The first SAN deployments hardly qualified as networks. Built using fixed-configuration 8-port or 16-port switches, they offered limited port counts, no fault isolation or fabric segmentation functionality, limited switch-to-switch connectivity with minimal traffic load-balancing, and no traffic management capabilities. Management tools focused on element management rather than network management.

Fibre Channel topologies have evolved a long way from the early SAN days. SANs started as simple single-switch topologies to provide additional connectivity to storage devices. Storage vendors bundled small Fibre Channel switches with their storage arrays to improve bandwidth, I/Os per second (IOPS), and array connectivity fan-out capabilities.