SAN Solutions

A storage area network (SAN) is a dedicated, centrally managed, secure information infrastructure, which enables any-to-any interconnection of servers and storage systems. Storage architectures such as ESS®, DS6000, DS8000 series or IBM® TotalStorage® Ultrium (LTO) and Enterprise Tape Libraries (IBM 35920) can be connected directly to the iSeries or eServer i5 HSL-attached I/O towers through fibre channel adapters, or through a SAN fabric. Minimum of OS/400 V5R2 is for iSeries, and i5/OS V5R3 for iSeries or eServer i5 is recommended for fibre channel and SAN connectivity.

While IBM direct attached storage remains a primary storage offering for eServer i5 and iSeries for customers, many customers have a requirement to deploy Storage Area Network (SAN) strategy. SAN connectivity on iSeries was first introduced with OS/400 V5R1.

OS/400 V5R2 builds on this strategy by further extending SAN participation via support for switch fabric topology and additional SAN network switches and directors. i5/OS V5R3 further exploits SAN capabilities through the introduction of multipath I/O support.