A Storage Area Network (SAN) is a specialized, high-speed network that provides block-level network access to storage. SANs are typically composed of hosts, switches, storage elements, and storage devices that are interconnected using a variety of technologies, topologies, and protocols. Each computer on the network can access storage on the SAN as if they are local disks connected directly to the computer.

When responding to an incident, you need to quickly find the scope of the issue so you know which teams to notify and which parts of your system to investigate next—before your end users are affected. But as multiple processes use resources on each of your hosts, and interact in unexpected ways, it can be difficult to know exactly what is causing an issue—especially if those processes are running off-the-shelf software.

From my previous blog, I’m going to continue the list of five things you can do to improve your technical service delivery to your customers (if you didn’t read the last post, you can catch up on what you missed here (link)). In the following three points, I focus on the role automation can play.

Network management is the process that helps you know the working state of your network. It also enables you to fix various discovered or undiscovered network problems. In today’s networks, it’s a complicated exercise to monitor and maintain how well your network is functioning. Network management involves so many different components that you need the right people, technologies, and tools to do it well.