ATL (Automated Tape Library) – A device for handling multiple tape cartridges, capable of automatically mounting and dismounting individual cartridges.
DAS (Direct Attached Storage) – Storage device that is directly attached to the server.
DLT/SuperDLT (Digital Linear Tape) – Magnetic tape storage system standard developed by Quantum that uses a sophist-cated compression algorithm to enable more data to be stored on the tape.
Fibre Channel – A standard used in SANs for the high-speed transmission of data using dedicated fibre connectivity and related devices.
HSM (Hierarchical Storage Management) – The policy of shifting data to the most appropriate and cost-effective device, with high priority data held in memory, lower priority on disk, back-up data on tape and so on.
ILM (Information Lifecycle Management) – The concept of managing information and data from creation through to eventual deletion.
LTO (Linear Tape Open) – An open tape storage standard developed by HP, IBM and Seagate in direct competition to DLT.
NAS (Network Attached Storage) – Disk-based storage devices attached to a PC or server network.
RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) – A standard way of storing the same data on or across different disks in the same device to ensure availability. There are some ten different ‘flavours’ of RAID offering various levels of redundancy and fault tolerance.
SAN (Storage Area Network) – A dedicated storage network connecting multiple storage devices into a virtual poll of storage capacity, serving data to a disparate collection of associated servers.
SCSI/iSCSI (Small Computer System Interface) – An ANSI standard for connecting storage devices to clients or servers. iSCSI enables SCSI commands to be carried over IP networks, and as such promises to offer a lower cost alternative to the Fibre Channel platform required in most SANs.
SMI-S (Storage Management Initiative Specification) – Formerly known as ‘Bluefin’, SMI-S is a standard intended to enable various devices from different manufacturers that are participating in a SAN to work together through a standard interface structure (SMI-I).
SNIA (Storage Networking Industry Association) – The primary storage industry body set up in 1997 to promote storage area networking, comprising pressure groups from both the industry and enterprise users.
SoIP (Storage-over-IP) – The implementation of storage area network using the standard Internet protocol (IP), rather than the more expensive (though faster) Fibre Channel devices and connectivity.
SRM (Storage Resource Management) – Software for discovering the devices participating in a storage network, configuring them, analysing and reporting on their status and allocating their use across the storage topology.
Virtualisation – The presentation of the ‘logical view’ of the network of multiple storage devices as a single pool of storage capacity, as distinct from the physical configuration of devices and data.
