Windows Networked Storage Enhanced

Both storage area networks (SANs) and network-attached storage (NAS) devices built using the Windows Storage Server platform will be bolstered by five enhancements to Microsoft’s networked storage technologies. Announced at the Apr. 2004 Storage Networking World conference, the enhancements will make network storage easier to manage and will give customers more purchase and configuration options. Among other changes, Windows Storage Server will host Exchange databases, new SAN diagnostic tools will become available, and support for the iSCSI protocol will be broadened.

Exchange Feature Pack for Windows Storage Server

Windows Storage Server is Microsoft’s OS platform targeted at manufacturers of NAS storage devices, which are servers dedicated to file storage. These devices typically offer more expandability, availability, and reliability than general-purpose file servers, and some can even replicate data to another remote NAS device in order to provide better disaster recovery.

The trade-off is that NAS devices do not host applications, which instead run on separate servers configured to read and write application data to NAS-based file shares (each application server still has a local hard drive to store the OS and the application’s program files).