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What This Book Is About

only for RuBoard - do not distribute or recompile

What This Book Is About

This book is a comprehensive introduction to Storage Area Networks for IT professionals who must gain familiarity with this new technology.

The purpose of this book is to familiarize you with SAN technology and demonstrate its practical application in the IT environment.

You may have read an article or two about SANs, or you may have read an entire book. Chances are, however, that you have not yet encountered enough material in one publication to give you a complete SAN picture. We have found that even highly experienced system or network professionals are unfamiliar with SAN functionality and terminology.

The book opens with the basics, looking at the core definition of a SAN, a historical perspective on traditional storage (and its limitations), and the rudiments of Fibre Channel, the enabling technology for the SAN.

The middle part of the book is intended to be a comprehensive rundown of the SAN: the many ways to configure a SAN, advice on building your own SAN from your current legacy equipment, the workings of SAN backup, and managing the SAN. There s also an extensive chapter describing Hewlett-Packard SAN products.

The final portion of the book is an exercise in predicting the future. We begin with a brief interview with Duane Zitzner, President of Computing Sys-tems at Hewlett-Packard, to provide a sense of HP s commitment to the SAN in the future.

We then anticipate how the SAN will promote dramatic changes in existing applications and will very likely create brand new applications. If technology moves at its present pace (and we have no reason to doubt that) many of our speculations will be turning into realities even as this book is published.

only for RuBoard - do not distribute or recompile
only for RuBoard - do not distribute or recompile

Who Should Read This Book

Read this book if the concept, terminology, or setup of a Storage Area Network is new to you. Whether you are an experienced IT professional or a new practitioner, you will want to make these terms and this technology part of your background.

If you are planning a new SAN, converting your present storage solution to a SAN, or building out your present SAN, you will find useful concepts and ideas in this text.

Whether you work in an all-HP shop, a non-HP shop, a heterogeneous environment, or a mainframe data center, you will still find applicable information here. We describe Hewlett-Packard hardware and software products extensively, because we are very familiar with them, and we also happen to believe they are outstanding in performance, quality and reliability.

If you fall into one of the following groups, this book should be of value to you:

  • System administrators ”   those who control computer system configurations and resources

  • Network administrators ”   those who configure and support networks

  • Technical support/Response center engineers   those who support and troubleshoot mass storage resource problems for customers

  • IT executives ”   those responsible for acquiring and deploying storage technology solutions

  • IT students ”   those who want to get up to speed on real world business challenges

There s another person this book is intended for. That s the person who is or wants to become an IT SAN management professional. That s an individual who specializes in managing enterprise storage. The job title isn t in common use yet, but we think it will be used widely in the very near future.

By the way, it s also our intent that this book be informative, challenging, and fun for any general reader who wants to keep up with the latest technology.

only for RuBoard - do not distribute or recompile