If you are new to the storage industry or looking to brush up on the basics, look no further than Storage University. SearchStorage.com has compiled three easy-to-follow tutorials on storage area networks (SANs), backup and storage management. These courses will give you the foundation to start, administer or fine-tune any large storage operation. Storage U. also gives you a chance you to raise your hand and ask a question of some of the best minds in storage.
COURSES
SAN School
Backup School
Storage Management School
Advanced Backup School
Tiered Storage School
SAN School
Storage area networks (SANs) have the ability to save a company money, hasten backups and help consolidate the data center. But, a SAN is not to be left alone. It's a complex growing, breathing entity that constantly needs to be tweaked and upgraded.
The authors of "Storage Area Networks for dummies", Christopher Poelker and Alex Nikitin, are your SAN School professors. In each of these 20-minute lessons they'll walk you through what a SAN is, all the way through connecting those last nodes for optimal performance. School is in session -- enjoy!
Part I: The storage area network
Lesson 1: The Storage area network
Do you need a SAN? Lesson one explores what a SAN is, the basic benefits of a SAN and which applications are best suited for a SAN.
Listen to Lesson 1
Lesson 2: SAN building blocks
Now that you know why you may need a SAN, this lesson explains the parts of a SAN. Chris also talks about modular versus monolithic, enterprise versus departmental, a look at RAID levels and LUNs.
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Lesson 3: What makes a SAN go
This lesson is devoted to the inner workings of a SAN, such as latency issues, Fibre Channel protocols, WWN and how the SAN fabric works.
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Lesson 4: What makes a SAN stop
This lesson looks at avoiding poor SAN design and choosing the right hardware and software for the job.
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***TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE OF PART 1 -- TAKE OUR QUIZ***
Once you've viewed lessons 1-4, test your skills by taking the
SAN School Quiz
Part II: Designing and building a SAN
Lesson 5: SAN loops and the SAN fabric
This lesson aims to help you design your SAN for maximum performance and availability. It uncovers SAN network topology, designing for high availability, zoning basics and using fault-tolerant connections.<
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Lesson 6: Disaster recovery planning
This lesson delves into disaster recovery planning and the costs associated with downtime, how to use a SAN for recovery and choosing a remote site.
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Lesson 7: Putting it all together
This lesson covers how to choose which applications/servers belong in your SAN, installing HBAs, loading firmware, starting drivers, setting the topology, testing for connectivity and zone types.
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***TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE OF PART 2 -- TAKE OUR QUIZ***
Once you've viewed lessons 5-7, test your skills by taking the
SAN School Quiz
Part III: Using advanced SAN features
Lesson 8: Tying your SANs together
Lesson 8 of SearchStorage.com's "SAN School" looks at how to extend the SAN, connectivity between SANs and SAN islands, IP storage, virtualization (in-band, out-of-band) and SW/HW pooling.
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Lesson 9: SAN backup, The killer app
In lesson nine of SearchStorage.com's "SAN School", professor Christopher Poelker discusses the merits of backup over the SAN.
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Lesson 10: Booting into your SAN
In lesson ten of SearchStorage.com's "SAN School" Christopher Poelker gives you a number of different reasons why booting from a SAN is beneficial.
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Lesson 11: Using point-in-time copies
Co-author of "Storage Area Networks for Dummies" Alex Nikitin explores some real world examples of where point-in-time copies should be used -- and how.
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***TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE OF PART III -- TAKE OUR QUIZ***
Once you've viewed lessons 8-11, test your skills by taking the
SAN School Quiz
Part IV: SAN management and troubleshooting
Lesson 12: Approaches to SAN management
This is a top down look at SAN management.
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Lesson 13: Storage Outsourcing
In Lesson 13 of SearchStorage.com's "SAN School" Alex Nikitin takes a look at your primary SAN management options.
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Lesson 14: Troubleshooting your SAN
"If anything can go wrong, it will." We all know this to be Murphy's Law -- and when it comes to SANs it applies 100%. This lesson helps you check for connectivity problems, using system error logs and using switch logging.
Listen to Lesson 14
***TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE OF PART IV -- TAKE OUR QUIZ***
Once you've viewed lessons 12-14, test your skills by taking the
SAN School quiz, part four
Want more in-depth SAN information? Purchase Storage Area Networks For Dummies today.
Backup School
Data is generally regarded as a company's first or second most valuable asset -- right on par with people. So, losing any of that data is a borderline disaster. One of the most important storage functions you need to know is how to properly backup and recover. What is Backup School? Backup School is dedicated to exposing you to all of the aspects of backup and how to optimize your backup environments.
Part I: Backup basics
Lesson 1: What is a backup?
Are you new to storage and backup? Lesson one of SearchStorage.com's "Backup School" explains the fundamentals of backup.
