Storage infrastructure fundamentals and Basics - Quick Reference Guide
This quick reference guide will help you to learn the basics of Storage infrastructure and its uses in the current and next generation IT datacenters. The next generation IT datacenters are basically the data centers which can also support cloud computing services (i.e which can host both private and public clouds) along with the traditional data center requirements. This tutorial will cover all the basic introduction of the SAN, NAS features along with their physical and logical infrastructure.
Most of these lessons are abstracted from various storage certification guides such as SNIA, EMC, IBM & Comptia and consolidated into a single tutorial to give you the best possible guidelines to become Storage expert. Based upon this tutorials, it is also recommended to get trained on the vendor specific storage arrays if you are planning your career in Storage area.
Chapter 1: Overview of IT Datacenter
1.1 Introduction to Data and Information
The terms Data and Information are closely connected and it's common for the two terms to be used interchangeably. However, it's vital to grasp...
1.2 Introduction to Storage Infrastructure and IT Datacenters
In the previous post, we learned the basics of Data and Information and need for a intelligent storage systems which can store, manage and...
1.3 Key Characteristics of IT Datacenter
In the previous post, we understood the concepts of storage device, storage arrays and IT Datacenter. We also understood the various components of IT...
1.4 Data Center Design and its Components
Data centers are key to any organization that values its data. In the modern world, the data center is more of a technology engine...
Chapter 2: Intelligent Storage Arrays (Systems)
2.1 Types of Storage Devices used in Storage Arrays
There are different types of storage devices which can be used for storing the data and based upon the business requirement & cost, storage...
2.2 ElectroMechanical Hard Disk Drive (HDD) Overview
A hard disk drive is a persistent storage device that stores and retrieves data using rapidly rotating disks (platters) coated with magnetic material. The...
2.3 Solid State Drive (SSD) Overview
Solid State Drives (SSDs) are storage devices that contain non-volatile flash memory. Solid state drives are superior to mechanical hard disk drives (HDD) in...
Chapter 3: Introduction to RAID Techniques
3.1 Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) Overview
One of the main feature why the storage systems became intelligent is by using the technique called RAID. A group of disk drives which...
3.2 Types of RAID Levels
There are different types of RAID levels which we can use in the storage systems. The RAID level selection depends on the parameters such as...
3.3 Overview of RAID 0 and its use cases
RAID 0 does not offer data redundancy as it does not use parity or mirroring techniques. RAID 0 uses striping technique to store the...
Chapter 4: Fibre Channel (FC) SAN and Protocols
4.1 Introduction to SAN Protocols
The next generation IT platform is built on social networking, mobile computing, cloud services, and big data analytics technologies. Applications that support these technologies...
4.2 Fibre Channel (FC) SAN Components
FC SAN is made up of several physical and logical components. Such as
Host bus adapters and converged network adapters
FC Switches and directors
FC Storage Arrays
FC...
4.3 Overview of Fibre Channel (FC) SAN Protocol
Traditionally, compute operating systems have communicated with peripheral devices over channel connections, such as Enterprise Systems Connection (ESCON) and SCSI. Channel technologies provide high...
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Chapter 5: Fibre Channel over IP (FCIP) SAN and Protocols
5.1 Introduction to IP SAN and their components
As discussed in previous chapter Fibre Channel (FC) SAN provides high performance and scalability. These advantages of FC SAN come with the burden of...
5.2 iSCSI Interfaces and Connectivity types
iSCSI SANs are composed of initiators and targets connected by an IP network where server acts as the initiator or ISCSI host and the...
5.3 iSCSI Architecture and Addressing
SCSI is the command protocol that works at the application layer of the Open System Interconnection (OSI) model. The initiators and the targets use...
Chapter 6: Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) SAN and Protocols
6.1 The need for a Converged Enhanced Ethernet (CEE) Network
In today's data center environment, we generally have at least two major networks - Ethernet network and Fibre Channel network. Ethernet is used for transferring regular management traffic...
6.2 Functions of Converged Enhanced Ethernet (CEE)
Conventional Ethernet is lossy in nature, which means that frames might be dropped or lost under congestion conditions. Therefore, Converged Enhanced Ethernet (CEE) provides...
6.3 Introduction to Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) SAN
As discussed in previous 2 posts, traditional Data Centers typically have multiple networks to handle various types of network traffic for example, an Ethernet...
