February 10, 2008 at 8:26 am
I work in a large organization as a DBA. I want to learn knowledge of SAN so I can work closely with storage team for SQL server related performance topics.
Is there any official training in this area? Do I have to go to the vendor provided training? Does anyone have any suggestions and resources for this kind of training/learning for DBA?
February 10, 2008 at 8:57 am
They can be different from vendor to vendor, so you might need to go to their training.
However I'd start by buying a cup of coffee or a box of doughnuts for the SAN group and asking them for information. You might be able to learn a few things from them.
February 10, 2008 at 9:09 am
check out snia.org for all sorts of SAN training and certification stuff.
Best,
Kevin G. Boles
SQL Server Consultant
SQL MVP 2007-2012
TheSQLGuru on googles mail service
February 11, 2008 at 4:24 pm
Check (I think) HP site. They used to have free 8 hrs on-line class?!
February 11, 2008 at 4:38 pm
Why not start with your local SAN admins? They know the 'care and feeding' of the product as they have to support it.
Make sure you know what you want to learn and don't just go to them and say 'teach me about SANs'. You don't want them to feel you are trying to 'invade' their territory.
A couple of questions to ask:
Can you teach me how SAN storage works in relation to my database servers.
How does SAN partitioning work?
Would you teach me what can go wrong with a SAN and how I would recognize it and how would it affect my databases? This way if I see it, I know what to tell you.
If I need additional disk space or have a new server and want SAN storage, what information do I need to gather to submit the request to you?
As a DBA, is there anything I can do to assist you when there are problems with the SAN?
Offer them coffee/donuts for their time as Steve suggested.
-SQLBill
February 11, 2008 at 8:12 pm
Thank you all for your suggestions. I like the questions SQLBill listed, plus the idea about coffee/donuts. Storage people are not inaccessible as the storage itself. Anyway, it is all about working together, rather than taking over the others territory.
There is a lot of information on snia site. Good to start learning from this site.
Vivien
February 13, 2008 at 6:00 am
After a couple of years on SQL projects with significant SAN infrastructure requirements I'd suggest a number of pointers. One day I'll write an article on SAN debunking, however my 2 cents..
- SAN engineers that really know their stuff are gold dust. If you find one make sure you glean all you can. If you dont understand the answer you get or are unsure on the rationale then trust but VERIFY her explanation.
- Understand the complexities of your LUN and RAID setup. Understand why it is set up that way.
- Understand HBAs and hardware layout
- Try and gain access to / sit with SAN guys to see the tools used for SAN configuration and monitoring (varies between vendors).
- If committing to a design that relies on database snapshot / disk mirroring. FULLY get behind the design rationale, understand product limitations, test, test and er.. test. My experience with both EMC and Veritas solutions found that neither product can yet be considered mature for use with SQL. I could be less euphemistic..
- If mirroring opt for a low level (hardware) based solution rather than a windows (VSS) based one.
- Understand SAN caching. Promises of high performance due to a '100GB cache' means a lot less when sitting on top of a 100TB disk subsystem servicing multiple heavilty utilized SQL instances.
- Dont expect massive performance gains with SAN over local storage. Managers love SAN because of its theoretically lower tco but the reality is that you are unlikely to reap the performance benefits you may be assuming.
February 13, 2008 at 8:52 am
This site snia.org is good i learnt a few from here now, thanks guys.
Cheers,
Sugeshkumar Rajendran
SQL Server MVP
http://sugeshkr.blogspot.com
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