How to get job in IT companies related to Storage technology videos

Storage technology for beginners Part1


Storage technology for beginners Part2


Storage technology for beginners Part3





Storage Area Network(SAN) Jobs:Tutorials& InterviewQuestions

Storage Company Job Interview experience Interview Questions & Signs that you got the job

People often email with these questions so I'll give brief answers to them

1. Which companies are hiring now. What kind of openings are there.
Many storage companies (more than 40% are still hiring) but it may not be for entry level openings. Mid level,higher management is whats being hired right now. But give a good fight & u may get ur shot.
Several openings starting from consultant, support engineer,L2/L3, Developer, Quality, Implementation,Pre Sales lots of options are there.But check out your city specific job portal for the latest info. As far as I got the info through out US though there is a slump Storage pros are still in demand (those who have good years of experience & expertise).

2. How much is being paid? What is the pay package?

Will take a day to update on this since Im waiting for some inputs.

3. How are the interview process in these Storage Companies?
Expect & be ready for several technical interview rounds. Manager/ above rounds are nothing compared to the kind of bashing you'll recieve at tech rounds. So prepare well. Nothing to fear they treat you nice & gentle. But they want you to give the expected solutions/answers.

Dont expect any company hiring for not less than 3 tech rounds. Some companies do 7 rounds or more. Its a norm ,dont panic or act wierd when they ask you to wait a whole day before calling for a 40 min tech discussion.

4. Interview questions being asked in such Storage job interviews.
Interview is a very dynamic process,they mainly ask based on your experience, prior projects,strengths, tech accomplishments, Skillset they need for the opening.

I'm waging a WAR to get People Jobs To Get people their Life Back

Yes I'm waging a WAR against these Massive Layoffs, against this Recession.

Here is what is my Mission to Get Jobs to as many worthy people as possible.

What I expect from people who want to take my help - A lot of effort,dedication,not giving up on yourself, following some of the steps I ask you to do(This list may grow,cause we are in a WAR to get you Your Job)

What am I doing for that. I will help Job seekers in whatever possible way I can.

I will rewrite the resumes of people for Free (Only for those who do what I ask them to do - which does not involve paying me , which does not involve anything illegal). I may ask them to refresh on some areas in their resume,learn new related technologies,provide pointers to help them learn things fast. Post their resume on places where they may get response.

I will create exclusive websites for them to help them get more visibility. To help them reach to recruiters,companies which are still hiring.

I will write articles for them to showcase their strengths.

I will ask them to create videos of themselves - I will write your Video script to make it reach the intended.

I will do SEO- Search Engine Optimization so your website receives thousands if not millions of visitors

I will track your progress & instruct on how to prepare for interview for specific companies.

I will push you to overcome your limits & see your best potential to get your Job/Career.

I will utilize my Network of Storage,Virtualization,System Administrators to get you some references or some job interviews scheduled.

All I ask you in return is BE WORTHY, work hard, never giveup. Do whatever in the legal limit to get your job.

If you are willing to wage this WAR & Get a better Job email roger.smithson@gmail.com & write in detail. - Expect delay since there are quite a number of emails already. I will still reply. Email again & again if there is any delay in me replying.

I want to make sure I help more than 1000 Get jobs.

I've already helped more than 100s to get job - I will post a video of their testimonial soon.

I'm doing this to give back to this community & if you are lazy dont bother to take the trouble.

I got the insider info on how HRs think about the hiring process

An image of the process from a Hiring HR's point of view. How they plan the hiring process.
will get a Video uploaded soon explaining in detail about the hiring process & how you as a Job seeker should know this & prepare to get that high salary software job offer letter.

This Video is Going to Change Your Life Give you Better Career Better Financial Future

This post will be taken down at any time due to several technical & business reasons.

A Video which shows how you can Get a Better Job , Better Financial future is going to be available on this blog soon ( next 15 days) on September 2008 mark your calendar.

Reason I'm going to post in advance is It will be viewable only for just 1 day. Yes only for 1 day that is on September 2008. This Video was part of the package which I got created which I'm selling for $1000. This video is part of a package(whose details I wont reveal more here since its from a private invitation only training).

The Video talks & shows you live how to get job in just 15days. Hard to believe. Even harder to believe will be the facts & live proof shown on the Video.

