SANFabric

SANFabric is a term used to describe fabric-based storage area network architectures that interconnect servers, storage systems, and gateways over a unified fabric. It extends traditional SAN concepts by using fabric-aware switches and centralized management to enable scalable connectivity, simplified zoning, and improved path optimization across data centers. SANFabric typically supports common storage protocols such as Fibre Channel, Fibre Channel over Ethernet, iSCSI, and increasingly NVMe over Fabrics, enabling low-latency access for heterogeneous storage devices.

Architecture and components of a SANFabric-oriented deployment include fabric switches (often arranged as leaf-spine or core-distributed topologies), host bus adapters and initiators, storage controllers and targets, and a fabric management layer with policy engines for provisioning, zoning, and quality-of-service. The fabric provides dynamic multipathing, fast failover, load balancing, and congestion management. Network virtualization and software-defined controls enable multi-tenant isolation and easier migration or resizing of storage resources as demand changes.

Deployment and use-cases for SANFabric span enterprise data centers, virtualization platforms, and cloud-enabled storage environments that require scalable, predictable input/output performance. It supports storage virtualization, automated zoning, and QoS policies to meet service-level agreements for databases, analytics, virtualization, and backup workloads.

Management and security considerations include centralized consoles that provide visibility and configuration across the fabric, with features such as zoning authentication, role-based access control, and encryption at rest or in transit where supported by the underlying storage.

History and status: SANFabric is not a single formal standard but a descriptive term used by vendors and practitioners to characterize fabric-based SAN architectures, with variations in protocol support, topology, and management ecosystems across implementations.