1. A computer system for configuring a storage area network (SAN), comprising: a plurality of selectable SAN elements; one or more processors; and instructions embodied in computer-readable media and executable by the one or more processors, the instructions including: a design module operable to graphically configure selected SAN elements; and a validation engine operable to dynamically validate the configuration of the selected SAN elements, wherein the validation engine includes: an element related validation module for validating element to element relationships of connected SAN elements in the configuration of selected SAN elements; and a group related validation module for validating a group of SAN elements in the configuration of selected SAN elements, the validation modules being arranged such that during validation of the configuration of selected SAN elements, the element related validation module is employed before the group related validation module.