I just wanna see how is the response of people if I allow them to see this Video which has already changed lots of people's career life (Who attended that private coaching) for FREE .

I'm not promising that just seeing the video every one will be able get a job in 15 days. Thats bullshit. You need to take action from what you learn from that video & You need to raise your limits then you can definitely see results in your Professional career or in your job.

If you are interested to know more about the Video & the Private Training Videos email our Technical support team getbestsalary@gmail.com .

Though a single Video is made available for public for just 1 day , access to the complete set of Private Training Videos is gonna cost a lot, its not for everybody so if you are someone who is expecting miracles to happen just because you saw a video this may not be the right thing for you.

Here is one more bonus : If you can create a Video saying how this Blog helped you or bored you or grilled you , post it on youtube.com &

in Video description give a link to our
website http://storage-jobs.blogspot.com . Just have this website text in the starting of your description in youtube videos. Here is an example Youtube Video description or click here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZzSImptcM0

write few lines in description you will get access to detailed info & another Video from this highly paid Private training.

Hire a Virtualization professional worth $50000 easily Get Virtualization domain expert on your team

Yes a skilled Virtualization domain expert is invaluable to any company she/he joins. I was fortunate to come across a Virtualization technology professional who showed interest for being hired by any Big/Best companies. I'll call this person as "MSX" since she/he wants to remain anonymous for all others. "MSX" shared with me some nice tips about Storage & Virtualization trends then I thought I should do something in return for her/him."MSX" asked me few questions like :

Can this blog help someone like her/him to get into a new job?
Does this Storage Jobs blog have visitors/blog readers who are hiring consultants?
Do you get some headhunters coming & reading your blog?

These were very interesting questions & I said I'd love to experiment it. I'm not sure how many hiring consultants/recruiters/headhunters/career consultants read this blog but I'm sure that if I can write about her/his "Software Professional Summary" definitely she/he will get some real positive replies.How many replies do we get I would love to see.

So find below the job profile of this Storage & Virtualization professional who is interested in job openings. You can email me roger.smithson@gmail.com & I'll pass on the info to her/him as to who are interested to hire her/him. She/He prefers jobs in US,UK,Singapore. Read below her/his experience summary in her/his own words.(Definitely this is not me , if it were me I would have written 10+ pages about my job experience,skillset :) Just to impress the recruiter, she/he has written very less in my view :)

OK this is a serious professional with years of experience interested for a new challenging job opportunity.She/He loves US,UK,and also prefers Singapore job openings.

Profile Summary and Domain Interest

A VMware Certified Professional (VCP on VI3) and presently involved with design and development of new features and technologies associated with VMware VI3,ESX Server product line.I have serveral years of experience in Systems,Virtualization,Storage.

I'm looking for prospective opportunities in the "real world" implementation of virtualization technologies like VMware (and likes of Microsoft Hyper-V, Xen etc). I am open to being considered for different/varied technical roles and positions in this space – interoperability and testing, performance evaluation,development, design, implementation and consulting, technology comparison.

Core Skill Set

VMWare ESX Server 3.X– internals, configuration
VMWare Virtual Infrastructure (3.X) Suite
- I have sound knowledge of various components that form VMware's Virtual Infrastructure suite like ESX Server, Virtual Center/ VC server,VI client, vMotion, DRS, HA, Storage Vmotion, Service Console, Virtual Networking, Storage and SAN configuration with ESX, Security Features, Performance, Licensing etc.
- I have attended comprehensive and detailed training programs on various VMware VI3 topics listed above.
- I have also donned the trainer's role and have given training to various teams (especially Quality Engineering teams) on varied topics like
VMware ESX storage stack, SAN configuration, Troubleshooting ESX Server issues and Log diagnosis
Miscellaneous topics like iSCSI configuration with ESX, Building vSANS with ESX etc
Administration with Server Console command line options.

VMWare ESX Server 3i (embedded) – internals, configuration
- I have a good knowledge of VMware ESX Server 3i architecture, the embedded new generation ESX Server (bundled in firmware with recent Dell/HP servers)
- I'm trained on ESX Server 3i administration

Core work experience with VMware ESX server storage stack.
-I have hands-on experience with ESX Server storage stack - inclusive of the
overall architecture, various layers of the I/O path, VMFS concepts, snapshots etc, Latest storage array support, device driver layers etc.
Linux Internals and Device Drivers
- Prior to working with companies related to Virtualization technologies, I have worked earlier on block based device drivers on Linux 2.6 kernels and have relevant knowledge in the 2.6 Linux kernel internals.

