The SNIA Shared Storage Model

Terms like "SAN" and "NAS" become loaded with artificial and sometimes arbitrary meaning in the absence of a single, simple model for shared storage architectures. The SNIA Technical Council has developed a framework that captures the functional layers and properties of a storage system, regardless of the underlying design, product, or installation.

Much like the OSI 7-layer model in conventional networking, the SNIA Shared Storage Model may be used to describe common storage architectures graphically, while exposing what services are provided, where interoperability is required, and the pros and cons of each potential architecture.

The model describes architectures, but it is not itself an architecture. You cannot buy it, or a system that it describes by specifying it in a bid, or a request for a bid. You cannot build it. The model does not represent any value judgments between the architectures it describes. Instead, the model makes it possible to compare architectures and to communicate about them in a common vocabulary