And here I thought I came up with it all on my own—the connectivity and presentation model value propositions of NAS that is. I was checking out network cache appliances by Gear6 when I found a reference to a post on Chuck Hollis’ blog over at EMC. Chuck was talking about the benefits of NAS in a VMware context, but I’d like to quote some of the bits I liked the most:
• You get to manage a file system, rather than a collection of LUNs
• You get some modicum of access control through the file system mechanisms
• You get access to advanced NAS features, like thin provisioning, snaps, replication, etc.
And, as a special added bonus, you get to use low-cost ethernet to connect your servers to your storage. Very nice, especially if you’re looking at blades or high-density racks.
Of course I like that last bit with an eye on the commodity computing paradigm with Oracle.
Kevin Closson's Blog: Platforms, Databases and Storage 
Kevin,
One of the issues I’ve had with going to a NAS based solution is understanding reliability and performance and how issues like replication can work in a NAS environment with Oracle and clustered file systems. Part of this is also my FUD on proposing a NAS based solution to customers, as I at least know what issues I typically have to deal with when setting up a fibre based SAN environment (e.g. multipath drivers, SRDF, etc.)
If NAS solutions can give a better price point and provide us the same functionality we’re looking for, why shouldn’t we use it.
I’ll be looking forward to future blogs on NAS. Keep up the good work.
Thanks for that, Jeff. I’ll be posting more. CAn you be more clear what sort of replication issues you have in mind vis a vis NAS? Are you talking Oracle Replication?