File Area Networking (FAN) questions

Hi everyone I wanted to post about File Area Networking (FAN) and my attempt to do a Data storage overhall at my office.

I have been finding alot of support via articles on File Area Networking (FAN) and it looks like Brocade is one of the big software leaders.

I see that there are advantages to using this type of system such as being able to create a global namespace and have a standardized path for users to search and store files if I'm correct from the information I've gathered.

I'm scheduled to talk with Brocade tomorrow via conference call but I wanted to ask again if anyone has any further knowledge on this subject area "File Area Networking" or a better way to manage unstructured data in an office environment and deal with growing amounts of data.

What other alternatives are there that would allow such ways to deal with unstructured data without spending a big chunk of change?

I'm sort of leaning toward the FAN method now even though we have spoke about DFS.

I've been starting to wonder how hard this method would be able to implement into our network since we currently use tape drives for backup and plan to continue using them as they are working great. I wonder if you can utilize the major concepts of (FAN) and still use tape backups or if everything in this software will attempt to make you store data elsewhere.

Any comments about the File Area Networking area, software recommendations, or other ways that effectively work to manage unstructured data are very appreciated.

Thanks everyone for your time once again!

Dan