Listen to Lesson one right now.
Lesson 2: Backup media
What are the advantages and disadvantages of the different backup media? Lesson two of SearchStorage.com's "Backup school" explores the different types of backup media.
Listen to Lesson two right now.
Lesson 3: Cost justifying your backup plan
Lesson three of SearchStorage.com's "Backup School" focuses on creating a backup plan that not only jibes with the CTO but the CEO.
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Lesson 4: Database backup
This lesson looks at the different methodologies of backing up a database (SQL Server/Oracle) and it also covers the basics of replication.
Listen to Lesson four right now.
***TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE OF PART 1 -- TAKE OUR QUIZ***
Once you've viewed lessons 1-4, test your skills by taking the Backup School Quiz
Part II: Recovery
Lesson 5: Recovering from OS and application loss
Lesson five of SearchStorage.com's Backup School covers ways to prevent and recover from the loss of applications or an OS. Professor Dorian Cougias shows you what the best methods of restoring both are.
Listen to Lesson five right now.
Lesson six: Protection from hardware loss
What if your primary storage device fails? Lesson six of SearchStorage.com's Backup School is devoted to answering this question. Covered here: RAID levels, setting up a RAID system and SAN/NAS backup.
Listen to Lesson six right now.
***TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE OF PART 2 -- TAKE OUR QUIZ***
Once you've viewed lessons 5 & 6, test your skills by taking the Backup School Quiz
Part III: Advanced backups
Lesson seven: Replication
Lesson seven of SearchStorage.com's "Backup School" explains replication and why it's important to know where data is coming from and how often it's moved
Listen to Lesson seven right now.
Lesson eight: Setting up multiple backup servers
Lesson eight of SearchStorage.com's "Backup School" covers setting up and optimizing multiple backup servers, multipathing and remote management.
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Lesson nine: Compliant backups
This final lesson of SearchStorage.com Backup School covers everything you need to make your backups compliant and tells you who should be responsible for making sure they stay that way.
Listen to Lesson nine right now.
***TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE OF PART THREE -- TAKE OUR QUIZ***
Once you've viewed lessons 7-9, test your skills by taking the Backup School Quiz three
Backup School Final Exam
Take the Backup School Final Exam right now.
Want more in-depth Backup information? Purchase The Backup book today .
Storage Management School
Storage Management Survival School is dedicated to exposing you to all of the aspects of managing storage and how to optimize your environments so the pains described above can be minimized. In each of these 15-minute lessons, management experts will walk you through starting a storage management plan, operational best practices and setting up a storage management group. Storage Management Survival School is in session -- enjoy!
Lesson 1: Storage planning: Where on earth do I begin?
This lesson is relevant to anyone considering purchases of storage management tools in the next 12 months, as well as those considering chargeback, cost sharing and other billing tactics when dealing with business units on the storage budget.
Listen to Lesson one right now.
Lesson 2: Best practices: Storage management operations
Greg Schulz, Senior Analyst of the Evaluator Group, looks at the real nuts and bolts of daily storage management.
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***TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE -- TAKE OUR QUIZ***
Once you've viewed lessons 1-2, test your skills by taking the Storage Management Survival School Quiz
Lesson 3: Managing growth: How to stop the bleeding
This lesson aims to provide tips on how to plan for and manage exponential growth. This lesson will look at automation, policy and procedure, meeting/creating SLAs.
Listen to Lesson three right now.
Lesson 4: Taming the e-mail beast
How do you cope and manage explosive e-mail growth? Lesson four is here to help answer that.
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Lesson 5: Tiered storage, the next wave
In this lesson, Jamie Gruener examines the steps you should consider in designing a tiered storage model.
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***TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE -- TAKE OUR QUIZ***
Once you've viewed lessons 3-5, test your skills by taking the Storage Management Survival School Quiz
Lesson 6: Services architecture, a new approach to an old concept
In lesson six, analyst Jamie Gruener talks about where to start when looking at turning your storage operations into services.
Listen to Lesson six right now.
Lesson 7: Building a storage group
Systems are only as good as the people running them. This lesson is devoted to making sure you have the people in place to maximize your HW/SW investments.
Listen to Lesson seven right now.
***TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE -- TAKE OUR QUIZ***
Once you've viewed lessons 6 & 7, test your skills by taking the Storage Management Survival School Quiz
Advanced Backup School
SearchStorage.com's first backup school was focused on providing a library of content for brand new backup architects. Backup School had all of the fundamental nuts and bolts any storage manager would need to get a backup shop up and running. Now, with Advanced Backup School, it's time to take backup to the next level. Author and VP of Services, Glasshouse Technologies W. Curtis Preston will cover topics such as multi-streaming, interleaving, and multiplexing, and how most environments misuse them, when and how to use disk with your backup system, how to properly size your backup server, tape library, etc., the top ten ways storage folks misconfigure backup systems and when to use LAN-based, LAN-free, and server-free backups -- as well as other advanced backup techniques.
