SAN Boot Solutions

• Not storing operating systems and applications on the internal disks of a server, means they don't have to be reinstalled to restore the system following internal hard disk problems. This significantly reduces the time needed for system recovery.
• Where a spare server is available, the operating system and applications can be easily transferred from the damaged server to the spare simply by changing the server and storage links. The same software can then be launched and run unchanged directly on the spare server, further reducing system outage time.
• SAN Boot configuration allows collection of all server internal storage, previously distributed across multiple system locations, into a single SAN-linked disk array unit. Such storage integration enables simpler, centralized, storage management, resulting in fewer, more localized, maintenance tasks. Compared to a conventional configuration of discrete servers this approach reduces space requirements and maximizes storage resource use.
• By excluding internal hard disks - characterized by relatively high failure rates - from each server, server reliability also increases.

• Database systems based on conventional SAN-configured systems comprising fibre channel switches and disk array units.
• Backbone business systems that require the ability to immediately restart on any spare machine using fast system startup by unit replacement, rather than fail-over transfer of processing.