Storage Management Strategies for the CIO
Access "Part two on troubleshooting your SAN."
This article is part of the Vol. 1 No. 10 December 2002 issue of Are your data storage costs too high?
Last month, we discussed some of the best practices involved in chasing down and resolving problems in your storage area network (SAN). (See SAN troubleshooting techniques) These practices relied on the administrator understanding the functionalities available at the five different layers of the Fibre Channel (FC) reference model. This month, we'll cover how to use these practices and tools to uncover and understand common errors occurring in corporate SANs today. In addition, we'll look at how FC analyzers are helping enterprises reduce recovery time by finding out what's going on beneath the fabric. Hardware-related errors Let's start to delve into some of the common errors you'll experience in operating your SAN, and how you can gain familiarity with the interworkings of your interconnects by taking methodical approaches to resolution. We'll assume that you're running certified versions of your vendor's firmware and device drivers, so your problems lie elsewhere. After first checking the LED status of the switches in the data path to verify a good link, ... Access >>>
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What's Inside
Features
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Backup Arrays Revisited
Was 2002 the year of the ATA-based backup array?
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Are you paying too much for storage?
With features, functions and capacity all moving downstream, you may be able to kick the overpriced storage habit.
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IBM Demos Storage Tank
Big Blue's new Autonomic Computing Organization is working on technologies that will reduce the human costs of running complex computing and storage systems.
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Road testing fast HBAs
by Tom Henderson
We put four PCI-X adapters to the test and the results are instructive.
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Learn from mainframe storage
by Johanna Ambrosio
Open systems dudes--it's all been done before on the mainframe as far as systematic storage management goes. Check it out.
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The networked storage project: Getting started
by Jeffrey Fritz
If you're just getting started, check out how West Virginia University built its first SAN to handle e-mail.
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Tape libraries on the SAN: sharing isn't always good
by Darryl Brooks
If your latest project is choosing a new tape library for your SAN, you have a lot of decisions to make--the most important being how to architect your backup.
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Your next data center: Think flexible
by David Braue
The second part of our two-part article focuses on the networking infrastructure of the new data center.
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Backup Arrays Revisited
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Fibre Channel and ATA: An Odd Couple?
Those IT shops that build SANs are typically characterized by their demanding performance requirements.
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CTRC Mirrors with iSCSI
The Cancer Therapy and Research Center in San Antonio has aggressive uptime goals for IT resources at its two facilities.
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SNIA Relaunches Supported Solutions Forum
Eighteen months ago, the Storage Networking Industry Association announced the formation of the Supported Solutions Forum.
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HBAs: Why some are better than others
The storage chain is only as strong as the weakest HBA. Here's how to spot the strong ones.
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Pixie dust & GBIC
Pixie dust & GBIC
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Vendors and CIM: How Deep is Their Love?
The reign of CIM-based storage management is just around the corner.
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Backup, Replication Next on Automation Agenda
Why the sudden fuss over provisioning?
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Fibre Channel and ATA: An Odd Couple?
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Columns
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Creating a storage services group
Now that you've created a storage services group, it's time to roll it out.
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Don't let vendor doublespeak prevent you from innovating
Storage Bin: Don't let vendor doublespeak prevent you from innovating.
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Part two on troubleshooting your SAN.
by Darryl Brooks
Part two on troubleshooting your SAN.
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Snapshot: Deploying IP storage technology
Will you deploy IP storage technology?
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SNIA's new heterogeneous storage management solution
by Stephen Foskett
SNIA is promising a new solution that manages heterogeneous storage environments. Will it deliver?
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Out with the old, in with the new
by Mark Schlack
Out with the old, in with the new
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Creating a storage services group
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