Storage Consolidation Explained with Example Images

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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

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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

SAN Architecture


PREVIOUS POSTS ARE LINKED HERE

SAN Implementation Sample images for Reference

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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)

What is Storage Area Networking (Videos)
Storage jobs Salary structure How much they pay
Storage Area Interview Questions
Real Company Interview questions on SAN
40 Storage interview questions with answers
Data Management Interview Questions
How will be a Real Storage Interview
Storage area networking interview questions Series1(Videos)
Storage area networking interview questions series2(Videos)
Live SAN Company interview questions
Blog reader shares Interview questions from his experience

A Simple Layout of a SAN implementation


Another real company SAN implementation

Get Software Job Fast & Easy : Dedication is Essential

EMAIL roger.smithson@gmail.com FOR A FREE SAN STUDENT GUIDE PDF

What is Storage Area Networking (Videos)
Storage area networking Tutorial (Videos)
Career in storage technology needs dedication
High availability & its importance
Storage Area Networking Blog Contest- You Can Win
This Blog is dedicated to YOU
Cisco Network switches in a Data Center
Storage Switches in Cisco Central Network Lab
Data Center Real Cisco Virtual Tour : Modems
Cisco data center -You should have a look inside
Storage job openings in a High Paying Network Company
How to get an offer Letter with a big Salary in SAN industry
Your Resume Can be improved to Get You the Job
How to get job in software industry: SAN jobs is for you (Videos)
Regular day in a Storage Professionals Office Life

Storage Technology jobs : A high Paying Career

EMAIL roger.smithson@gmail.com FOR A FREE SAN STUDENT GUIDE PDF

One of the highest paying Career can be built in Storage technology.Yes You can get a Job,build your Career & Grow in Storage & Data Management. In this blog we have lots of small blogposts to know general information about storage & also there are many Videos to help you learn technical stuff.

IF U CAN SEND ANY ORIGINAL ARTICLE/POST/INTERVIEW QUESTIONS/INTERVIEW EXPERIENCE OR ANY WRITING WHICH CAN HELP JOB SEEKERS IN IT - I will send u 10 PDFs, links to 20 Videos & many more goodies - Contribute,Share your knowledge & Help people out there who are struggling for a Job & A Career.EMAIL your article to roger.smithson@gmail.com .

What is Storage Area Networking (Videos)
Storage jobs Salary structure How much they pay
Fibre channel Interview Questions
NAS Introduction
Network attached Storage Interview Questions
Veritas Volume Manager Interview Experience
SAN Interview Questions

This post is about "You" - How can I Help You Get That Job

This Blog is focussed on Helping You get a Job in Storage domain.

Till now I have written more than 23 posts about storage technology, interview tips, interview questions , how you can prepare , what are the job opportunities etc

But today I want to write about YOU.

I want to know from YOU
- What you would like to see on this blog
- What helps you get that Job you are aiming
- What is the information you are looking for
- What are the outlines or topics you want me to write about

Also can YOU tell me
- How you felt reading this blog
- What was bad and what was good
- What can be improved ( I know navigation is bad :(

Is there anyway YOU can contribute
- I know many people who visit this blog have quite a good experience , knowledge & many more things which they can share

Please write to me roger.smithson@gmail.com & I will reply you within 12 Hours. Thanks for taking time to read this blog.

Storage job openings in a High Paying Network Company

Almost all SAN companies now are in a huge Recruitment drive & sadly there are not enough storage professionals available to fulfill such an exponential demand for real SAN/NAS/Storage experienced techies. So companies are left with no choice but to hire someone from System admin or Network admin or Security admin background & give him little training -then he will be assigned SAN or Storage related job.

Read this blogpost on What are the tasks of a SAN professional- How will be a day in his office life?

