Weak in "Storage"

jibbajabba

Heard that a few times after interviews but unfortunately I don't know in what area specifically as I am sure I am quite proficient in most areas (or so I believe). I am expert in iSCSI so I probably lack FC exposure (only ever played with the EMC UI).

Now I was looking into learning more about it and trying to find out what exactly it is I am lacking. I have an eye on the book "Storage Networks Explained" - but before I pull the "Amazon" Trigger (considering its high price tag) I prefer to ask for opinnions ..

Is this a good one to start ?

I intend to maybe go for SNIA once I read up on it, but an exam is currently not on the agenda ..

tenrou

I would recommend the Information and Storage Management book from EMC, it can be EMC centric in places but that isn't necessarily a bad thing given they have the largest presence in storage infrastructures. Lots on FC, iSCSI, RAID, Snapshotting, dedupe etc.

blargoe

Yes, get the EMC ISM book. You get the added bonus of having a book that correlates with their entry level cert.

Krunchi

I get this training for free and it is really good you could try the $99 one see if your company might pay for it. Dell Storage Training

dave330i

EMC ISM was pretty easy, but worth it. It gives you a nice overview of all things storage. Should be pretty easy for you with your VMware experience.

Claymoore

I liked Storage Networking Fundamentals from Cisco Press when I used it as a supplement for my EMCISA studies. It was written in 2004 - back when Infiniband was the future of storage networking - so iSCSI is an afterthought. If anyone else wants to learn iSCSI, try iSCSI: The Universal Storage Connection.

onesaint

I'm reading Storage Networks Explained 2nd edition. I'm only a bit into the book, so can't say much about it yet. These are all IBM storage techs that wrote the book, which makes me think the IBM redbook might have some of the same information.

IBM Redbooks | Introduction to Storage Area Networks and System Networking

Most likely I will read EMC's Information and Storage Management next. Either that or SNIA's online course for the Storage+ exam. Both seem interesting.

jmritenour

I would say to really be "strong" in storage, you also need to be familiar with FC and zoning out a fabric. Carving up the SAN is only one part of the equation - you also need to know how to make sure only the systems that need access to a LUN and get it. I used to think I was "strong" in storage until I started zoning Brocades as well. First one I did had LUN tresspass issues, causing a (non-production and non-customer owned, thank God) SQL cluster to get hosed. It was a hard lesson, but you've got to learn it.

jibbajabba

Oh I know what you're talking about. Someone else (not me haha) did the same and a SQL LUN was presented to an ESX server. The same weekend there was a change that a new LUN was supposed to be presented which is why the guy working on the ESX server correctly assumed that this is the one to use and the rest is history ..