Storatge Area Network
The University is seeking bids for a Video Archive Storage Area Network (SAN) to act as a storage location for the archiving and retrieval of broadcast television video files. These files will be stored on the Video Archive SAN until such time as they are needed for play out from the main video play out system or until they are no longer needed and are removed.
The Video Archive SAN must use Storage Area Network (SAN) technology, defined as:
- An architecture to attach remote hard disk drive arrays to servers in such a way that the devices appear as locally attached to the operating system. The SAN is its own network of storage devices that are not accessible through the regular network by other devices. The SAN provides block-level operations, user created file system(s) will supply file abstraction to SAN storage.
The Video Archive SAN must provide complete storage virtualization, defined as:
- The process of completely abstracting logical storage from physical storage. The physical storage resources are aggregated into storage pools, from which the logical storage is created. It presents to the user a logical space for data storage and transparently handles the process of mapping it to the actual physical location.