Find below a Real Job Requirement for one of the Fortune 100 Storage company
[I was amazed at how big the expectation is & whether they are hiring a single guy or plan to hire a team of some 20 to 30 techies - The SALARY is BIG yes its more than $94,622 [US $] Per annum & there are perks too ]. Cant reveal the company's name but almost all storage companies have some or the other similar job requirements. So get started & pull yourself upto their expectations.

Experience: 2 to 5 years
Work Location: Santa Clara ,USA

Job Profile:

Infrastructure Analyst (Solaris Admin / Linux Admin / Windows 2003 Admin)
---------------------------------

Technical Skills and Experiences
-------------------------------------------

System administrator knowledge and demonstrated skills for a minimum of Solaris 10 (SPARC), or Solaris 10 (x86), or Red Hat Linux 4.0, or Windows 2003 Server.
Engineering or computer science educational qualifications.
At least 2 years of performing system administrator duties.
Diverse and in depth knowledge of the following storage technologies:
Locally attached disc drives (RAID 1 mirroring)
Network Attached Storage (NAS)
Storage Area Networks (SAN)
Diverse and in depth knowledge of the following network technologies:
TCP/IP
HTTP and HTTPS
Infiniband (a plus, but not required)
Has a broad understanding and experience in server hardware and server components
Network Interface Cards (NIC)
Host Bus Adapters (HBA)
Host Channel Adapter (HCA, this is a plus, but not required)
Single versus dual core processors
X86 or x64 or SPARC platforms
Server Blade experience is a plus, but not required
System management (onboard and out of band support)

Profile
------

Collaborates with the Product Engineers and Capability Engineers to develop test plans, test cases and testing scripts.
Executes the test plans and documents the results.
Collaborates with the Project Managers to create project related Issues and Risks.
Facilitates the root cause analysis of the engineering defects and produces revised testing plans, test cases and test scripts to mitigate the problems.
Produces metrics that feed into the overall Global Engineering Quality Management System .

The following server virtualization technologies are a plus, but not required

VMWare
Vframe
Virtual Server
Solaris 10 Containers
Xen

The following database technologies are a plus, but not required

SQL Server 2000, SQL Server 2005
Oracle 9i, Oracle 10g, Oracle RAC

The following cluster technologies are a plus, but not required

Sun Cluster
Microsoft Cluster
Veritas Cluster
Oracle CRS

The following testing products are a plus, but not required

Mercury’s Test Director
Mercury’s WinRunner
Mercury’s LoadRunner

The following scripting languages are a plus, but not required

Opsware Intelligent Software Module
Java script
Shell
VB Script
Command Line
Perl
C++, C#

Has an understanding of ITIL Service Management and ITIL ICTIM.

END OF JOB REQUIREMENT DESCRIPTION

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

Dont worry guys I will have lots of updates in my blog within next few days which will give lots of resources for you to be proficient in each of these technologies.

Why not Take a Look at some of the COOL STORAGE / SAN related Videos given in each of below links ::
Storage Resume or System Administration Resume

1.What is SAN ?
2.What are the JOB opportunities in SAN ?
3.Which are the companies in SAN and How much they pay ?
4.How Can I Enter SAN industry ?
5.What are the tasks of a SAN professional- How will be a day in his office life?
6.How will be a SAN job interview ?
7.SAN or Storage engineer position - Interview questions : Series1
8.Real SAN Interview questions with answers: Series2
9.Answers for SAN interview questions Series1.
10.Tell me about some Job Openings in SAN or Storage industry?
11.Do You Want to see an Enterprise SAN infrastructure - Thanks to Dell - Watch this informative Video - See a High End Lab

Google TechTalk VIDEO : Becoming a Software Testing Expert



Open Source event VIDEO

How to get job in software industry : SAN jobs is for you

How can I get a job in Storage Area Networking ?

This is the question with which I started my quest. Well all of you will ask this question in one or other contest like " How can I get a Job in Software Industry ?" or "How can I get a high paying job ?". We may help you :) just send an email to roger.smithson@gmail.com -recieve sample SAN resume, Videos, Tutorial PDFs, Downloadable MP3, REAL SAN JOB INTERVIEW QUESTIONS & their Answers.

