Tutors on How Do Management of Storage Networks

Tutors on How Do Management of Storage Networks

In the course of this book we have dealt with the different techniques that are used in storage networks and the benefits that can be derived from them. As we did so it became clear that storage networks are complex architectures, the management of which imposes stringent demands on administrators. In this chapter we therefore want to look at the management of storage networks Our primary objective here is to show how the management of a storage network can be supported by appropriate software. To this end we will first consider new requirements of the system management that arise as a result of the developmental transition from server-centric to storage-centric IT architecture (Section 8.1). It is evident that various technical fields impose different requirements that should be taken into account in a management system (Section 8.2). Therefore, a management system must provide a range of functions (Section 8.3) and operate existing interfaces such as in-band and out-band interfaces (Section 8.4). These  interfaces are provided via proprietary and standardized mechanisms (Section 8.5). Then we want to deal in more detail with the possibilities that the standardized methods offer by means of in-band (Section 8.6) and out-band (Section 8.7) interfaces. Finally, we discuss operational aspects of the management of storage networks (8.8).

 SYSTEM MANAGEMENT

In the conventional server-centric IT architecture it is assumed that a server has directly connected storage. From the perspective of system management, therefore, there are two units to manage: the server on the one hand and the storage on the other. The connection

between server and storage does not represent a unit to be managed. It is primarily a question of how and where the data is stored and not how it is moved. The transition to storage-centric IT architecture – i.e. the introduction of storage net- works – has greatly changed the requirements of system management. In a storage net- work the storage is no longer local to the servers but can instead be located in different buildings or even different parts of the city. In the network between the servers and storage devices, numerous devices (host bus adapters, hubs, switches, gateways) are used, which can each change the data flow. In a storage network there are thus many more units to manage than in a server-centric IT architecture. Now administrators have to think not only about their data on the storage devices, but also about how the data travels from the

servers to the storage devices. The management of a storage network is therefore com- parable to the management of a LAN. However, LAN management methods are better known than the methods for the management of new technologies such as Fibre Channel SAN, iSCSI or InfiniBand.

The manufacturers of these new storage technologies are still involved in implementing suitable management functions and integrating these into the management tools for LAN and servers. The objective is to develop a central management system in which all resources of a data center from hardware to the applications can be managed. Therefore, in the management of storage networks we meet long familiar representatives from the LAN and the server world. The most prominent example is the SNMP protocol (Section 8.7.1), which has already been used for a long time in the field of LAN