Storage Learning

Daniel333

All,

How do these storage vendors educate? I mean, Microsoft and Cisco have great learning paths and easy/cheap access to similators, trial versions of the software and endless options concerning books.

Meanwhile, I don't see any storage simulators/emulators, books, cbts for Hitachi or EMC etc.

How do they expect you to learn and break into that field? Just curious how everyone got their storage experience?

onesaint

The stance seems to be learn by owning, at this point. The few folks I've dealt with regarding our storage were either trained by the vendors directly or worked with companies that picked up the training tab.

Resources I've found:
Books via Amazon, on average last updated around 2009 and not much new, still relevant though.
Vendor training such as EMC education, Isilon training, Hitachi, etc., - can get quite expensive if your footing the bill.
IBM's Redbooks such as: IBM Redbooks | IBM SAN Survival Guide

Hope this helps.

kriscamaro68

onesaint wrote: »

The stance seems to be learn by owning, at this point. The few folks I've dealt with regarding our storage were either trained by the vendors directly or worked with companies that picked up the training tab.

This. We have used both EMC and Netapp and if you want training you need to own a unit otherwise save a months+ worth of paychecks if not more to get trained by them.

blargoe

Yep. You're not going to get anything more than a "Survey of" or "Foundations of" storage technologies (i.e., a general overview that is very basic and vendor neutral, and not hands-on or simulated), unless you own a product of spend thousands of dollars.

I've heard EMC's intro book is pretty decent. I don't have any first hand experience with it though... my company paid for classes for me.

Forsaken_GA

A good place to start learning is to install the EMC Celerra VSA. It's not as much fun as playing with real equipment, but it can give you a bit more of a practical foundation than reading a book will.

Running your own EMC Celerra ‘Uber’ Virtual Storage Appliance (VSA) in your vSphere Lab – Part 1

onesaint

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

A good place to start learning is to install the EMC Celerra VSA. It's not as much fun as playing with real equipment, but it can give you a bit more of a practical foundation than reading a book will.

Running your own EMC Celerra ‘Uber’ Virtual Storage Appliance (VSA) in your vSphere Lab – Part 1

Awesome find.

I was talking with a tech a few weeks back who was given this in a class along with a OneFS VM. I was envious, but haven't had time to look for the VSA. Now, I don't have to!

gkca

Another option is HP P4000 VSA, you can get a 60 day eval version here: HP LeftHand Virtual SAN Appliance Software - Overview & Features