drivers with integrated firmware and simplified updates enhance reliability and availability across the fabric.
- Dynamic Fabric Provisioning: Simplified server deployment and reconfigurations eliminates fabric reconfiguration when adding or replacing servers by reducing or eliminating the need for modifying zoning and LUN masking. Dynamic fabrics provide the flexibility to move devices within a switch, map virtual World Wide Names (WWNs) to actual devices, and ensure accurate asset management. Fabric link level integrity from core to server edge empowers storage administrators to easily identify and isolate optics and cable problems faster and perform in-depth diagnostics in hours instead of days.