Cahners In-Stat Research Highlights: Network storage: NAS and SAN

Some say this year could be the year of network storage. Don’t yawn. Network storage isn’t sexy, but it should be on your radar screen. And two fairly new network storage technologies, network attached storage (NAS) and storage area network (SAN), will have a major impact on the cost and performance of corporate networks this year and in the future, according to a new report by Cahners In-Stat Group, a division of Newton, Mass.-based Cahners Business Information.

NAS and SAN technologies offer faster, cheaper, and better access to databases. In a nutshell, they both reduce the burden of storage processing on application servers, but the technologies go about their business in different ways:

NAS–is designed to offload the file serving function from the general-purpose application server. NAS does one thing–be a file server–and it does it well. It reduces the networking costs of installation, downtime, management, and hardware.

SAN–decouples processing power from storage capacity. It is like taking out the storage functions of an application server and offloading them to a separate box while still operating as if the box is a part of the server’s motherboard. Like NAS, SAN reduces storage costs, increases reliability, boosts network performance, and is highly scalable. SAN is faster, easier to scale, and more bulletproof than NAS and offers convenient disaster recovery functions. The downside is that SAN requires more equipment and costs a lot more to implement..

The two technologies are sometimes portrayed in the press as competitors, but they can be complementary, notes Lauri Vickers, industry analyst with Cahners In-Stat Group. Together or separately, both can relieve overburdened Web, ERP, e-commerce, and customer data systems. But network storage still has several barriers to overcome:

• Lack of integrated network management solutions

• Competing topologies

• The lack of a killer app

• High price points among some technologies

• The lack of major players in some segments

• A general low profile of storage within the overall networking story

Despite these hurdles, network storage is destined to be a big deal, Vickers says. The total market for network storage solutions will reach almost $2 billion in 2000. By the end of 2004, the market will balloon to over $10 billion. “The growth could be even more explosive if a killer app is developed,” Vickers says. //

Network storage offers faster, cheaper, and better access to databases. Network attached storage (NAS) and storage area network (SAN) technologies reduce the burden of storage processing on application servers.

Report information: The Cahners In-Stat Group report, “The Two Faces of Network Storage: NAS and SAN Market Analysis,” provides five-year forecasts for the major network storage market infrastructure segments: NAS units, SAN switches, hub and bridge ports, and SAN host bus adapter (HBA) units. The report assesses technology and market trends impacting the overall network storage hardware market and includes vendor profiles.

• Report title: The Two Faces of Network Storage: NAS & SAN Market Analysis

• Report number: dtmln0005ms

• Date: August 2000

• Price: $3,495.00

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