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Although rapid strides have been made in SAN technology and a great deal of implementation work is is underway knowledgeable IT watchers do not expect to see genuine SAN solution up and running until the last quarter of 2002. To achieve a genuine SAN solution the following are the basic conditions that a network must meet.

1) Any to Any interconnection of servers and storage systems 2) Speed of recovery and magnitude of data loss after disaster 3) Universal access and sharing of resources 4) Centralized resource management 5) Excellent information protection and disaster tolerance 6) High level of security and data integrity in system architectures

SAN is not the ultimate cure for the challenges executives face due to the exponential growth of e-business and corresponding requirement for high storage capacity and data protection. However SAN is an essential component in the future of business IT. Terms like multivendor tape resource sharing and LAN free data transfer over established IP and Fibre Channel networks will soon become common place as companies encounter the challenge of using SAN technology to provide business advantage.

Implementating SAN environment will consume many resources in the comming years. The selection of trading partners such as IBM , Tivoli or one of the other experienced technology creation and deployment companies will be an essential prerequisite for success. As further enhancement become common the more important it will be to have a broad spectrum of experience and capability with technology integration. Islands of data will become transformed into a united resource that shares information and multplies its worth to each organization.

The esssential charateristics to look for in a SAN vendor or trading partner are not found in any one capability. It is immaterial whether that capability is in volume mapping , tape management software or any other point. The key criteria for selecting a company to build a SAN or storage network management system is its ability to help make the best of breed technologies from all sources work together for the best total system. Most of the proven smaller vendors have excellent products that can be considered at the element management stage of creating a SAN.

The future vision of storage area networking management is one that exploits both the information grid and customers to create storage solutions and networks that build business advantage. By taking the best technologies and combining them with those from various integrators it will be possible to assemble e-bussiness, manufacturing, retail, banking, healthcare or any other type of business IT solution that an enterprise will need.