Storage Basics – Fibre-Channel basics, iSCSI basics, SAN, NAS,
Being in the SAN/storage space, I have basic to deep level range of knowledge in the various storage technologies depending on the projects I have worked.

I would appreciate if you email roger ( roger.smithson@gmail.com) incase if you are interested to hire me.

Enough of Technical Bullshit lets have some fun and some nice thoughts

MY MIND IS CHURNING OUT WITH A LOT OF THOUGHTS RIGHT NOW. Well that's what I have drilling with you with .so let me get on with it.

Dreams is something which everyone is fond of. Whether we like to accept or not, everyone dreams. Dreams where we want to be powerful, to be rich , to be something where we are recognized, to be identified. How many of us dream to be in control of things, control of people and in broad terms to be in control of life...hmmmm control of life only if were to be true.

We all dream to a large extent about the good things in life...,materialistic mostly. Most of us dream with closed eyes or some even with eyes wide open. Daydreaming is something we all do. To be lost in the wilderness of our fantasyland where there are no blockades, nothing to stop us from achieving anything we want...(Nay..im not talking Alice in Wonderland...But you must agree that Lewis Carol had stuck what I called a Goldmine of thoughts)

I had considered my life a lost game. Everything sucked only until I started Daydreaming. Now here was something just like some quick relief drug. I could go to any depths ad have that unfathomable pleasure it gave me. I was the superstar who could act in a movie, play along with sachin,beat the FedEx at his game and do a somersault ala Ronaldinho at the goalpost.
The soldier saving the nymph with ethereal quality, the Greek God  swaying with young nubile... I go on and on but for the fear of that doomsday thought somehow pierced my mind right now.

We are left exhilarated with the experience, with that on the Top of the world feeling. Amazing thing isn't it? I knew of a guy who achievement had been pretty much limited to swatting mosquitoes. But once after he had read the "The Godfather". his behavior changed probably triggered by the dream that he could be all that powerful as the Don. But his dreams had given him that confidence though its usage remained pretty mysterious.
Its quite intriguing to know how the mind works and plays games with us. Wish I could record it and play it all over again and again in a player, but that would take away the very essence out of it.
    So the best thing is to keep on dreaming, `cos it is dreams that no one can steal. It is your kingdom and nothing in the world can come in between. Keep Dreaming.

    As D.H.Lawrence said

"All people dream, but not equally.
Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their mind,
Wake in the morning to find that it was vanity.

But the dreamers of the day are dangerous people,
For they dream their dreams with open eyes,
And make them come true."
   



Email & let me know if u liked this or not roger.smithson @ gmail.com

Free Information to Help U get a Job completely FREE

U dont need to pay a penny to get this information but if you appreciate the value of this article please email roger.smithson@gmail.com & write your thoughts

If You are interested to get a Job or a Career in any one of these
Storage
System administration
Network administration
System or Network Security
Software Development
Software QA
Software Testing

Then reading this blog will help U in a big way. Its true the information needed to speed your chance of getting a job in above mentioned domains can be found on thousands of other websites but its all spread & u will find only bits & bytes of data NOT the whole picture.

Keep reading this blog from its first post & you will discover that this blog is not only concentrating on storage jobs but also helping any body get a clear readmap of career success.

Keep reading & U will soon find many more posts coming with links given for each of the above mentioned job segments to help people find jobs in their stream of interest.

Email roger.smithson@gmail.com if u want to give any feedback

Career in Storage technologies is very rewarding

If you are interested to build your Career in Storage technology email me roger.smithson@gmail.com with your details & detailed CV.

It Costs only $240 to get a Dedicated Guidance & To help you Build Your Career.

If you are planning to Get a Job in this Highest Paying IT industry
If you want to build a Strong base in Storage Technology
If you want to Build a Strong Resume which attract lots of Interviews
If you want to clear Interviews & Get Offer Letters with a High Salary in Storage

it Costs only $240 for you to get dedicated guidance from me. Email me ( roger.smithson@gmail.com ) and write to me how can I help you to get the best Job & a Better Career.

