OmniTraining

SN101: FC Domains and VSANs

Understanding the way FC identifies domains, and a new mechanism for virtualizing your fabric, enables you to exploit these concepts to your advantage. Building a SAN isn't difficult—you just plug things in—but to make it resilient in the face of changes, ay, there's the rub. In this Storage Networking 101, we will learn about FC Domains, address assignment, and VSANs.

SN101: Understanding the FC Protocol

Understanding the guts of FC itself, including the naming format and addressing scheme, allows one to better understand what's happening on a SAN. Quickly glancing at a problem and knowing what's wrong requires thorough knowledge of all the protocols involved. While it's possible to operate a SAN with only point-and-click GUIs and limited knowledge, it certainly isn't recommended. Let's learn about the FC protocol.

Connecting a host to your shiny new SAN is not the same as connecting a single disk, or even a direct-attached SCSI array. This article will explain the reasoning behind the Best Practices, and explain how to configure your storage for optimal reliability.

Storage Networking 101: Planning Your Fabric

Once a SAN fabric grows beyond the initial two SAN switches, it's time to start planning and designing your network. SANs can be easy to slap together, but so are Ethernet networks and both require some careful planning for scalability. This week we will discuss some common SAN design principles and help you plan for expansion.