Creating an Open Source SAN

Abstract

In a modern network, a shared storage solution is indispensable. Using shared storage means that you can make your server more redundant. Data is stored on the shared storage, and the servers in the network simply access this shared storage. To prevent the shared storage from becoming a single point of failure, mirroring is normally applied. That means that the shared storage solution is configured on two servers: if one goes down, the other takes over. To implement such a shared storage solution, some people spend thousands of dollars on a proprietary storage area network (SAN) solution. That isn’t necessary. In this chapter you will learn how to create a shared storage solution using two server machines and Ubuntu Server software, what I refer to as an open source SAN.