An aspect of obtaining optical signal health data in a SAN includes receiving, by a computer processor, a request for data corresponding to current operational characteristics of elements of a storage area network to which a host system computer has access. A further aspect includes instantiating, by the computer processor, a virtual host bus adapter interface on the host system computer, transmitting, via the virtual host bus adapter interface, the request to the elements in the portion of the storage area network, aggregating data received from each of the elements, and displaying the aggregated data via the computer processor.