I will help you as below
- Advice on How you should start your Job hunting preparation
- Guide you on what you should study/learn & what you should not waste your time on
- Help you Building your Resume and chalk out your path details
- Teach you the Fundamentals & the Essentials , also the advanced
- Share lots of Reading materials & Very concentrated Specific notes
- Give you lots of study tips, Interview tips
- Send you more than 300 Interview Questions which are from Real Interviews
- Help you get Interviews
- Help you to gain confidence by taking quite enough Mock Interviews
- Help you to win through the Interview & how to handle the remaining process
- Be there to advice & guide you through emails & online communication

Lots of support for you to Build your Career at a one time reasonable price of just $240 . If you are serious about getting a boost for your career email roger.smithson@gmail.com before I raise the price to $500 ( Which I will do within next 2 months )

Please write in detail about yourself, your plans, your interest and expectations. If possible send your present CV/Resume/Profile information so that I can better understand you. If you are not writing in detail - I may not be able to reply to you. If you are seriously expecting a reply please do write in detail in your first email.

ALL THIS WILL BE DONE THROUGH EMAILS & ONLINE CHAT - Only selected few will be taken every month so please dont be disappointed if I take time to reply to your enquiry.

Free Tutorials,Videos,Images,PDF to help you Get IT Jobs

Links of some of the previous posts on this blog

Salary in Software companies in India,bangalore,bombay,delhi,noida
Guidance for new starters in Storage/Networking
Storage Basics Tutorials
High Salary Paying Jobs in Storage,Networking,Administration
High Salary Job expect Higher Dedication & SkillsetHow to Get Job in Software industry
Real Company Storage Infrastructure
New DataCenter being Built:Images
Virtual Tour of a DataCenter
How to Setup a Simple Storage Lab
Network Administrator,System Administrator Resume
Thanks for all Blog Contributors
Storage Consolidation explained through sample images
Storage setup sample images for you
SAN example network setup for your learning
Videos Tutorials for Storage & Networking Technology
Get assured software Job but be Dedicated
Advantages of Reading this Blog
How high do these jobs pay
Interview Questions on FIbre Channel
Network Attached Storage introduction
NAS Video Tutorials
Veritas VOlume Manager Interview Questions with answers
Veritas VOlume Manager Job Interviews
Daily Updated Blog Keep reading

I want you to be Happy and I want to help

This is a very special blogpost
This is not a tech post - This is more of a personal post.
Through this post I want to THANK all the people

- Who share knowledge with me & this blog
- Who show that they care for others
- Who prove that its not always gain that man has on his mind
- Who support you & help you build a better life & Career.
- Who email me

I want to thank all these nice people who showed that they Care,Thanks a lot
- Sean Ray ( For inspiring & motivating me to keep working on this blog )
- Jaiku P ( For sending more than 80 interview questions on Storage with answers to many questions - I really appreciate your efforts )
- Vijay AR (For sharing so many nice tech books & constantly emailing)
- Ashish Pathak (For sharing interview questions on the most wanted - Veritas Volume Manager )
- Sarfaraz M( For all the emails & nice ideas you shared)
- Yogesh Sobale ( For all the encouragement & enthusiasm you showed)
- A R Rahman ( For interview questions on Fibre Channel )
- Naveen Sangagl ( For all the chat sessions & Support )
- Unni Krishnan ( For your support & friendship )
- Toufeeq abdula ( For all the constant emails & support )

Thanks again to all the nice people who wrote in the comments sections
and most of all THANKS A LOT to the visitors of this blog who are taking time to read & appreciate this blog. DO CONTRIBUTE & SHARE YOUR KNOWLEDGE.

I wish this list of people keeps increasing .This blog's wealth of knowledge is due to contribution of all these people - I want you all to appreciate their support.

Storage Area Networking Blog Get Jobs in this High Paying industry

Storage Jobs Blog has lots of previous posts on Storage Area Networking.Though I started this blog with SAN as the central focus I understand that getting job in SAN needs knowledge in many other fields like - Networking,System administration,Volume Management,Data Center Operations,Enterprise Applications etc

So in future you will find many articles on this (DAILY UPDATED) covering many of the above said Storage related fields. This blog aims to help the job seekers - Plz share your knowledge by contributing ORIGINAL articles to this blog.

