Therefore, oranizations must look for solutions that enable Fibre Channel SAN and Ethernet LAN convergence in order to leverage their current IT investments. Deployment of these solutions will be motivated by:

Improved access to enterprise servers, storage and data

Increased application productivity

Improved connectivity to IT resources, both locally and remotely

Rapid deployment of mission-critical, client/server based applications

Shared information throughout
the enterprise

Improved storage and server management

Digital Networks data replication and back-up solutions offer:

Multi-port FC & GbE I-switches

IP & SAN tunneling software

IP Translation software

Autonomous Region and Device Address Translation software (AR/DAT) which is a UNIQUE feature.

Simple SAN Extension
Eliminate the uncertainty of routed transport over IP and provide loss-less transportation of FC frames when you interconnect SAN islands using SONET/SDH, DWDM or dedicated fiber. 

FICON over IP
Provide reliable, high-speed connections for your FICON devices over long distances from the campus level up to the national level using IP networks. 

Fibre Channel over IP
Achieve seamless bi-directional integration of Fibre Channel and Gigabit Ethernet networks over long distances without disruption or expensive technology changes.

Switching Gateway
Achieve redundant wide area connectivity to your FC storage networks without having to sacrifice flexibility and performance.

SAN Routing
Interconnect multiple SAN fabrics without having to merge the fabrics, regardless of who manufactured your switches.

ATA/SATA Storage Solutions    

Tape historically is the most used medium for backup and recovery of data stored on servers, disk arrays and workstations. Information Technology managers have used tape for archival purposes and have for years attempted to implement Hierarchical Storage Management (HSM) systems using this uncooperative medium. Since tape is used for such a variety of storage functions, in organizations of all sizes, it has almost become a “fixture” in today's networks.

While IT managers feel “comfortable” with tape, the two primary reasons it has been utilized are cost and portability. For years, it has been the least expensive storage medium, offering dramatic cost savings compared to hard disk and optical disk storage. This difference in cost between tape and disk-based systems has until recently been a barrier to wider adaptation of hard disk storage replacing tape-based applications.

Nexsan Technologies recently introduced very affordable D2D storage solutions scaling from 1Tbyte to 24Tbyte that utilize RAID-5 implemented Advanced Technology Attachment (ATA) hardware to provide high-speed, highly available, enterprise-class, full-featured backup, on-site and off-site disaster recovery systems. These D2D solutions include features that traditionally have only been found on enterprise-class, very expensive RAID arrays.

Hot Disaster Recovery Sites
Some organizations protect their data by employing a hot disaster recovery site. In this situation, they are likely to utilize wide-area connectivity and remote backup. RAID can be an excellent choice, providing data availability and recoverability to protect non-critical applications.

Nexsan's D2D not only supports a primary on-line, on-site system but also makes it possible to co-locate a secondary D2D on-line disaster recovery system off-site. This solution provides immediate access to data in the event of the catastrophic loss of a data center. The Nexsan solution provides unlimited connectivity options to on-site and off-site data, with LAN, WAN, Fibre, Copper and Internet connections.

Combining RAID and SANs
It is also possible to use RAID and SANs together to protect data. This combination can enhance the protection provided by RAID alone, offering redundancy and eliminating the risk of a single point of failure. One of the traditional advantages of SCSI-based or Fibre-based disk products has been hot-swap capability and redundancy. Nexsan's D2D offers both capabilities.

IP SAN Solutions 
IP-SAN solutions enable the simple creation of  Storage Area Networks for continuous access and  effective storage management across standard Ethernet environments delivering 24x7 data availability & full storage productivity.

SANRAD IP-Storage networking solutions drive storage productivity and management gains while reducing costs, using all-in-one IP-SANs.

SAN benefits of improved storage utilization, high availability and data protection are well understood. Today there are two protocols available for building block-based SANs, FC (Fibre Channel) and iSCSI. Both protocols use SCSI commands generated by the file systems of the servers.

These SCSI commands are converted by the iSCSI or FC protocol so they can move through a network to and from a centralized data storage system where the commands are executed. In the case of FC the network equipment is specific to the protocol. In the case of iSCSI the network equipment is anything that will handle IP packets, Gigabit Ethernet is the most popular.

IP-SANs are easily deployed so they exceed the performance requirements for the majority of small to medium business application servers. By following basic guidelines for connecting the servers and selecting the correct network equipment and storage arrays, any business can benefit from the cost savings, ease of management and reliability of an IP-SAN.

Storage Virtualization
Attaching all your storage to a fast and reliable network provides the foundation for better storage management. more

Mission Critical Requirements
Mission critical data is just what its name says; critical to the core functioning of an enterprise. more

Enterprise Level High Availability
SANs can deliver data storage solutions that provide 99.999% data storage availability but, originally, SANs were only built on FC technology. more

Remote Back-up Services
Businesses depend more and more on the information stored in their onsite disk storage systems. more

Data Replication and Disaster Recovery
A disaster is some event that will shut down a network, leaving its data inaccessible to the people for whom it was intended. more