Chapter 7: Introduction to Block Based Storage Systems (SAN)
7.1 Block Based Storage Systems (SAN) Overview
A block-based storage system is the traditional storage systems which provides hosts with block-level access to the storage volumes. In this type of storage...
7.2 Importance of Cache technique in Block Based Storage Systems
Cache is a semiconductor memory where data is placed temporarily to reduce the time required to service I/O requests from the hosts. Cache improves...
7.3 Storage Provisioning and Capacity Optimization Techniques
The storage space from the storage systems is assigned to the individual physical hosts or VMware (hypervisor) hosts whenever it is requested. This allocation...
Chapter 8: Introduction to File Based Storage Systems (NAS)
8.1 File based Storage Systems (NAS) Overview
There are 2 types of traditional storage techniques used in any organization data centers. They are
Block storage
File storage
Block storage shares raw devices...
8.2 How NAS is different from SAN and DAS
Generally NAS storage is often used for unstructured data storage such as shared folders and document repositories. SAN and NAS have been around for years. SAN...
8.3 NAS File Sharing Protocols
Different methods or protocols can be used to access files on a NAS system. The most common methods of accessing NAS systems or NAS...
Chapter 9: Introduction to Object Based Storage Systems (OSD)
9.1 Object based Storage Systems Introduction
The rapid adoption of next generation technologies like social media, big data analytics, cloud, and mobile application leads to significant data growth. Today, organizations...
9.2 Key Features of Object based Storage Systems
Object based storage is a new type of storage system designed for cloud-scale scalability. Objects are stored and retrieved from an object store through the...
9.3 How data is stored and retrieved from Object based Storage...
Unlike SAN and NAS storage systems where data is accessed through block and file level respectively, Object based storage systems stores and retrieves any...
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Chapter 10: Introduction to Unified Storage Systems and Software Defined Data centers (Storage & Networking)
10.1 Unified Storage Systems Introduction
In any enterprise data center, different storage systems (block-based, file-based, and object-based storage) are deployed to meet the needs of different applications. In many...
10.2 Software Defined Storage (SDS) Introduction
In a traditional data centers, there are several challenges in provisioning and managing storage in an efficient and cost-effective manner. Some key challenges the...
10.3 Software Defined Storage Architecture Overview
The below diagram shows the generic architecture of a software-defined storage environment. Although the physical storage devices themselves are central to SDS, they are...
Chapter 11: Data Backup and Archive
11.1 Protecting the Data for short term (Data Backup)
Just as we protect the IT physical infrastructure such as Servers, Storage Systems and network components etc, it is also important for organizations to...
11.2 Data Backup Architecture and Components
The common and widely used Backup Architecture is based on the Server-Client model. Any backup architecture is composed of the following four components.
Backup Servers
...
11.3 Different types of data backup methods
There are different backup methods which can be used to backup the organization's application and their data. Below are the majorly used backup methods in the...
Chapter 12: Introduction to Data Replication Techniques
12.1 Data Replication Techniques Introduction
It is important for any organization to protect their critical data across physical, virtual, and cloud environments to minimize the risk of business disruption....
12.2 Introduction to Server based Replication
In the server based replication, the servers resources such as CPU and memory are utilised to perform and manage the replication operation. The server based replication supports...
12.3 Introduction to Storage System based Replicaion
In the storage system based replication, the storage system operating environment performs the replication process. Unlike Server based replication, server resources such as the...
Chapter 13: Storage Management & Data Security
13.1 Introduction to Storage Infrastructure Management
Storage Infrastructure management defines the management and monitoring of the storage
devices in the data centers. The three major areas of management are capacity, performance, and availability. These...
13.2 Introduction to the key Storage Management Operations
The Key Storage Management Operations consists of Storage Monitoring, Storage Alerting, and Storage Reporting. Storage Monitoring provides the performance and availability status of various infrastructure...
13.3 Factors affecting SAN performance
The common factors which can affect storage infrastructure performance are the type of RAID level configured or due to enabling or disabling Cache, due...
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Most Read by Other Users
1.1 Introduction to Data and Information
The terms Data and Information are closely connected and it's common for the two terms to be used interchangeably. However, it's vital to grasp...
4.6 Fibre Channel (FC) SAN Topologies Overview
Out of the FC SAN inter-connectors such as Hub, Switch and Directors, FC Switch and FC Directors are majorly used devices in any Storage...
4.4 Introduction to Fibre Channel (FC) SAN Architecture and port virtualization
The FC SAN physical components such as network cables network adapters and hubs or switches can be used to design a Fibre channel Storage...
