Storage Area Network - Network Types

Network Types

Most storage networks use the SCSI protocol for communication between servers and disk drive devices. A mapping layer to other protocols is used to form a network:

  • ATA over Ethernet (AoE), mapping of ATA over Ethernet
  • Fibre Channel Protocol (FCP), the most prominent one, is a mapping of SCSI over Fibre Channel
  • Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE)
  • ESCON over Fibre Channel (FICON), used by mainframe computers
  • HyperSCSI, mapping of SCSI over Ethernet
  • iFCP or SANoIP mapping of FCP over IP
  • iSCSI, mapping of SCSI over TCP/IP
  • iSCSI Extensions for RDMA (iSER), mapping of iSCSI over InfiniBand

Storage networks may also be built using SAS and SATA technologies. SAS evolved from SCSI direct-attached storage. SATA evolved from IDE direct-attached storage. SAS and SATA devices can be networked using SAS Expanders.

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