Storage Area Networking (SAN) solutions are not new. Neither is the notion of multi-host attached shared storage. All mainframe data centers are configured this way and currently 25% to 35% of all network traffic passes over a SAN. What is new is that these tried-and-true architectures are being adopted in the distributed network, primarily through a storage topology called Fibre Channel. But, the essence of what SANs really represent is the leading methodology by which enterprise storage is "externalized and consolidated." Read why externalized storage is key in this white paper. (Sept. 2001)