Book description
If you’ve been charged with setting up storage area networks for your company, learning how SANs work and managing data storage problems might seem challenging. Storage Area Networks For Dummies, 2nd Edition comes to the rescue with just what you need to know.
Whether you already a bit SAN savvy or you’re a complete novice, here’s the scoop on how SANs save money, how to implement new technologies like data de-duplication, iScsi, and Fibre Channel over Ethernet, how to develop SANs that will aid your company’s disaster recovery plan, and much more. For example, you can:
Understand what SANs are, whether you need one, and what you need to build one
Learn to use loops, switches, and fabric, and design your SAN for peak performance
Create a disaster recovery plan with the appropriate guidelines, remote site, and data copy techniques
Discover how to connect or extend SANs and how compression can reduce costs
Compare tape and disk backups and network vs. SAN backup to choose the solution you need
Find out how data de-duplication makes sense for backup, replication, and retention
Follow great troubleshooting tips to help you find and fix a problem
Benefit from a glossary of all those pesky acronyms
From the basics for beginners to advanced features like snapshot copies, storage virtualization, and heading off problems before they happen, here’s what you need to do the job with confidence!
Table of contents
- Copyright
- About the Authors
- Author's Acknowledgments
- Introduction
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I. SAN 101
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1. The Storage Area Network
- 1.1. Defining a SAN
- 1.2. Fiber versus Fibre
- 1.3. How a SAN Makes Computing Different
- 1.4. Understanding the Benefits of a SAN
- 1.5. Finding Out Whether a SAN Is Right for You
- 1.6. Dissecting a SAN (The Four Ps)
- 1.7. The Parts of a SAN
- 1.8. The SAN Protocols
- 1.9. The SAN Players
- 1.10. The SAN Platforms
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2. SAN Building Blocks
- 2.1. SAN Components and How They're Used
- 2.2. The Host Layer
- 2.3. The Fabric Layer
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2.4. The Storage Layer
- 2.4.1. Storage arrays: Storing your data
- 2.4.2. Explaining Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks (RAID)
- 2.4.3. RAID benefits
- 2.4.4. RAID types
- 2.4.5. Logical Unit Numbers (LUNs)
- 2.4.6. Understanding storage-array classification
- 2.4.7. Modular versus monolithic
- 2.4.8. Monolithic (Enterprise)
- 2.4.9. Modular (Departmental)
- 2.4.10. Why Cache memory makes a difference
- 3. What Makes a SAN Go
- 4. What Makes a SAN Stop
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1. The Storage Area Network
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II. Designing and Building a SAN
- 5. Designing the SAN
- 6. SANs and Disaster Recovery
- 7. Putting It All Together
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III. Using Advanced SAN Features
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8. Networking SANs
- 8.1. Defining a SAN Island
- 8.2. Connecting SAN Islands
- 8.3. The Storage WAN, MAN, and SWAN
- 8.4. Choosing and Using SAN Extenders
- 8.5. Choosing the Correct Link for the Job
- 8.6. Reducing Costs with Compression, Data De-duplication and WAN Tuners
- 8.7. SAN Connection Protocols
- 8.8. Stretching the SAN (The Rubber-Band Approach)
- 8.9. Using Connected SAN Islands (The Two-Rubber-Bands Approach)
- 8.10. Using a SAN as Network Attached Storage
- 8.11. iSCSI: An Alternative Method
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9. SAN-Based Backup
- 9.1. Understanding Backup
- 9.2. Understanding SAN Backup
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9.3. Choosing a Backup Solution
- 9.3.1. Integrated tape drive in each server
- 9.3.2. Backup over a corporate LAN to a tape drive connected to an independent backup server
- 9.3.3. Backup over corporate network to robotic tape library connected to an independent backup server
- 9.3.4. LAN-less backup to shared tape library over SAN
- 9.3.5. Serverless backup to shared tape library through SAN
- 9.3.6. Disk-to-disk backup
- 9.3.7. Image copy and snapshots in the SAN
- 9.3.8. SAN data replication/remote backup
- 9.4. Determining How Long a Backup Will Take
- 10. Mirror, Mirror: Point-in-Time Copies
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8. Networking SANs
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IV. SAN Management and Troubleshooting
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11. Approaches to SAN Management
- 11.1. Management: From Simple Networking to SANs
- 11.2. SAN Management from the Ground Up
- 11.3. Cable Management: Spaghetti, Anyone?
- 11.4. Labeling Your Cables
- 11.5. Using a SAN Management Framework
- 11.6. What SAN Management Gives You
- 11.7. Streamlining SAN Administration
- 11.8. Automating Your System: "SAN? Do You Read Me, SAN?"
- 11.9. Providing a Service Level Agreement
- 11.10. Building a Storage Management Team
- 12. Troubleshooting SANs
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11. Approaches to SAN Management
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V. Understanding the Cool Stuff
- 13. Using Data De-Duplication to Lighten the Load
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14. Continuous Data Protection
- 14.1. Understanding What Continuous Data Protection Is
- 14.2. How CDP Makes Storage Work Like a Database
- 14.3. Best Practices for Storage When Configuring CDP Solutions
- 14.4. The Truth about Near CDP and True CDP Solutions
- 14.5. CDP versus Snapshots
- 14.6. Using CDP to Eliminate Backups
- 14.7. Using CDP to Simplify Recovery and Reduce Costs
- 14.8. Knowing Your CDP Vendor
- 15. Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Virtualization
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VI. The Part of Tens
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16. Ten Reasons to Use a SAN
- 16.1. You Want Better Disk Utilization
- 16.2. You Need a Good Disaster Recovery Solution for Multiple Applications
- 16.3. You Need Better Availability for Your Applications
- 16.4. You Need More Storage Room
- 16.5. Backup Is Taking Too Long
- 16.6. You're Focusing on Server and Storage Consolidation
- 16.7. You've Been Tasked to Save Your Company Money
- 16.8. You Need to Manage Storage for Many Locations from a Central Site
- 16.9. You Need to Decrease IT Management Costs
- 16.10. You Need Better Performance for Your Applications
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17. Ten Reasons NOT to Use a SAN
- 17.1. You Need Larger File Servers
- 17.2. You Only Have a Few Inexpensive Servers
- 17.3. You Want to Save Your Company Money This Year
- 17.4. You Want to Use the Latest and Greatest Solutions Available
- 17.5. You Need a Disaster-Recovery Solution for a Single Application
- 17.6. You Want a SAN but Don't Have the Budget
- 17.7. You Use Gigabit Ethernet on Your LAN
- 17.8. Everything Already Runs Fine
- 17.9. You Need to Back Up Multiple Remote Offices over Slow Links
- 17.10. You Need to Replicate Your Data for Disaster Recovery but Can't Afford Fast WAN Connections
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16. Ten Reasons to Use a SAN
- Outsourcing SAN Solutions
Product information
- Title: Storage Area Networks For Dummies®
- Author(s):
- Release date: January 2009
- Publisher(s): For Dummies
- ISBN: 9780470385135
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