Storage Flashcards
What is a HBA
Host bus adapters (HBAs) are needed to connect the server (host) to the storage.
What’s the difference b/w a SAN and NAS
The basic difference between SAN and NAS, SAN is Fabric based and NAS is Ethernet based.
SAN - Storage Area Network
It accesses data on block level and produces space to host in form of disk.
NAS - Network attached Storage
It accesses data on file level and produces space to host in form of shared network folder.
How is a SAN managed
There are many management software’s used for managing SAN’s to name a few:
Santricity.
IBM Tivoli Storage Manager.
CA Unicenter.
Veritas Volumemanger.
What are the SAN technologie
SAN can be connected in 3 types which are mentioned below:
Point to Point topology.
FC Arbitrated Loop (FC :Fibre Channel).
Switched Fabric.
Name some of the states of RAID array
There are states of RAID arrays that represent the status of the RAID arrays which are given below:
a. Online.
b. Degraded.
c. Rebuilding.
d. Failed.
a) Ethernet.
b) SCSI.
c) Fibre Channel.
What are the protocols used in physical/datalink and network layer of SAN?
What is a Fabric?
Interconnection of Fibre Channel Switches
What is Zoning?
Fabric management service that can be used to create logical subsets of devices within a SAN. This enables portioning of resources
What is LUN masking
A method used to create an exclusive storage area and access control. And this can be achieved by storage device control program.
What is the difference between HBA and NIC?
HBA => Host bus adapters are used in storage based traffic while NIC (Network Interface Cards are used in IP based LAN traffic.
What advantages would using an iSCSI Storage Area Network (SAN) give to your organization over using Direct Attached Storage (DAS) or a Fibre Channel SAN?
· iSCSI is cost effective, allowing use of low cost Ethernet rather than expensive Fibre architecture.
· Traditionally expensive SCSI controllers and SCSI disks no longer need to be used in each server, reducing overall cost.
· Many iSCSI arrays enable the use of cheaper SATA disks without losing hardware RAID functionality.
· The iSCSI storage protocol is endorsed by Microsoft, IBM and Cisco, therefore it is an industry standard.
· Administrative/Maintenance costs are reduced.
· Increased utilisation of storage resources.
· Expansion of storage space without downtime.
· Easy server upgrades without the need for data migration.
· Improved data backup/redundancy.
Name some SAN advantages
SANs fully exploit high-performance, high connectivity network technologies.
SANs expand easily to keep pace with fast growing storage needs
SANs allow any server to access any data.
SANs help centralize management of storage resources.
SANs reduce total cost of ownership (TCO).
iSCSI fundamentals.
iSCSI is a protocol defined by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) which enables SCSI commands to be encapsulated in TCP/IP traffic, thus allowing access to remote storage over low cost IP networks.
