Client Storage Area Network (Client SAN) Technology is an architecture, offering centralized management, flexibility and accessibility for connection of server and client computer via Ethernet. Client SAN is a platform for management and delivery of user services, using the popular disk-based computing model. It is a new architecture, by further layering the disk access path in the conventional disk-based computing architecture and placing management functions in the path.

In addition, Client SAN also means Client Service Area Network, a network infrastructure dedicated to delivery and management of client services. It is a technology to provide high-performance, reliability, availability, scalability and central management and a solution to the ever-growing total cost of service availability to the enterprise work force.

CSAN components:

There are four major components in Client Storage Area Network (Client SAN) architecture:

• Disk agent - A pre-boot downloadable agent executed on the client to emulate local hard disk (hence, CSAN can be PXE-ready)
• Disk server - The central management server for disk-based IT services for workers of the enterprise
• Disk system - The core managed structure of the IT services in CSAN
• eDC™ protocol - For disk-based service delivery and management between disk agents and disk servers