READ THIS BLOG COMPLETELY FIND LOTS OF VIDEOS & MAKE MONEY IN MILLIONS - READ ALL THE ARTICLES TO FIND OUT HOW .
Welcome to this blog where I will help you in this journey from a Newbie to a Software Professional. Our focus is SAN as this is a NOT-SO saturated segment where you can get a job if you work as per our strategy.

STRATEGY: Getting a High paying Storage JOB

1. Build a simple resume with a basic profile in Storage Tech.
2. Research and Gather Projects on SAN which you can handle (in interviews :) this is the main topic on which you will get most of questions.
3. List the skillset around SAN ( which you can build in the little time you have - overcome your laziness buddy - If you want that job you need to work hard.)
4. Review your Resume & improvise so that you achieve a balance between - Amount of Learning Curve involved to master the technology - VS - Job or industry requirements.
5. Start STUDYING ( the hardest part and you will Love it once in JOB ).
6. Work on Lab or your scaled down lab ( Setit Up ) .
7. Attend seminars/workshops and get to know more about the practical exposures.
8. GO through hundreds of webcasts , podcasts and more PDF tutorials .
9. Start attending mock interviews (DO NOT MISS THIS DUDE).
10.Start preparing for the REAL interviews.
11.Improvise your resume and post on monster,dice,and all those big job portals
12.Be prepared for all the telephonic rounds or the initial filtering.
13.Attend your First Real Company interview ( Get squashed :)
14.Come back cheer up again - Start relearning with more zeal.
15.Attend more mock interviews and the real interviews.

I am 100% sure that if you have the guts to attend just 5 REAL COMPANY INTERVIEWS you can SURELY GET A GOOD SALARIED REAL OFFER LETTER.

I have more than 50 people who are Real Life Examples that this strategy works

GOOD NEWS IS : OUR BLOG IS GOING TO HELP YOU IN EACH & EVERY STAGE OF THIS STRATEGY.

All we want you to do is write about your present status & what you plan to aim & how you want us to Help You. Write to me at roger.smithson@gmail.com
Send your resume & tell us more about your job/salary expectation - I will do all the stuff to help you better your life ( Give me considerable time to help you achieve your aim - thats all I ask )

Please write your feedback on this blog we appreciate your feedback A LOT .

Each of the below given links contains VIDEO SECTION with very COOL & useful videos.

1.What is SAN ?
2.What are the JOB opportunities in SAN ?
3.Which are the companies in SAN and How much they pay ?
4.How Can I Enter SAN industry ?
5.What are the tasks of a SAN professional- How will be a day in his office life?
6.How will be a SAN job interview ?
7.SAN or Storage engineer position - Interview questions : Series1
8.Real SAN Interview questions with answers: Series2
9.Answers for SAN interview questions Series1.
10.Tell me about some Job Openings in SAN or Storage industry?
11.Do You Want to see an Enterprise SAN infrastructure - Thanks to Dell - Watch this informative Video - See a High End Lab

VIDEO SECTION for this post:
nVidia (Graphic chip Manufctr.-See the big machines in their Lab)


A great video explaining the internals of Sunfire Server (Sun Microsystems)


IBM's Linux Ad is somewhat different check it out :


For FUN : How many Gadgets we need to maintain our Tech Job.


Your Comments or Questions regarding this blog are welcome.
EMail roger.smithson AT gmail.com ( replace AT with @ )

Keep reading - We update new information daily about jobs in Storage Area Networking.

Comments on Storage jobs blog are very much appreciated

Thanks Jeremiah for the below comment,
Jeremiah Owyang said...
but how do you quantify location differences?
Are jobs in India for SAN The same as Santa Clara?

