Problem Statement : SAN is fabric on which several device's, hosts reside


Opportunity : off all the feature's available implementable on SAN viz. zoning , masking ??

              given that it is a fabric ...and the fact that it is a data-network, scope feature's
               
              ability to share device's ...in a mutually exclusive manner.


             eg: scenario ...is that of a  tape-drive residing on such a fabric, the device need's
                 to visible to all host's on the san-network and be accessible from every-host,
                 thus given the scope ability to pipe back-up to a tape-drive/tape-device on the
                 san network.


              Deriving from above scenario ability to query the device on the fabric, its state i.e. readiness
              and ability to pipe data to device , presuming that storage(luns) are on the fabric,tape-device is on
              the fabric ...who,how,when...should a backup-scheduled ...context of the pipe/socket  role of the host??
              viz. context of quiesce on the lun ...quorrum?? how should the data be marshalled to the tape-device, how
              should host listen to the job?? in progress...on the fabric??

    


use-case-modeled solution
--------------------------

a) ability to implement a device quorrum on the fabric.
b) ability to implement the visibility of the device based on a)
c) interface to requesting the device handle i.e. visibility on /dev of the host on the OS ...scsi protocol ?? , fabric-management??

d) given the context rationalizing ...comparing with a tcp/ip based network ... further to c) number of the adapter's required to
   be able to avail leverage service's on the fabric.
              




Note: The above problem statement having been encountered in various scenarios
      and detailed in various 'Proof of concepts' as mentioned in 
      
       http://uk.geocities.com/ravivenkatus/projects.pdf
       http://ravishankarkv.tripod.com/projects.pdf
        ....apply appropriate
      'use-case' modeling, rationalize and arrive at a workable and feasible 
       solution both commercially and techinically viable.







