Sanchk: an sql-based validation system for san configuration

Storage area networks (SANs) connect groups of storage devices to servers over fast interconnects using protocols like Fibre Channel or iSCSI, so that storage resources can be assigned to servers in a flexible and scalable way. An important challenge is controlling the complexity of the SAN configuration resulting from the high scalability of the network and the diversity and the interconnectivity of the devices. Policy- based validation has been proposed earlier as a solution to this configuration problem. We propose a light-weight, SQL-based solution that uses existing well-known technologies to implement such a validation system. Our approach is based on a relational database which stores configuration data extracted from the system via a WBEM standard interface. In contrast to other approaches, we use SQL to define our policy rules as executable checks on these configuration data. Each rule is embedded in a test case, defined by an XML schema, which combines each check with an explanation component and an action component. These components retrieve information about the SAN components that cause the check to fail and provide methods that will be invoked on a success or a failure of the test. Although the approach is more general, we focus on the application for Storage Area Networks. We also give some example policies for SAN configuration and their implementations and show how in addition all policy types presented by Agrawal et al. (2004) can be formulated as SQL queries by our method.