The maturity and mission critical deployment of Fibre Channel in the Storage Area Networks (SANs) has created a unique class of multi-terabit network with demanding throughput, latency, scalability, robustness and availability requirements. The presentation will examine the technology, architecture, protocols and deployment needs of Fibre Channel SANs. We will examine critical performance benchmark, scaling in nodes and distance, traffic pattern, and availability designs that are important to meet SAN applications, operations and mission critical needs. Given the accelerated growth of information storage demand, the use and management of SANs placed a challenging demand on the products, management tools, protocols and practical deployments. We will examine several of the issues along with the scaling of SANs to MAN and WAN configurations. The emergence of iSCSI and FCIP adds significant opportunity in enhancing SAN deployment and applications. However, the interconnection and internetworking of Fibre Channel and IP SANs create a significant challenge and opportunity. We will examine several design considerations and challenges in the multi-protocol SAN implementations. We will examine some key system level design approaches and differences between IP networking and SAN networking.