Frequently asked Interview Questionsin Basic SAN Sample Questions 1) Differerence b/w SAN and NAS ?

The basic difference between SAN and NAS , SAN is Fabric based and NAS is Ethernet based.SAN - Storage Area NetworkNAS - Networ k attached Storage 2)Explain each of these Storage area components? Fabric Swictch: It's a device which interconnects multiple network devices .Ther e are swithes starting from 16 port to 32 ports which connect 16 or 32 machine n odes etc.Vendors who manufacture these kind of switches are Brocade, McData,Cisc o. FC Controllers : These are Data transfer medias they will sit on PCI slots of Se rver,u can configure Arrays and volumes on it. JBOD: Just Bunch of Disks is Storage Box,it consists of Enclosure where set of h arddrives are hosted in many combinations such SCSI drives,SAS ,FC,SATA. 3)What is the most critical component in SAN ? Each component has its own criticality with respect to buisness needs of a compa ny. 4) Define RAID ? Which one you feel is good choice ? RAID (Redundant array of Independent Disks) is a technology to achive redundancy with faster I/O.There are Many Levels of RAID to meet different needs of the cu stomer which are : R0,R1,R5,R10,R5.Generally customer choose R5 to achive better redundancy and speed and it is cost effective. 5)How is a SAN managed ? There are many management softwares used for managing SAN's to name a few EMC Navisphere Manager IBM Tivoli Storage Manager.Veritas Volumemanger. 6) Which one is the Default ID for SCSI HBA ? Generally the default ID for SCSI HBA is 7. 7) How do you install device drivers for the HBA first time during OS installati on ? In some scenarios you are supposed to install Operating System on the drives con nected thru SCSI HBA or SCSI RAID Conrollers,but most of the OS'es will not be u pdated with drivers for those controllers,that time you need to supply drivers e xternally,if you are installing windows ,you need to press F6 during the install ion of OS and provide the driver disk or CD which came along with HBA.If you are installing linux you need to type "linux dd" for installing any driver. 8) What is an Array ? Array is a group of Independent physical disks to configure any Volumes or RAID volumes. 9)WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF 4GB FIBRE CHANNEL? Benefits include twice the performance with little or no price increase, investm ent protection with backward compatibility to 2Gb, higher reliability due to few er SAN components (switch and HBA ports) required, and the ability to replicate, back up, and restore data more quickly. 4Gb Fibre Channel systems are ideally s uited for applications that need to quickly transfer large amounts of data such as remote replication across a SAN, streaming video on demand, modeling and rend ering, and large databases. 10)HOW IS FIBRE CHANNEL DIFFERENT FROM ISCSI? Fibre Channel and iSCSI each have a distinct place in the IT infrastructure as S AN alternatives to DAS. Fibre Channel generally provides high performance and hi gh availability for business-critical applications, usually in the corporate dat a center. In contrast, iSCSI is generally used to provide SANs for business appl ications in smaller regional or departmental data centers.

SAN Storage L1 interview questions: 1.What is a SAN?

