Customers say
Customers find the book excellent as an introduction to SAN technology, with one review noting it covers concepts and equipment well. Moreover, the content is easy to read and understand, and customers appreciate its pacing. However, the book receives mixed feedback about its storage capacity, with one customer describing it as the best data storage book, while another finds it a little dated.
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A quick rundown of this product’s key features:
If you’ve been charged with setting up storage area networks for your company, learning how SANs work and managing data storage problems might seem challenging. Storage Area Networks For Dummies, 2nd Edition comes to the rescue with just what you need to know.
Whether you already a bit SAN savvy or you’re a complete novice, here’s the scoop on how SANs save money, how to implement new technologies like data de-duplication, iScsi, and Fibre Channel over Ethernet, how to develop SANs that will aid your company’s disaster recovery plan, and much more. For example, you can:
Understand what SANs are, whether you need one, and what you need to build oneLearn to use loops, switches, and fabric, and design your SAN for peak performanceCreate a disaster recovery plan with the appropriate guidelines, remote site, and data copy techniquesDiscover how to connect or extend SANs and how compression can reduce costsCompare tape and disk backups and network vs. SAN backup to choose the solution you needFind out how data de-duplication makes sense for backup, replication, and retentionFollow great troubleshooting tips to help you find and fix a problemBenefit from a glossary of all those pesky acronyms
From the basics for beginners to advanced features like snapshot copies, storage virtualization, and heading off problems before they happen, here’s what you need to do the job with confidence!
Our Top Reviews
Reviewer: BlueSkyRains
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: I wish every layperson involved with SANs would read this
Review: I work for a company involved with manufacturing SAN-oriented equipment. This book is a great introduction to concepts and equipment commonly used in the SAN/fibre channel field. While storage and networking can easily become graduate/post-doc level areas most people involved are not of that level of expertise. Fortunately support-contracts are available so that the lay person and casual professional aren’t required to know everything. However, one must respect the equipment that they are working with and SAN for Dummies is a great way to learn the basics of this growing field of amazing feats like sending and storing at a rate of 20 Gb p/s and beyond.If you’re a casual professional or lay person, read this book so you don’t sound like an idiot when calling tech support.If you have a graduate degree in CompSci, read this book (and endure the generalizations/minor-ish inaccuracies) to assist your lessers in attaining SAN proficiency.P.S. This book is a beginning, not an end. If you read it hoping to sound like an expert in a weekend, those who know will see through your charade when the SAN hits the fan.
Reviewer: Jaewoo Kim
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Provides what it says. It is for total beginners to storage.
Review: This is a great book to start learn about SAN and NAS.It covers the basics and has a terrific chapter on why SAN is necessary for all enterprises.The value proposition of SAN, indeed, is very strong. No wonder practically all large IT enterprises have adopted SAN for their storage solution of choice.This book doesn’t cover any advanced materials. It doesn’t covers anything vendor specifc, such as EMC and NETAPP, technologies and solutions.This is a fine place to start but it will not make anyone a knowledgeable expert.Pros:1)Good overview of SAN.2)Terrific chapter on the value proposition of SAN to IT.3)Starts from ground up (What is RAID, Volume, LUN, etc).Cons:1)Doesn’t cover any major vendor specific technologies.2)Doesn’t cover major uses of SAN technology (such as database servers).3)Doesn’t deal with any technical issues beyond generalities. You will never find any command-line or technical troubleshooting steps.
Reviewer: Henry Kennedy
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Fantastic primer for people new to storage
Review: While working at a large SF Bay Area IT company as a marketing manager, I was transferred from the microprocessor division to the storage department. “Storage Area Networks for Dummies” was a wonderful resource for getting up to speed with the technologies and terminology of my new world. Over the last 5 years I have recommened it time and time again to marketing managers new to storage.If you can grasp the concepts in the first 2 chapters, you will learn enough to follow the industry. And the rest of the book is a wonderful reference for non-techies.
Reviewer: public name_here()
Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars
Title: A little dated but gives the basics
Review: If you know nothing about SAN this is a good start. But it is rather dated… I think they mention 4gbps FC being state of the art (our new switch is 32). It was useful for me to wrap my head around WWNs, zoning and fabric topology enough so I could get some hosts talking to a new storage solution and be confident I wasn’t going to break anything. But if you are looking for advanced topics, theory or anything other than purely practical and basic applications look elsewhere.
Reviewer: Tim
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: I love this book!
Review: This has to be one of the best data storage books on the market today. While the vast bulk of it shares how to build, test, and troubleshoot a SAN, I used it for general data storage information. It hits on RAID, deduplication, virtualization, back-up, replication, CDP, etc. and many of the conceptual parts of the SAN.So many times I was reading, and I was like Ohhhhh, OK, THAT’s what that means!
Reviewer: Mordakker
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Quality content, Poor editing
Review: The content is very straightforward and easy to grasp. It’s presented well and clearly. I’m only half way through and I feel like I will be able to set up and manage a SAN easily. The only issues I have involve the actual print. There are missing words and words that are run together. Overall I rate it well because the content far outweighs the problems in the proofreading department.
Reviewer: Cameron Paulk
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Good Explanation of SANs and Equipment Used
Review: This book explains a lot about what SANs are about and the networking infrastructure behind them. I was looking for a book to explain SANs to me in a manner I could understand simply and this book does this for me.
Reviewer: dhdrummond
Rating: 1.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Please help. Never showed up.
Review: Luckily, my boss had already ordered me a copy for when I started my new job because the copy I ordered and PURCHASED never showed up. I tried getting online and finding a way to report this, but could not find an easy way to file a complaint. Glad that Amazon.com values customer input enough to send me an email requesting me to rate the product. PLEASE FOLLOW UP WITH ME REGARDING THIS ISSUE.About the book specifically, it is like the Bible of my work. The content is very helpful and easy to read. The 0 star rating I provided is in regard to the book never showing up. Since my employer also purchased me a copy, I have been able to read and the content and organization of the book deserves 5 stars.
Reviewer: David Raj Daniel
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Excellent introduction to SAN
Reviewer: Alger GV
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
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Review: Excelente libro para los que comenzamos en el mundo de Storage, abarca desde los términos más elementales hasta la construcción de una NAS o SAN con bases elementales, y de ahí al infinito.
Reviewer: W. D. Jones
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
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Review: I bought this book for a colleague new to the team and new to the Storage environment. Looking at the content before handing it over, the subjects covered and the breadth and depth looked just about right for someone with a vague understanding of what a storage network is.He found the book extremely useful, easy to understand and helped explain some of the concepts he was learning on the job.Well worth the money!
Reviewer: Kindle Customer
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
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Review: Even if I’m not a beginner about the subject I found very useful to refresh my knowledge and to know something else that I wasn’t aware.
Reviewer: MICHAL RASZKOWSKI
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
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Review: There are not many books regarding general topics on Storage Area Networks, and this one is most actual and comprehensive. It helps to order knowledge and information not only on storage networking but wider on storage and backup issues.Recommended for every IT personnel who is in touch with SAN/storage/backup technologies
Price effective as of Apr 01, 2025 02:01:26 UTC
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