Curtis will deliver our Advanced Backup School in six concise, informative, vendor-neutral webcasts that aim to give the advanced, higher level architect the tools they need to build out the most efficient backup system.
Lesson one: Common backup configuration mistakes, part one
Many SANs are built in order to simplify backup -- yet often fail for lack of good design, processes and procedures. There are several common mistakes that people make when building a backup system. Avoiding these mistakes and taking proper action can create a backup system that is reliable and restorable. In lesson one of Advanced Backup School, W. Curtis Preston starts to deconstruct the common backup system and points out the mistakes that may be hampering your backup operations. This lesson will help you understand if your systems have too much or too little power and why you MUST consider multiplexing and multi-streaming to build efficient systems.
Listen to Lesson one right now.
Lesson two: Common backup configuration mistakes, part two
You learned some of the common configuration mistakes in lesson one of Advanced Backup School -- but that's not all that can go wrong. W. Curtis Preston is back to expose more common errors backup. In lesson two, Curtis covers why too many full backups is a bad thing and why standardizing is a good thing. Also here -- why you can't afford NOT to use disk-based backup.
Listen to Lesson two right now.
Lesson three: Disk-based backup
Because of its performance benefits, backing up to disk before tape is making a huge impact on the way backups are done. With the advent of low-cost ATA-based RAID, organizations can improve backup and recovery performance -- and do it more cost effectively. In lesson three of SearchStorage.com's Advanced Backup School, W. Curtis Preston explains what options you have in creating a disk-based system and the steps you need to take before implementing it.
Listen to Lesson three right now.
Lesson four: Sizing a backup system
Throwing more resources at a backup problem might not make the issues go away – but just make them bigger. In lesson four of Advanced Backup School, W. Curtis Preston gives you the formula for correctly sizing your backup systems. He'll give you specific metrics to size servers, databases and tape and disk libraries. Curtis also lets you know how big is too big for remote backups.
Listen to Lesson four right now.
Lesson five: Networked backups
SAN and NAS are two distinct networked storage options. Depending on which you are running in your shop -- you know they have distinct backup challenges. In lesson five of Advanced Backup School, W. Curtis Preston describes how to deal with the unique challenges of each and how to mange backups if you have SAN and NAS on the same floor. This lesson will also cover the intricacies of LAN-free, client-free and server-free backups along with NDMP configurations.
Listen to Lesson five right now.
Lesson six: Next generation backup
The traditional methods of backing up can only take your shop so far. Disk and tape have limitations that some of the products just starting to come onto the market will help alleviate. In lesson six of SearchStorage.com's Advanced Backup School, W. Curtis Preston goes beyond the limits of today's traditional backup techniques to expose you some of the burgeoning backup technologies.
Listen to Lesson six right now.
***TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE -- TAKE OUR QUIZ***
Once you've viewed the lessons, test your skills by taking the Advanced Backup School Quiz
In this school you will walk away with a better understanding of what tiering can do for your storage,and your business -- and how to classify your data, design your tiered storage architecture, and sell your plan to management.
The professors for Tiered Storage School are seasoned experts from Contoural, Inc. Both Mike Casey and Greg Forest bring more than 20 years of IT experience to the Tiered Storage School classroom.
Class is in session, enjoy!
Tiered Storage School
Lesson 1: The right storage at the right cost
Lesson one of Tiered Storage School will help you understand the key drivers of data growth -- including regulatory compliance, litigation discovery readiness, and business productivity. These business drivers provide the motivation and justification for a tiered storage strategy, and help you define the retention policies and service level objectives that your storage infrastructure must support.
Listen to Lesson one right now.
Get the worksheet, follow along with class
Lesson 2: Aligning your business with storage tiers
Lesson two of Tiered Storage School helps you align your business goals with your storage goals, by classifying your data. This key step starts with a discovery process to inventory your existing storage infrastructure and catalog your application data sets. Real-world examples illustrate the key concepts of application data groups, data classes and service level metrics.
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Lesson 3: Designing a tiered storage architecture
This webcast covers tiered storage architecture, using real-world examples to illustrate the addition of new storage tiers and service level configurations.
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Lesson 4: Justifying your tiered storage strategy to management
Lesson four of Tired Storage School will help you make your case to management. It maps tiered storage impacts to the strategic agendas of the CEO, CIO and CFO, focusing on business benefits such as improved service levels, reduced risks and lower costs.
Listen to Lesson four right now.
Get the worksheet, follow along with class
