Storage Networks 5 TIPS TO IMPROVE YOUR
2
BY GEORGE CRUMP S
TORAGE NETWORKS require constant maintenance and attention. If there’s a lull in your storage environment when you aren’t
working on repairs or recovering from a disaster, it’s not necessarily a time for you to sit back and relax. These calm moments should be spent improving your storage networks and ironing out any kinks you might have in preparation for the next disaster or repair. These five tips will help you improve your storage-area
networks (SANs) and fine-tune your storage networks. Find out what steps you should take to prepare your SAN for the worst, and learn what you can do to improve your storage network performance, efficiency, and resiliency.
Tip 1. KNOW WHAT YOU HAVE IN YOUR STORAGE NETWORK The first and most important step is to understand
what you have in your data storage environment. Make sure you have an updated inventory of your networking environment at all times. If you should need to bring in a vendor’s tech expert, they’ll ask for one. Having an accurate and up-to-date inventory means you may not have to pay as much for professional services, and may even avoid having to call for help in the first place. It’s crucial to document every host bus adapter (HBA),
cable, and switch. Note how they’re interconnected, the speeds they’re set at, and the software or drivers they’re running. Although these tasks seem obvious and mundane, they’re often overlooked and knocked
© ALEXEY AFANASYEV
off priority lists during a typical work day. It’s incredibly important to take time out from your day to understand what is in your environment. More importantly, recording this information often highlights areas that need improvement. For example, there have been cases where users upgraded to 4GB Fibre Channel (FC), but their inter-switch links (ISLs) are still set at 1GB. If they had taken the time to document these changes, they could have had doubled their performance much earlier. Keep in mind that you don’t have to track these changes manually. Although tasks like these could cost nothing if you do them in a spreadsheet, many vendors sell software and hardware tools that can track this information automatically. If you’re worried about the price of these storage resource management (SRM) tools, you shouldn’t. They can be a good investment, especially if these things might fall to the wayside otherwise. Plus, they vary in cost and complexity. You can choose a simple SRM tool that polls devices and records status data, or a more complex one that analyzes the network frames.
Tip 2. KNOW WHAT’S GOING ON IN YOUR STORAGE NETWORK INFRASTRUCTURE After you’ve developed a good picture of the components in your storage network infrastructure, the next step is to fully understand what those devices are doing at a particular moment in time. Many switch and
WWW.PCCONNECTION.COM
VOLUME 3 • ISSUE 3
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36