Storage area networks are separate, centrally managed, high-speed storage networks consisting of multi-vendor storage systems, storage management software and network hardware. SAN’s are based on a “fabric” of Fiber Channel hubs, switches and gateways connecting storage devices and servers on a many-to-many basis. Application and transaction servers are attached both to the SAN and to a local area network (LAN) or wide area network (WAN), providing the link between client systems and a single, massive “pool” of enterprise data. Lifeline is very proud that it is one of the few technology organizations with enough technical experience to support storage area networks.  There is explosive growth of data and information in the IT environment, and the nature of data is changing. Storage is rapidly becoming a central component of corporate technology strategies. The new storage-centric IT infrastructure that companies are implementing is a scalable, modular, and open storage network not tied to specific systems or applications. The goal is to create a single, massive data repository that is securely accessible to any system, application, or person across the entire company. Although this concept is simple, well known and dating back to the mainframe era, today’s networking technologies greatly complicate the task of making it a reality. While the leading vendors bring forth SAN solutions, your IT department faces several challenges. Lifeline is their to do the studies and research to understand your company’s current storage environment, its business objectives, disaster recovery and business continuance needs, and have a reasonable handle on the companies projected growth over the coming years. Just as data storage has quickly become the focus of a strategic IT infrastructure that supports “anywhere, anytime” access to crucial information, better customer service and key business goals, emerging storage technologies and outsourced storage management options offer better opportunities for creating storage networks that seamlessly integrate with the entire enterprise network environment. Many forward-thinking enterprises have begun to shift to networked storage.