EMAIL roger.smithson@gmail.com FOR A FREE 200 Interview Questions word file & A POWERFUL SAN STUDENT GUIDE PDF

Email ur friends about this blog & CC me roger.smithson@gmail.com . I Will send u links of Storage or Tech Job Video with lots of Real Industry Exposure for every friend you email. I want to spread the word & help more people thru this blog .U'll also get many more Surprise Gifts to Boost your Career & Salary.

QLogic is one of the solid companies in Storage segment & i want to share some real good snippets of knowledge from one of its guide(Qlogic SAN Configuration guide for CLARiion Storage) - its a nice guide - This is a must read for people trying jobs in Storage. This is a 106 page guide & has extensive snapshots of its management console which helps u understand & learn SAN deployment & management.Qlogic team tests their products in combination with many industry leading Storage solution for interoperability. Below are some of the terms,technologies & concepts a job seeker should be proficient in. Get more info on below stuff so u have an edge in your interview.

The QLogic SAN configuration test philosophy is broken down into two test levels:
- Application-level interoperability
- Device-level interoperability

Application-Level Interoperability Test
The application-level interoperability test ensures that applications such as backup/restore, LAN-free back-up, serverless backup, and server clustering will run as designed on a combinations of hardware components that are representative of customer configurations. At this level, the hardware configurations are, for the most part, complex and can involve numerous devices that differ by type, vendor and operating system. Since the objective of this test is to determine the feasibility of typical customer SAN solutions, not every function of the application can be tested. While the application-level interoperability test addresses the major functions of the application, successful completion of the test does not guarantee full
interoperability. However, it does provide a reasonably high level of confidence that the application will function well in most SAN solution scenarios.


Device-Level Interoperability
The device-level and system integration test verifies functionality of the device with additional hardware and software. The interoperability and system integration test ensures conformance with the ANSI Fibre Channel (FC) standards and interoperability between servers and storage.

Server Interoperability
This ensures there are no problems between the HBA and the server. Potential problems, which may be found in this testing, include incompatibility between the HBA and server PCI chipsets, and conflicts between the HBA driver/BIOS setting and drivers/BIOS setting of other installed devices/adapters in the server.

Storage Interoperability
Storage devices such as disk arrays and tape devices are tested with SAN hardware and HBAs. This ensures compatibility between the end device and SAN hardware. Potential problems that may be found include improper LIP handling, AL_PA and Worldwide Name problems, jitter, and so on.


Application Device-Level Interoperability
The application device-level interoperability test ensures coexistence with the operating system environment and typical user shrink-wrapped software. It also ensures that the software works with the applicable hardware. In the case of a Windows environment, the component should have successfully completed all applicable Microsoft Hardware Certification program tests.

Read more on this guide by visiting qlogic.com & searching for "Qlogic SAN Configuration guide for CLARiion Storage".
Previous Posts on Storage Technology Jobs

Salary in Software Companies in INDIA,bangalore,delhi,bombay,noida

What is the salary range in Software Companies in INDIA

This was a topic many were interested so I thought of collecting some facts from some of my known sources & compiled the below list - THIS IS NOT 100% CORRECT - DONT BASE UR DECISIONS ON THIS LIST - i would say that this is very vague & incorrect info.

EMAIL roger.smithson@gmail.com FOR A FREE 200 Interview Questions word file & A POWERFUL SAN STUDENT GUIDE PDF

Email ur friends about this blog & CC me roger.smithson@gmail.com I Will send u Link to a Storage or Tech Job Video with lots of Real Industry Exposure for every friend you email - I want to spread the word & help more people thru this blog - U will also get many more Surprise Gifts to Boost your Career & Salary.

This is for Software Engineers with around 2+ to 3+ years of experience working in Some of the top MNC companies listed below
NAME OF COMPANY::::SALARY IN INDIAN RUPEES(INR)
-------------------------------------------------
Accenture 2,00,000 to 4,50,000
TCS(Tata Consultancy Services) 3,00,000 to 5,50,000
CST(Cognizant Technology Solutions) 3,50,000 to 6,00,000
HP (Hewlett-packard) 3,00,000 to 4,50,000
Wipro 2,00,000 to 3,50,000
Infosys 2,00,000 to 3,00,000
IBM 2,00,000 to 4,00,000
EMC 2,50,000 to 4,50,000
Symphony Services 2,00,000 to 3,50,000
Adaptec 2,00,000 to 5,00,000
Intel 3,50,000 to 6,00,000
Microsoft 3,00,000 to 5,00,000
CA(Computer Associates)2,00,000 to 4,50,000
Sun Microsystems 3,00,000 to 5,00,000
Dell Software 2,00,000 to 5,00,000
Cisco 3,00,000 to 5,50,000
Tata Elxsi 2,00,000 to 4,50,000

All these companies have storage related products or services & will be hiring storage professionals. This is a very rough estimate & NOT to be considered the real salary structure of these companies - I DO NOT TAKE RESPONSIBILITY OF ANY EVENTS OCCURING DUE TO PUBLISHING THIS INFO - this same info can be found in many forums & blogs.

