A storage area network is better suited to large organisations and Government bodies that have a disparate network, i.e. their offices may be located across the globe or over a geographically wide area. This means that information is potentially stored across a wide range of servers or other means of storage, and as a result it can be difficult to access information, simply because it is not in a single place. As a result, finding and accessing the right information can be extremely difficult and in many cases, impossible.
Information is generally regarded as an organisation’s ‘lifeblood’. It is critical because without it most companies would not be able to function. More importantly, it should be seen as a knowledge repository, in that it saves people replicating and researching, for example, a project when perhaps someone in the organisation has already created a similar report or a similar level of expertise.
Furthermore, most organisations have a storage requirement in so far as they need to retain documents, files and other types of information and to be able to let it be accessed among the users of the computer network. A storage area network is designed to separate storage requirements from the organisations’ network and application servers. As a result, performance is increased and people are able to access information faster and more easily and as a result, potentially making them more efficient and productive.