Red Hat GFS 6.0 -, Administrator'S Manual

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Chapter 1. Red Hat GFS Overview 3
SAN
Fabric
FC or iSCSI
SAN
GFS
Applications
Shared Files
Figure 1-1. GFS with a SAN
1.2.2. Performance, Scalability, Moderate Price
Multiple Linux client applications on a LAN can share the same SAN-based data as shown in
Figure 1-2. SAN block storage is presented to network clients as block storage devices by GNBD
servers. From the perspective of a client application, storage is accessed as if it were directly attached
to the server in which the application is running. Stored data is actually on the SAN. Storage devices
and data can be equally shared by network client applications. File locking and sharing functions are
handled by GFS for each network client.
Note
Clients implementing ext2 and ext3 file systems can be configured to access their own dedicated
slice of SAN storage.