Guys & Gals - dont ever worry about salary - its always a variable thing - its based on ur previous experience, mainly based on your performance in the interviews, based on your current salary , based on how urgent or important is the hiring in the company , how much value addition u bring to the new job & new company . So stop worrying about Salary & other packages & concentrate on improving your skillset,knowledge & experience.Any of the above listed company may pay low than whats said above or they may pay much much higher than whats mentioned here - its not always easy to say which is the highest salary paying company - as all companies keep increasing their pay packages. Also dont forget that companies may fire or terminate you if you fail in keeping upto their expectations - so rather than worrying about pay packages just focus on excelling in your performance & your present company or the first company whichever it might be that you join - itself may recognise your potential & pay you more than you expect. You can surely have the best & I always wish you the best in your Career - I know u will have a Great Career & its not always because of a Great Salary.

Previous Posts on Storage Technology Jobs

It Costs only $240 to get a Dedicated Guidance & To help you Build Your Career.

If you are planning to Get a Job in this Highest Paying IT industry
If you want to build a Strong base in Storage Technology
If you want to Build a Strong Resume which attract lots of Interviews
If you want to clear Interviews & Get Offer Letters with a High Salary in Storage

it Costs only $240 for you to get dedicated guidance from me. Email me ( roger.smithson@gmail.com ) and write to me how can I help you to get the best Job & a Better Career.

I will help you as below
- Advice on How you should start your Job hunting preparation
- Guide you on what you should study/learn & what you should not waste your time on
- Help you Building your Resume and chalk out your path details
- Teach you the Fundamentals & the Essentials , also the advanced
- Share lots of Reading materials & Very concentrated Specific notes
- Give you lots of study tips, Interview tips
- Send you more than 300 Interview Questions which are from Real Interviews
- Help you get Interviews
- Help you to gain confidence by taking quite enough Mock Interviews
- Help you to win through the Interview & how to handle the remaining process
- Be there to advice & guide you through emails & online communication

Lots of support for you to Build your Career at a one time reasonable price of just $240 . If you are serious about getting a boost for your career email roger.smithson@gmail.com before I raise the price to $500 ( Which I will do within next 2 months )

Please write in detail about yourself, your plans, your interest and expectations. If possible send your present CV/Resume/Profile information so that I can better understand you. If you are not writing in detail - I may not be able to reply to you. If you are seriously expecting a reply please do write in detail in your first email.

ALL THIS WILL BE DONE THROUGH EMAILS & ONLINE CHAT - Only selected few will be taken every month so please dont be disappointed if I take time to reply to your enquiry.

Storage Consolidation Explained with Example Images

EMAIL roger.smithson@gmail.com FOR A FREE 200 Interview Questions word file & A POWERFUL SAN STUDENT GUIDE PDF

Email ur friends about this blog & CC me roger.smithson@gmail.com I Will send u Link to a Storage or Tech Job Video with lots of Real Industry Exposure for every friend you email - I want to spread the word & help more people thru this blog - U will also get many more Surprise Gifts to Boost your Career & Salary.


Storage Consolidation:Storage consolidation, also called storage convergence is a method of centralizing data storage among multiple servers. The objective is to facilitate data backup and archiving for all subscribers in an enterprise, while minimizing the time required to access and store data. Other desirable features include simplification of the storage infrastructure, centralized and efficient management, optimized resource utilization, and low operating cost.
Consolidated Storage Scenarios

There are a number of ways in which Storage technologies can help your organization consolidate storage, and help you to save time and money.
•NAS Gateway to a SAN: Consolidating File and Block Storage. For large organizations that have a SAN, curtailing the proliferation of NAS devices for file storage can be accomplished by deploying a NAS gateway (head) to the SAN. NAS gateways connect to the IP network and communicate with storage arrays on the SAN through switching technology. NAS gateways do not have on board storage; rather they access storage on the SAN, translating file data from the server into blocks for storage (and the reverse, when the data is requested by the server) as necessary. Deployment of a NAS gateway can help administrators to centralize block and file storage, while at the same time lowering equipment acquisition costs and preserving the value of NAS storage investments.