I agree location differences may be a factor for consideration . But i have done some research and found that the storage needs are increasing in US as well as many european countries. So definitely the need for Storage techies also is increasing . I have done a very basic search in monster on this link jobsearch.monster.com/index.asp?cookie=no ,for keyword "storage area network" and within first 4 pages i have found these many openings mentioned below - so it is very much true that the job requirements are there and the skilled persons are not available in the same ratio.

-Veritas Netbackup Administrator Location: US-CT-Hartford
-SAN/Storage Administratorv Location: Kansas City, MO 64101
-Enterprise AIX and Storage Architect Location: US-TX-Dallas
-Enterprise Storage Analyst Location: Bloomington, IL
-Storage Engineer Salary/Wage: USD 75,000.00 /year Salary Range Begins at: 75000
-Storage Engineer II Location :WINSTON SALEM, NC 27101
-Senior SAN Engineer Salary/Wage: USD 90,000.00 to USD 95,000.00 per year Plus Excellent benefit package
-Senior SAN Administrator Locat:Newyork Salary: 100,000.00 - 110,000.00 USD /year
-Storage Area Network Administrator: IMMEDIATE OPENING!! Location: Bluemont, VA
-Sr. Storage Administrator Location:Bothell, WA
-Lab Engineer - RAID, NAS, SAN, VLANs Location: Redmond, WA
-Storage Specialist N-Series :IBM Location :NC-Charlotte

So the jobs are increasing so are the expectations - I dont think any starter in IT industry can dream of above said jobs immediately but if they work hard consistently & keep themselves updated with the latest SAN technology they can win big.

See the trend : storage demands are increasing - required professionals availability is not - so companies are forced to hire new guys or to hire someone who know atleast good networking and system administration & then give them training. Even if we consider this still companies have to hire in big numbers to serve their growing customer demands. Hence many people who start their career with Storage or SAN in focus stand a chance to win a good job with a great pay.

All it takes is time , lots of effort & a mountain of patience. Find more information on Storage Area Network tutorials or SAN tutorials coming in this blog.

If You Like to See more such articles Plz add comments in this blog - also send a mail to roger.smithson@gmail.com - You will get a personalised training and A FREE - Jobs within a week - Secret blog access.

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.

VIDEO SECTION:
Thanks to 3DGameman.com see a NAS product Video review
(Network Attached Storage - a simple product for external storage Video)

How will be a day in a Storage professionals office life

Storage jobs or SAN jobs are there - Are you ready to win them !

Storage Resume or System Administration Resume

1.What is SAN ?
2.What are the JOB opportunities in SAN ?
3.Which are the companies in SAN and How much they pay ?
4.How Can I Enter SAN industry ?
5.What are the tasks of a SAN professional- How will be a day in his office life?
6.How will be a SAN job interview ?
7.SAN or Storage engineer position - Interview questions : Series1
8.Real SAN Interview questions with answers: Series2
9.Answers for SAN interview questions Series1.
10.Tell me about some Job Openings in SAN or Storage industry?
11.Do You Want to see an Enterprise SAN infrastructure - Thanks to Dell - Watch this informative Video - See a High End Lab

Regular day in a Storage Professionals Office Life

What are the daily tasks of a SAN professional - What are the routine jobs he is responsible for - What happens in a SAN industry engineers' day in office.

Answer :
As with any software professional's life the day starts with a brief review of going through the Mails - Since we are dependent on many other teams who are located in different time zones & geos we usually find nearly 50 to 150 new emails in our inbox when we start our day.

We go through all these mails - some of them are very much relevant to our day's tasks like "Storage Product enhancement or development efforts " , " New fixes which will impact our earlier planning" , Lots of organisation wide mails saying who will be our new director or finance manager , Lots of Network or system or UPS outage mails , Lots of mails about the CR's (Change request or Bugs) which we or one our teammate has logged and what are the latest updates regarding these bugs. The list of mails is endless so we better can have a separate posting for that.

