[luau] SANs

[Charles Lockhart]

Ok, hoping you guys may know more about storage area networks than I do
(not difficult, I don't know much ;o).  I'm working on an instrument
that'll require some kind of SAN to store and redistribute a fairly high
bandwidth data stream.

As I understand it, there are two general types of SANs, the older fibre
channel ones and some newer ones that use alternate connections (something
about TOE, tcp off-load engines).  The idea is that the older ones, I
think, use a semi or completely proprietary protocol, and the newer ones
can use something more generic, like gigabit ethernet.  

Does anybody know how easy these are to integrate, any place that has
particularly good ones, from either school?  Right now we're looking at
a compaq solution that uses the fibre channel stuffs, but we need to look
at both other fibre channel alternatives and the newer alternatives.

-Charles