•Consolidated Backup Infrastructure. Consolidating storage onto a network provides administrators the opportunity to consolidate both backup hardware and software, helping organizations realize considerable cost savings.

On the hardware end, a SAN can support a single automated tape library with multiple tape drives, eliminating the need for backup equipment on each server, and centralizing media administration processes. Because the backup process has been moved off the servers and off the LAN, backups no longer impact work schedules or bandwidth.
By using Windows the Volume Shadow Copy Service, snapshot technologies can be integrated with the backup process, helping to ensure high fidelity backups and significantly reduce the backup window. Backups are stored centrally on the SAN; if a server goes down a second server can access the shadow copy and make it available for use. Not only does this simplify backup management, but it also speeds time to restore dramatically.

•Consolidate SAN Islands. Although SANs can scale to large sizes, it is more common for organizations to deploy multiple SANs, dedicating each SAN to a specific mission-critical database application, or each SAN serving a separate department or remote site location. Without interconnection, each of these SANs must be protected and managed independently, increasing cost and complexity. Islands of Fibre Channel SAN can be connected by extending the Fibre Channel infrastructure between them; however across long distances, this is an expensive proposition. (This is not a problem for iSCSI SANs, because no special equipment is required.) A less expensive solution is to use the existing LAN to extend a connection between distant SANs and an iSCSI bridge to translate between iSCSI and Fibre Channel protocols.

For full details on how to do this using the Microsoft iSCSI software, see the section "iSCSI Bridge to a Fibre Channel SAN" in the white paper Deploying iSCSI SANs with the Microsoft iSCSI Architecture.

•Low Cost Consolidation of Wintel Servers to Centralized Storage. The centralized storage benefits—localized rather than distributed backups, reduced administration and simplified management—of a Fibre Channel SAN can be inexpensively extended to legacy servers. Rather than installing costly Fibre Channel HBAs to connect to the SAN, the standard IP networking equipment (onboard network interface cards) and the Microsoft iSCSI initiator coupled with an iSCSI gateway facilitates connection to the SAN.

•Blade Servers. In deployments that require hundreds or thousands of servers, managing individual servers is an administrative nightmare—server hardware acquisition and maintenance costs are high, and software update distribution is its own full time job. Blade (thin) servers are designed to share hardware resources among servers in a rack; the thinnest blade servers are diskless servers which access consolidated storage resources from the storage network.


Previous Posts on Storage Technology Jobs

Storage Basics Tutorial to help you prepare for Job Interview

EMAIL roger.smithson@gmail.com FOR A FREE FILE with 200 Interview Questions & STORAGE STUDENT TUTORIAL GUIDE

DEFINITIONS OF TERMS USED ALL THROUGHOUT THIS BLOG

A node is a computer attached to a SAN.
A SAN is a high-speed subnetwork of shared storage devices.
Software that manages San file system functions, such as file locking, space allocation, and data access authorization, is called the Metadata controller.(This is an Apple Storage implementation term - other companies use other terms)
Metadata controller uses callbacks to communicate with file system clients.

Xsan file system client software runs on all nodes in the SAN and communicates with the metadata controller in order to provide Xsan services. The term file system client refers to a node that is running the Xsan file system client software.

A redundant array of independent disks (RAID) device is a category of disk devices that combines two or more drives increased for fault tolerance and performance. There are several RAID levels:
*Level 0 provides data striping, where blocks of a file are spread across multiple disks, increasing performance; this level does not have any provisions that increase fault tolerance.
*Level 1 provides disk mirroring.
*Level 3 provides the data striping of Level 0 and also reserves a disk for storing error correction data, thereby increasing performance and fault tolerance.
*Level 5 provides data striping at the byte level and maintains stripe error correction information.

A JBOD (just a bunch of disks) is a disk that is not configured for RAID.

