Enter the Storage Area Network (SAN), which can store large amounts of data, serve it with lightning speed, scale to meet accelerating growth, and provides unprecedented reliability. Start with the basics: what SAN, what they can do, and how they overcome the critical limitations of previous approaches to data storage. Next, compare the approach to SAN configuration; walk through a typical SAN backup, restore, and disaster recovery scenarios, and find today's best practices to build a SAN for your storage topology heritage. Finally, look at the future of SANs, including policy-based SAN, ASP and application storage rental, self-healing devices, and storage management roles grew from a professional.