Designing Storage Area Networks, Second Edition, succinctly captures the key technologies that are driving the storage networking industry. Tom Clark's works are helping to educate the IT community to the benefits and challenges of shared storage and are recommended reading for anyone wishing to understand this exciting new technology."

—Sheila Childs, VP Product Management, Legato Systems Chairperson, SNIA

Fibre Channel SANs have become a mainstay at the backend of the biggest corporations on the planet. The second edition of Designing Storage Area Networks brings the next wave of connection (IP) points and management into context, helping the user to quickly understand all the benefits before them."

—Steve Duplessie, Founder and Senior Analyst, Enterprise Storage Group

Designing Storage Area Networks, Second Edition, provides a practical roadmap through the ever-changing landscape of SAN technology. The new Fibre Channel, IP, and virtualization initiatives covered in this work will enable customers to implement comprehensive shared storage solutions that reduce management overhead and cost."

—John Webster, Founder and SeniorAnalyst, Data Mobility Group

Storage Area Networks (SANs) are now recognized as the preferred solution for fulfilling institutions' and enterprises' critical data-storage needs. Whether powered by Fibre Channel or TCP/IP and Gigabit Ethernet technology, SANs far exceed the capabilities of traditional storage access methods. SANs are quickly becoming the solution of choice for organizations that require high-volume data-handling capacity.

Written for network developers, IT consultants, administrators, and managers, this updated and greatly expanded edition of the best-selling Designing Storage Area Networks goes far beyond a straight description of technical specifications and standards. The text offers practical guidelines for using diverse SAN technologies to solve existing networking problems in large-scale corporate networks. With this book you will learn how the technologies work and how to organize their components into an effective, scalable design. In doing so, you will discover today's best methods for managing storage area networks, including new troubleshooting techniques.

Designing Storage Area Networks, Second Edition, also features detailed case studies that demonstrate how SANs can solve a number of commonly encountered business challenges, including LAN-free and server-free tape backup, server clustering, and disaster recovery. As an information-systems professional, you must keep pace with this powerful, evolving technology.

Key topic coverage includes:

• Using the SNIA Shared Storage Model

• Fibre Channel layers and protocols

• Fabrics and fabric switches

• Host bus adapters

• Fibre Channel RAID and Fibre Channel JBODs

• iSCSI and IP storage protocols and products

• SAN management and problem isolation techniques

• Building extended SANs for data center and remote storage access

• 
  
  0321136500B02242003

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 5 Ratings

Very detailed description of SAN technology - 2003-11-16
Reviewer Rating:
This was a very good overview of the many varied components and technologies that make up a storage area network. It goes into a lot of detail about things like standards, protocols, speeds, etc. If you want to understand the differences between iSCSI and FCIP, for example, this is the book for you. The word "Reference" in the subtitle is accurate. It's not a guide on how to administer a SAN day-to-day in the real-world; it's about the concepts and details of what a SAN really is. The writing style is a little dry, but I didn't expect it to be a page-turner. My only disappointment was when I realized that over 1/4 of the book is devoted to appendices, glossary and index instead of written content.

Understand technology behind without reading T11 standards - 2005-03-04
Reviewer Rating:
This book is quite dry, no question about that, but not as dry as the standards published by organizations in charge with Fibre Channel standards. Yet, as a SAN designer or SAN administrator you can find in it all the information you need to understand the inner details of a Loop Insertion Primitive or how an Alternate buffer-to-buffer credit model works. Compared with other books on the subject is remarcably error free and I was nicely impressed by Mr. Clark's considerations upon what should be the customer' role in steering vendors in developing products that are more open and interoperate better.

Great Book - 2008-06-03
Reviewer Rating:
This book is a very good overview of the field. The information contained therein is a little dated, but most of it still applies to today. It is well written and concise.

Good, Practical Overview - 2007-10-29
Reviewer Rating:
A good overview of SAN technology. My first exposure to SANs and Fiber Channel switches was the Web interfaces for the devices we have. I bought this book and it made much sense of what I saw in the Web pages. While not perfect (and not vendor specific), it covers the topic concisely and throroughly.

A definite good technical read - 2007-07-15
Reviewer Rating:
Good details description very easy to read, facts and information from the very basic to very technical. A definite good technical read.

Browse Similar Topics

Top Level Categories:
Networking

Sub-Categories:
Networking > Storage Area Network