A logical unit number (LUN) is an aggregation of physical devices. Applications access LUNs through the special files in the system’s /dev/disk directory. For RAID devices, a LUN is typically a RAID-5 with three or more physical drives making up the LUN. For JBOD devices, one JBOD is one LUN.

A storage pool is a grouping of LUNs that have the same characteristics. Another term for storage pool is stripe group. One or more storage pools form a mountable volume. The number of volumes hosted by a single Xsan metadata controller should not exceed eight.

Stripe depth is the number of disks that have been assigned to a storage pool.

The stripe breadth is the maximum amount of data that is read or written before switching to the next LUN in the storage pool. When the last LUN is reached, I/O operations go back to t he first LUN. This is how large logical I/O operations are broken down into stripes across multiple LUNs. For example, if the stripe breadth for a storage pool is set at 4 MB, each I/O operation on that storage pool is physically no more than 4 MB. A 16 MB I/O operation would be broken down into 4 physical I/O operations.

A stripe line is the stripe breadth multiplied by the number of LUNs in the storage pool. To maximize performance, make I/O requests that area stripe line in size.

For real-time I/O, well-formed I/O is I/O that is a stripe line in size. This size makes the best utilization of the disks in the storage pool and maximizes the transfer rate. For non-real-time I/O, well-formed I/O is I/O that is memory aligned (modulus 4 bytes), 512-byte sector aligned, and modulus sector sized.

A block is the smallest number of bytes that can be read or written.

Storage pools can be assigned one or more values, known as an affinity identifiers, and a file can be assigned one affinity. When a request is made to allocate space in a file for which the affinity has been set, the space is allocated from the storage pool that an affinity identifier that matches the file’s affinity. For example, consider a SAN with some moderate performance JBOD LUNs and some high performance RAID-5 LUNs. By grouping the RAID-5 LUNs into the same storage pool and assigning them a specific affinity identifier, the developer can steer performance critical data to that storage pool. Files containing less critical data or files that do not have an affinity are assigned to the storage pool that consists of JBOD LUNs.

When a storage pool is in real-time I/O mode, file system clients that have processes that do non-real-time I/O must request a non-real-time I/O token Xsan throttles the speed of I/O of applications that are not in real-time mode so that their I/O does not interfere with real-time I/O. This document uses the term gate to describe processes or file descriptors that are not in real-time I/O mode and the term ungated to describe processes or file descriptors that are in real-time I/O mode.

An extent is a chunk of file data whose allocation is contiguous on a storage pool. A file’s data may be stored in one or more extents. Information about an extent includes its file-relative starting byte offset, its file system starting byte offset, the file system ending byte offset, and the ordinal of the storage pool on which the extent resides. File system clients use extent mapping tables to load information about a file’s extents. Loading extent information improves performance by eliminating a subsequent trip by the file system client to the metadata controller in order to retrieve extent information for the range mapped by an I/O request.

When there are two or more storage pools that have the same characteristics, an allocation strategy is needed. The strategy can be to round-robin files through the set of storage pools, balance the remaining space in the storage pools, or fill the first storage pool before going to the next storage pool.

A disk file system, such as a UFS or HFS+ file system, resides on the internal drives of a computer or on storage devices that are attached directly to the computer. A network file system allows data on internal drives or on directly attached drives to be shared with other computers on the network. Examples of network file systems include Apple Filing Protocol (AFP), Server Message Block (SMB), Common Internet File System (CIFS), or Network File System (NFS). A distributed file system is a blend of disk file system and network file system used to simplify data sharing through the creation of a single shared name space across a collection of servers. A cluster file system gives multiple computers simultaneous, very high-speed access to all shared data residing on an external, centralized storage pool. The storage pool typically consists of highly available RAID systems. Xsan is a cluster file system

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The components of the above SAN are listed below

COMPONENT NAME : Company/Make : No. of units
1.Server Manager-cluster nodes: ProLiant DL580 :2
2.External Disk System: RAID Array 4100: 1
3.FC-AL Hubs: Fibre Channel Storage Hub : 2
4.FC-AL host-adapters: 64-bit/66-MHz Fibre Channel Host Adapter:4
5.Network Adapters: NC3134 Fast Ethernet NIC 64 PCI Dual Base 10/100:2
(100BaseTX Fast Ethernet)
6.Network Adapters: NC3123 Fast Ethernet NIC PCI 10/100 WOL :4
(100BaseTX Fast Ethernet)

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