Resilient Storage Networks Designing Flexible Scalable Data Infrastructures

A resilient storage network is an environment where data is always available for the needs of the business. This book explains the components, as well as how to design and implement a resilient storage network for workgroup, departmental, and enterprise environments. Storage networks are an enabling capability combining technology and best practices to provide the foundation to support information technology systems and applications. Storage networks can be of various sizes, shapes, and technologies. This book shows you how to implement a resilient storage network infrastructure using different technologies including ATM, DWDM, FCIP, Fibre Channel, FICON, iFCP, InfiniBand, IP, iSCSI, Life Cycle Management, NAS, Object Based Storage, RAID, RDMA, Remote Mirroring, Replication, SAN, SCSI, SMI-S, SONET/SDH, Storage Services, Tape, Virtualization, and Volume Managers.

*Important information is clarified and put into context to separate myths and realities *Covers storage networking technologies (hardware, software, networks) and practices
*Numerous tips and recommendations allow the reader to quickly understand best practices
*Checklists, templates and examples show potential solutions

Part I: Why Storage and Storage Networks? Importance of Information; Data Storage Fundamentals; Part II: Resilient Storage Networks: Networking Your Storage; Storage Network Design; Performance and Capacity Planning; Storage Management; SMIS; Storage and Storage Networking Virtualization; Part III: Networking with Your Storage: Storage and I/O Networks; Storage Networking Devices; Resilient Infrastructures; Securing Information; Part IV: Putting It All Together: Small SANs; Consolidation Examples; Metro and Wide Area; High Performance; Heterogeneous SANs; Wrap-up; Appendices: Storage Networking Information; RAID and Storage Information; Fiber Optic and Cabling Information; Glossary

Greg Schulz is currently a Senior Analyst at The Evaluator Group, Inc. Greg has over 25 years experience with UNIX, Windows, IBM mainframe, OpenVMS, and other environments. He started his professional carrier in information technology while in school, working as an operator, loading tapes, key punching (cards and floppy disks), and printing reports. Greg has worked as a programmer (systems and end-user applications), systems administrator, disaster recovery and storage planner, and performance and capacity planning analyst. He has worked at various firms and in several industries, including Cooperative Power Electric Utility, DCA Benefits, BNSF Railroad, MTI, INRANGE, and CNT. Greg works with large and small customers from different industries involving storage and storage networking. He has been involved with various storage-related organizations, including the Computer Measurement Group (CMG), Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA), RAID Advisory Board (RAB), and vendor-specific user groups. He is the author of numerous published papers and articles on storage, storage networking, I/O, capacity planning, virtualization, security, backup, database, and related topics. Greg has also contributed material to other projects, and he was a coauthor for the Veritas book The Resilient Enterprise. As a well regarded and popular speaker, he has lectured throughout the world on storage and storage networking topics. Greg has a B.A. in computer science, M.Sc. in software engineering from the University of St. Thomas, and is an aspiring chef.