A SAN is a dedicated network for sharing storage resources. A SAN provides accel erated data access and supports advanced storage management. 2.Name 3 Limitations of DAS Technology? No scalability, I/O Bottleneck, Limitations in cable length, Unable to share res ource 3.Name at least 4 of the Hardware component in a SAN? Cable, SAN Switch, GBIC, Storage Subsystem, Host Bus Adapters 4.How could implementation of a SAN benefit LAN performance? High Speed, Long distance, Data Travel with in the SAN, Fast access Data Backup, Improved Performance 5.Name 3 key features of Fibre Channel? High Speed, Long distance, Data Travel with in the SAN, Fast access Data Backup, Improved Performance 6.How is a SAN Superior to SCSI? SAN offers a number of advantages to parallel SCSI. Fibre Channel is substantial ly faster than parallel SCSI. In addition, Fibre Channel supports both Fibre Opt ic and copper cabling at distances of up to 10 Kilometers. It also connects up t o 127 nodes on an Arbitrated Loop and up to 16 million nodes on a Fibre Channel Switch. With its ability to map IP, Fibre Channel is significantly more than a p arallel SCSI replacement. Fibre Channel s IP support gives its networked storage d evices access to multiple servers or nodes for accelerated data access and enhan ced data management. 7.What is a Point-to-Point Topology? Point-to point topology provides a simple, direct connection between just two no des. This topology is the closest approximation to the traditional SCSI topology and provides a direct connection between two nodes, such as between a file serv er and a disk subsystem. With this topology, the transmitter port on one node os connected directly to the receiver port on the other node. 8.What is FC-AL? FC-AL is a abbreviation for Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop. FC-AL is a industry s tandard topology that links up to 126 ports together on a single shared simplex media. Transmissions can only occur between a single pair of nodes at any given time. Arbitration is the scheme that determines which node has control of the lo op at any given moment. 9.What is Switched or Switched Fabric Topology? A Fibre Channel Switch permits multiple simultaneous transmissions between pairs of nodes connected to it. The data is switched from the source node to the dest ination node. 10.What is the Fabric in a Switched Fabric Topology? In the early days of Fibre Channel, the concept of a universal Fabric was used to support Fibre Channel s topology independence. With the advent of point-to-point a nd FC-AL topologies, it s value has been enhanced.The Fibre Channel Fabric was des igned as a generic interface between each node and the physical layer interconne ction of the nodes. By adhering to this interface, any Fibre Channel node could communicate over the Fabric without having to know the interconnecting scheme betw een nodes. A Fabric is similar to a telephone switch which allows you to originate a call to another party without requiring you or the other party to have detail ed information about the interconnection mechanism used to establish the call be tween two points. 11.Where does SAN fit into Today s Networking Environment? SANs compliment today s LAN and WAN technologies by acceleration functionality and performance behind the server, where current LAN and WAN technology leaves off. They also compliment the ongoing advancements in LAN and WAN technologies by ex tending the benefits of improved performance, topological flexibility and remote management from the client and backbone to servers and storage. Unlike traditional LAN and WAN technologies, the gigabit speed of a Fibre Channe l-based SAN accelerates I/O performance, relieving the burden from servers in th

e tiered client/server architecture. SANs also support advanced storage manageme nt features that include highspeed remote back-up and data mirroring. They also provide a platform for server clustering to migrate into the open market. 12.What type of san switch you are using? Brocade, Mc Data, so on 13.What is the command to measure the speed of the port? #show port 2 14.What you mean by lun masking? Hiding the luns to specific to host SAN Storage L2 interview questions: 1.What is the difference between Raid 1 and Raid 5? Mirroring and Parity striping across the disks 2.What is the difference between Lun masking and Zoning? Lun masking is hiding the LUN to specific server or Host and Zoning is specific to Operating system for e.g Windows zoning, UNIX zoning only preferred luns can be assigned to particular Zoning 3.Give examples of few CLI commands of the Storage controller? Different for Different storage 4.What is the meaning of IOPS? Where it plays important role? IOPS INPUT OUTPUT PER SECOND One transaction to and fro of the server to storage . Mission critical applications planning based on IOPS one can determine the sto rage,space needs. 5.Give an example of the Database configurations for Disk layout? It differ storage to storage expected answer Raid 1+0 configurations 6.Name at least 3 ways consolidating storage improves operational efficiencies. Centralized administration, Scalability, Backup/restore improvement 7.What advantages do LAN-free back up and restore deliver? Speed up the backup/Restore, Data will not travel over LAN 8.Name at least 3 ways a SAN provides a High Availability Infrastructure. No single point of failure, BACKUP/Restore speed, Replication/DR will be improve d from Distance point of view 9.What are the steps involved to accomplish Raid best configurations? Size of the data, no of users, criticality of applications, cost effective of th e storage requirements, Raid 1+0 10.What is the functionality of multi pathing? Load balancing, fail over on different path, security SAN Storage L3 interview questions: 1. Give a few CLI commands of Switch and Storage controller 2. What is the maximum out standing requests in the storage controller? 3. List some of the key intelligences of the Fibre Channel network? 4. What are the three SAN deployment topologies? 5. What are the steps involved for firmware upgradations? 6. What is the meaning of Disk controller? 7. What are the Steps for No single point of failure? 8. What are the tools used to measure storage performance? 9. Why Raid 1+0 IS best for Database configuration 10. What is your approach in proactive measures? 11. How you integrate SNMP to Storage to receive alert messages? 12. What are some benefits of zoning? 13. How do you achieve maximum protection in a SAN fabric? 14. Why is the core-to-edge topology preferred in scalable fabric environments? - See more at: http://www.emcsaninfo.com/2012/12/storage-area-networksan-storage -interview-questions-part-1.html#sthash.cIwRxKiK.dpuf