Introduction

   

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Gordon Moore, Intel's cofounder, once observed that the density of transistors per square inch was doubling every year. Subsequently, the pace dropped a little and the doubling was perceived to be once every 18 months instead of once every 12 months. According to industry analysts, however, the enterprise storage industry is still beating Moore's law in its growth.

One estimate is that in the next few years , more data will be generated than has been created since the dawn of known history! Regardless of the exact details, one must concede that Windows servers play an important role in the enterprise storage industry. Therefore, knowledge of the storage aspects of the Windows operating system will prove to be invaluable. This book is a humble attempt to meet this perceived need.

A word or two about the conventions used in this book would be helpful. The book uses the phrases "Windows NT" and "Windows Server family" interchangeably. Both are used when a feature that is common across all of Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, and Windows Server 2003 is being discussed. When necessary, a particular version of the operating system is mentioned ”for example, Windows 2000 or Windows Server 2003 ”and these terms refer to particular versions of the operating system rather than to the operating system in a generic sense.

This book has been written for those who are somewhat conversant with computer systems and the IT industry and who are looking to further their knowledge of the storage industry in general and of Windows NT architecture details as they apply to storage devices. To be clear, this book is about enterprise storage, and consumer storage details are described cursorily, if at all. The book attempts to strike a balance between catering to the software professional who knows nothing about storage and the professional who is somewhat conversant with storage but looking for good insights into Windows NT storage architecture.

If the reader comes away with just one idea after reading this book, it should be a deep appreciation of the steady acceleration of enterprise storage “ related features that each succeeding release of the Windows NT operating system has brought and will bring to market.

This book attempts to strike a balance among the following aspects:

• Making information available in a timely manner.

• Providing detailed information and respecting intellectual property rights. The book covers several software development kits (SDKs) that are available only on a nondisclosure agreement (NDA) basis. Hence the coverage of these kits has been necessarily limited to what is already publicly available information. I have erred on the side of caution, preferring to provide only information that I know is publicly available, but I have added value to this often cryptic and hard-to-find information by providing the necessary explanations .

• Providing information on upcoming Windows NT releases and not just "stale" information about past Windows NT releases. Such forward-looking information is necessary for a proper appreciation of the clear focus that Microsoft has devoted to enterprise storage in the Windows NT operating system. The obvious risk is that plans are subject to change. The book clearly mentions when a particular aspect is related to forthcoming Windows NT releases.

A word of caution is in order here. This book makes some forward-looking statements in the form of expected features in forthcoming releases of the Windows NT operating systems. Microsoft has repeatedly made it clear that the only guaranteed way of identifying features in an operating system release is to look for them after the actual release. No matter what is said in venues such as trade shows and seminars , there is no guarantee that features tentatively discussed will ever ship, let alone ship with a particular version of the operating system. No material plans of any kind should be based on these guesses.

Any reader who does not appreciate the "Safe Harbor statement" nature of the previous paragraph is highly encouraged to study (and not just read) it again.

The book begins with an overview of Windows NT architecture, including the Windows NT I/O subsystem and storage driver architectures. Chapter 1 is an attempt to condense the vast amount of information purveyed in the excellent Inside Windows NT books (Microsoft Press), and it is intended for readers who do not have the time to peruse the book in its entirety.

Chapter 2 describes direct-attached storage, which was historically the first choice for storage.

Chapter 3 describes network-attached storage, the next major milestone in enterprise storage. The Windows NT network stack is explained in detail, from the point of view of the storage professional.

Chapter 4 describes Fibre Channel storage area networks, a technology that is perceived to be rapidly maturing now and still holding its own in the face of upcoming new technology in the form of iSCSI and InfiniBand.

Chapter 5 covers the basics of backup and restore, and the new volume shadow copy service (also popularly referred to as snapshots) in Windows Server 2003.

Chapter 6 covers file systems and disk virtualization, with particular reference to Windows NT. Cluster file systems are also discussed.

Chapter 7 discusses storage management in general and the various storage management solutions as they apply to Windows NT.

Chapter 8 covers new technologies in storage, particularly IP storage (which attempts to meld storage and IP networks), as well as InfiniBand.

Chapter 9 discusses Windows Server 2003 and Windows 2000 natively supported solutions to provide high-availability services (including fail over, failback, and load balancing) using multiported dual host bus adapters (HBAs) in a Windows NT server. The chapter also discusses more mundane high-availability and high-performance solutions, such as RAID.

Although the rest of this book is organized into chapters based on technologies, Chapter 10 is organized by Windows NT releases. Irrespective of the storage technology that is being discussed, Chapter 10 traces the storage features as they appeared in Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003, and expected features in Windows releases to come.

So read on, and I hope, enjoy.

Please send all feedback to [e-mail].

Dilip  C.  Naik
Redmond,  Washington
[e-mail]

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