There has been some confusion -- FAN has added yet another acronym
for storage professionals to contend with, along with backup area
networks and other marketing-driven initiatives. FAN means "file
area network." It's a marketing term being driven by Brocade.
Fortunately, FAN is an umbrella term, and anyone that thinks
from a network-centric viewpoint will probably embrace the file
serving/sharing or virtualization and
NAS accessorization promoted by a FAN. But,
there is some confusion with file virtualization. The two ideas
are mutually exclusive, so file virtualization does not require
FAN (and vice versa). Still, other vendors are jumping on the
FAN bandwagon.
Go back to the beginning of the
File Virtualization FAQ Guide.
