Using SAN and NAS

Author: W. Curtis Preston
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-03-01
Features: Data is the lifeblood of modern business, and modern data centers have very strict requirements for size, speed, and reliability. Entire TB-level data storage is already common; petabyte-level data storage is also frequently heard of. However, the question is how to ensure that so much data remains available, with reasonable access times and throughput, and can be backed up and restored promptly? This book demonstrates how to build large-scale data centers using new technologies. It helps you understand which technologies are suitable for your network. What are the differences between SAN and NAS? How do they perform? What are the differences between NAS and simple NFS and SMB/CIFS? How do cutting-edge technologies like iSCSI and DAFS impact the landscape? What are the basic components of SAN, and how do they combine to form efficient storage solutions? Most importantly, this book pays special attention to the backup issues of large-scale data storage. How to design an efficient backup system to complete the backup or recovery of several TB storage systems within a reasonable time? What virtualization technologies can be used to make backups and recoveries almost instantaneous? This book is very practical, providing storage administrators with the tools they need to solve tough problems. It is an indispensable tool for storage administrators.