HP StorageWorks 2/24 FW 07.00.00/HAFM SW 08.06.00 McDATA Products in a SAN Env - Page 180
Implementing BC/DR Solutions, Protocol stack, Latency
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Implementing SAN Internetworking Solutions 4 Implementing BC/DR Solutions The post-9/11 business environment requires corporations to protect critical data by implementing cost-effective business continuity and disaster recovery (BC/DR) solutions. These BC/DR solutions drive the requirement to extend local data center SANs to geographically distant locations. The business case for SAN distance extension is the high cost of downtime, a period during which a corporation cannot generate revenue due to temporary (or permanent) loss of critical applications or data. By connecting SAN islands through an extended-distance optical network, the corporation: • Preserves valuable information assets and protects against business disruptions caused by facility outages, IT or communication problems, natural disasters, or terrorism. • Provides real-time disaster recovery of business data and the IT infrastructure in the event of an unplanned outage. • Consolidates storage resources, increases the availability of critical information, and reduces backup and restore times. • Complies with regulatory, data protection, and data retention requirements imposed by the government and business insurers. BC/DR solutions impose distance extension requirements to connect SAN islands. Extended-distance data transmission imposes different communication and protocol requirements. Differences between storage traffic through a local SAN and network traffic through an extended-distance WAN include: • Protocol stack - Software protocol stacks quickly overload servers and inhibit SAN performance. Therefore, SANs are usually based on FCP optimized for storage environments, offering high-speed and low-overhead communication. Data networks rely on a protocol stack to provide communication and are often implemented using TCP/IP over GbE. TCP/IP provides a high level of protocol processing and is appropriate for data networks. • Latency - Local storage traffic requires minimal delay and latency. Distance transmission associated with WANs introduces variable delays and high latency. 4-36 McDATA Products in a SAN Environment - Planning Manual