Then based on our mails and our seniors(manager or lead) inputs and also based on our earlier days work we make our small "To Do " list for the day which is some how planned with keeping in mind the "Dreaded Project Deadlines" ( End dates for us to finish the assigned tasks).

An example of our To Do list can be something like :
1. Go through the docs about the new features coming in the next release or version of the storage area network product.
2. Setup a test environment to reproduce the CR's or bugs logged by customers. ( the end users of our storage products)
3. Verify the CR's fixed by dev team ( we logged 10 bugs last week they fixed it 2 days back & delivered the new fix in our latest build of the product yesterday so we need to verify it today ) - We need to verify the fix & say that the fix has resolved the issue also called the product defect or NOT. If the bug is fixed (resolved) we close the CR saying the FIX is FINE(works) else we say the FIX has failed ( the bug still exists & the development team has not fixed it properly)
4. Write new test scripts to check the regressions filed by customers - We also do test development ( We develop and script or code the test cases or test scenarios - this involves lot of learning , implementation & improving )
5. Setup new 2 Terrabyte disk array & test how well is it working with latest Vista or latest Suse or RHEL linux.

the list grows along the day & some of them move for next day's ToDo list.

Then we start the actuall work to accomplish what we have put in our ToDO list.
We may be working with new release of our SAN product and need to carry out sanity checks on the builds ,creating setups with different hardware and configurations and Operating Systems. We try to replicate customer network setups as far as possible but a customer like Citibank can have a huge SAN network costing billions of dollars what we can afford to replicate is no where comparable to that. We can say we setup a scaled down SAN network to work in our lab for all our work.

Storage jobs or SAN Jobs blog - Helps you get a Good Software Job

We will explain in detail each of the above mentioned tasks in our next week's blogpost. Please post comments or feedback . Ask as many questions about SAN or storage jobs.Find more information on Storage Area Network tutorials or SAN tutorials coming in this blog.

If You Like to See more such articles Plz add comments in this blog - also send a mail to roger.smithson@gmail.com - You will get a personalised training and A FREE - Jobs within a week - Secret blog access.

Can I get a job in SAN - I am new to Storage technology

SANs are primarily used in large scale, high performance enterprise storage operations. It would be unusual to find a Fibre Channel disk drive connected directly to a SAN. Instead, SANs are normally networks of large disk arrays. SAN equipment is relatively expensive, therefore, Fibre Channel host bus adapters are rare in desktop computers. The iSCSI SAN technology is expected to eventually produce cheap SANs, but it is unlikely that this technology will be used outside the enterprise data center environment. Desktop clients are expected to continue using NAS protocols such as CIFS and NFS. The exception to this may be remote replication sites. Remote replication enables the data center environment to exist in multiple locations for disaster recovery and business continuity purposes. The performance issues inherent in iSCSI are likely to limit its deployment to lower-tier applications, with Fibre Channel remaining incumbent for high performance systems.

VIDEO SECTION :
See Jonathan Schwartz,CEO - Sun Microsystems
You Can Win a SunFire X4500 Storage Server see this video

The 5 TOP questions any body wants to ask a SAN pro.

Storage jobs or SAN jobs have lot of tasks around setting and configuring SAN network and making them work smoothly with the latest OS or customer requirements.

Storage Resume or System Administration Resume

1.What is SAN ?
2.What are the JOB opportunities in SAN ?
3.Which are the companies in SAN and How much they pay ?
4.How Can I Enter SAN industry ?
5.What are the tasks of a SAN professional- How will be a day in his office life?
6.How will be a SAN job interview ?
7.SAN or Storage engineer position - Interview questions : Series1
8.Real SAN Interview questions with answers: Series2
9.Answers for SAN interview questions Series1.
10.Tell me about some Job Openings in SAN or Storage industry?
11.Do You Want to see an Enterprise SAN infrastructure - Thanks to Dell - Watch this informative Video - See a High End Lab