Carlson SAN

Que. 1 Assessing how the Carlson SAN approach would be implemented in today`s environment

The Carlson SAN approach can be implemented in today`s environment through the preparation, impact and benefits that were achieved by Carlson after embracing and implementing this approach. The Carlson SAN can be implemented in an environment that anticipates to achieve specific goals relating to data and applications in order to not only meet the goals of an expanding company, but also exceed them. In this case, the Carlson Company established six essential goals with the aim of sensitizing the information technology department provided in order to meet the needs of a growing company. This is achieved by embracing and implementing the storage area network (SAN), which provided a reliable and highly scalable infrastructure that has the potential of accommodating the increasing demand of the users (Jenkins & Ryan, 2016). Additionally, the Carlson SAN approach can be implemented in an environment that aims at having a network services that calls for lower cost management and maintenance. Precisely, in this case, Carlson manages to enjoy the lowered cost Ethernet switches which are characterized by a lower cost of managing and maintaining network services instead of the Fibre Channel switches which were initially expensive to this company.

Moreover, this approached can be implemented in an environment that aims at providing storage services to the remote offices or departments at a lower cost. however with the implementation of the Carlson SAN approach, the management of this company did not only managed to provide storage services for its remote offices, but also to provide data backup and recovery (Zaharia et al., 2016). It is worth noting that organizational data is vital, and should be kept in a secure environment for future references. Additionally, Carlson SAN approach can also be implemented in an organization that intends to unite geographically dispersed sites within a global IT strategy. For example, an organization that has

Que. 2 Compare the pros and cons of consolidating data on a SAN central data facility versus the dispersed arrangement it replaces

There are numerous positives and negatives that are associated with the aspect of consolidating data on a Storage area network central data facility. For example, the data is consolidated in one server and this makes it easier for the IT personnel to secure that data compared to when the same data is put in various servers (Shuja et al., 2016). Organizational data is sensitive especially due to the fact that if it can be accessed by unauthorized individuals such as hackers and close competitors, the competitive edge of the organization can be greatly reduced, and to the worst, such an organization can be eliminated out of the market if necessary counter measures are not embraced early in advance. Actually, considering that the level of competition for limited resources has increased more than ever before, competitors can do whatever they can in order to outdo the other, including accessing vital information. Putting information in a dispersed data arrangement increases the risk for information breach.

Additionally, consolidating data on a SAN central data facility is less costly compared to the dispersed arrangement facility. Additionally, due to the aspect of numerous servers putting away information, it is possible for an IT personnel to redesign information from one server into a diverse data, and then disperse it throughout the organization (Chen, Gao & Chen, 2016). By redesigning information in one server and dispersing it to the other servers within the organization helps in encouraging innovativeness especially in creating a quicker and high quality stream of data that is steadier and more precise. Moreover, the SAN data facility helps an organization to minimize the ongoing management and administration of storage networking by taking advantage of the well-understood and well-established IP networking technologies.

On the other hand, the implementation and execution of storage area network calls for diverse adjustments as well as an n extravagant hardware. A good example is the need for Ethernet changes in order to facility the aspect of transmitting data proficiently and successfully. This may be costly to an organization. Additionally, the implementation of the SAN may require additional qualified IT personnel who will manage to configure information from a central network system and diverse it to the other servers in the remote offices.

Que. 3 Evaluate the issues raised from the Carlson SAN mixing equipment from a number of vendors dealing with this type of situation

Considering that Carlson SAN blends hardware in a more efficient manner, joining will be a test for this company. Precisely, it is encouraging for an entrepreneur to select gear from the same vendor especially due to the fact that he or she will be having a guarantee that the pieces will perfectly cooperate. However, this is not always the case, since things change with time to such an extent that it even becomes challenging to locate a vendor who initially sold out a network infrastructure (Carlson Companies Inc., 2002). In order to address such a situation, most of the contemporary hardware makers are ensuring that the gear that they make will perfectly work with the hardware of other vast makers.  Actually, most of the substantial makers of hardware provides back up or follow up in the installation process in order to ensure that the user is satisfied with its usefulness.

Que. 4 Justify the reduction of administration and management of storage networking through Carlson SAN

There are a myriad of reasons why the Carlson SAN is associated with the reduction of administration and management of storage networking. For example, this net storage network architecture has a single SAN attached storage array that has a capacity in excess of 10 terabytes that is shared by Carlson customs and oracle applications. By having this feature alone offers this company a more economical maintenance and cheaper administration compared to the storage arrays that were initially been installed (Carlson Companies Inc., 2002). Additionally, the Carlson SAN infrastructure has a block aggregation layer that is located under the file or record layer, and this includes the network, host and device sub-layers. Additionally, the storage device layer is located beneath the aggregation r block level, and the block layer is lowest level in the framework, and by this layout, issues like space compression or management, striping and redundancy is specified. Precisely, the layout of this network infrastructure helped the Carlson`s network designers manage to clarify between the application resources and the storage resources as well as the opportunities to further streamline storage applications in order to facilitate more efficient use of storage capacity. Additionally, considering that the Carlson SAN facilitates the control of network from a central serve to the other remote servers, it becomes easier for the IT personnel to maintain the servers from a central server in a cheaper way.

References

Carlson Companies Inc., (2002). Carlson Companies Storage Solutions: Case Study 08.

Chen, T., Gao, X., & Chen, G. (2016). The features, hardware, and architectures of data center networks: A survey. Journal of Parallel and Distributed Computing, 96, 45-74.

Jenkins, D. M., & Ryan, R. P. (2016). U.S. Patent Application No. 14/615,367.

Shuja, J., Bilal, K., Madani, S. A., Othman, M., Ranjan, R., Balaji, P., & Khan, S. U. (2016). Survey of techniques and architectures for designing energy-efficient data centers. IEEE Systems Journal, 10(2), 507-519.

Zaharia, M., Xin, R. S., Wendell, P., Das, T., Armbrust, M., Dave, A., … & Ghodsi, A. (2016). Apache spark: a unified engine for big data processing. Communications of the ACM, 59(11), 56-65.