Product Description

If you’ve been charged with setting up storage area networks for your company, learning how SANs work and managing data storage problems might seem challenging. Storage Area Networks For Dummies, 2^nd Edition comes to the rescue with just what you need to know.

Whether you already a bit SAN savvy or you’re a complete novice, here’s the scoop on how SANs save money, how to implement new technologies like data de-duplication, iScsi, and Fibre Channel over Ethernet, how to develop SANs that will aid your company’s disaster recovery plan, and much more. For example, you can:

• Understand what SANs are, whether you need one, and what you need to build one
• Learn to use loops, switches, and fabric, and design your SAN for peak performance
• Create a disaster recovery plan with the appropriate guidelines, remote site, and data copy techniques
• Discover how to connect or extend SANs and how compression can reduce costs
• Compare tape and disk backups and network vs. SAN backup to choose the solution you need
• Find out how data de-duplication makes sense for backup, replication, and retention
• Follow great troubleshooting tips to help you find and fix a problem
• Benefit from a glossary of all those pesky acronyms

From the basics for beginners to advanced features like snapshot copies, storage virtualization, and heading off problems before they happen, here’s what you need to do the job with confidence!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #13486 in Books
• Published on: 2009-01-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 456 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780470385135
• Condition: USED - VERY GOOD
• Notes:
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From the Back Cover
So you need to set up a SAN? Here's how to design, implement, and manage one!

Whether you're a complete novice or you already have a bit of knowledge about storage area networks, this book is almost guaranteed to make your job easier. From the basics for beginners to advanced features like snapshot copies, storage virtualization, and heading off problems before they happen, here's what you need to do the job with confidence!

• Getting started — understand what SANs are, whether you need one, and what you need to build one

• Design basics — learn to use loops, switches, and the fabric layer, and design your SAN for peak performance

• No surprises — create a disaster-recovery plan with the appropriate guidelines and choose a remote site and data replication method

• SANs united — see how to connect or extend SANs and how compression can reduce costs

• Wait, back up — compare tape, disk, network, and SAN backup methods to choose the solution you need

• What if it breaks? — follow great troubleshooting tips to help you find and fix a problem

• De-dupe, de-dupe — find out how data de-duplication makes sense for backup, replication, and retention

• It's virtual — explore different types of virtualization and what they offer

Open the book and find:

• What RAID is and why it's important

• Issues to consider when planning your SAN

• A translation of all those pesky acronyms

• What to do when your server gets the hiccups

• How to use CDP and CDR

• What you should beware of with storage virtualization

• Hardware- and software-based copy solutions

• SAN best practices

About the Author
Christopher Poelker is Vice President of Enterprise Solutions for FalconStor Software, Inc. He spends most of his time with Fortune 1000 companies defining strategy for virtualization and business continuity solutions. Chris is also in great demand as a conference speaker.

Alex Nikitin has been a storage architect and consultant for more than ten years.

Customer Reviews

Buy the 2nd Edition if you see Dummies man on the cover
The second edition of Storage Area Networks For Dummies by the same authors is available. That edition has a computer photo on the cover rather than Dummies man.

The ISBN for the second edition is 0470385138. You can search on that ISBN to find the most up-to-date information on SANs, including iSCSI, data de-duplication, and storage virtualization solutions.

Excellant over view of NAS servers.
This is the first book that I have seen that gives a clear and concise over view of SAN. I have looked at several books, and while they may be very good and detailed, they usually assume that the reader has has previous experiece with SAN servers. In essence they describe their speciality and not how the system works as a whole. You could say that they describe a tree or particular plant and not the ecology of the whole forest.

This book begins at a high level explaining how the system works as a whole and then works down to the detail level with examples of installing switches and servers, with command line entry examples.

If you are getting started in system adminiatration and storage servers, I highly recommend this book as one of your first reads. This books covers using both Windows and UNIX.

Great for storage concepts
I had very little experience with storage before reading this book. Now I feel that I've been properly armed with the basics such that I could dig into an environment and know pretty much what's going on and would be able to draw up an architecture diagram from what I'd be able to learn looking at switches and such. Definitely a good primer for those with little to no storage experience.