File-area networks: the key to managing data growth

Here’s a common scenario: a financial services company experiencing rapid business growth was adding knowledge workers at a hectic pace and expanding globally as well. The IT department was overburdened as it struggled to keep pace with the increase in data associated with existing applications, the rollout of new applications, the growth in the size of file data, the increasing use of multimedia content, and the regulatory need to retain more data for longer periods of time.

The challenges associated with data growth:

* How do you control the costs of storing and managing skyrocketing amounts of data?

* How do you quickly and efficiently provision new capacity to meet business needs?

* How do you back up and protect the burgeoning amount of data?

* How do you ensure the latest data is promptly available in remote offices?

* How do you ensure consistent data access and effective collaboration across geographies?

Click to see: Diagram of file area networks

For this company the solution was a file-area network (FAN). Similar to the way in which a storage-area network (SAN) improves the management of structured data and block storage environments, a FAN helps improve the management of unstructured (file) data and file storage environments. A FAN provides centralized, heterogeneous and enterprisewide network file management and control.

Like a SAN, a FAN potentially comprises many technologies: file virtualization, WAN optimization/acceleration, data classification, global namespace, and information lifecycle management/automated tiering. Unlike a SAN however, a FAN does not require new infrastructure, but rather enhances the network and storage infrastructure that already exists.

One of the biggest problems related to the management of unstructured data is the binding between applications, users and the storage devices themselves. While the challenges associated with data growth necessitate change in the storage infrastructure, this rigid coupling makes it difficult to adapt to those changes.

A FAN solves this dilemma by decoupling access to file data from the physical location of the data. The FAN decoupling layer may comprise several technologies:

* File virtualization removes the physical-location dependency by presenting a global namespace to users and applications that effectively decouples them from the physical locations of their files. With file virtualization, storage-management operations such as provisioning or migration can be performed at any time without affecting applications and users.

* WAN optimization removes the geographic-location dependency, eliminating many of the undesirable characteristics of the WAN, such as high latency and limited bandwidth. With WAN optimization, data can be centralized to lower the cost of management and increase control while still maintaining the access performance needed by applications and users.

FANs bring another key capability that improves the management of unstructured data — intelligent services. Intelligent FAN services are policy-driven advanced file controls that perform specific tasks on the stored data. FAN services include: