Highly Available Storage for Windows Servers

Managing online storage effectively is becoming an essential component of the information processing strategy as enterprises place increasing reliance on their data assets. The many online storage management options available for the Windows server environment can be bewildering to a system administrator, however. In this book, Paul Massiglia draws on his twenty-plus years of experience in enterprise data storage to dispel the uncertainty and provide the Windows system administrator with a complete toolkit for online storage management.

Starting with an explanation of how disks can be combined under software management to enhance data availability and I/O performance, Massiglia goes on to discuss hardware and software implementation options available in the Windows server environment. Numerous examples illustrate the use of both embedded and external RAID subsystems, as well as software management of logical disk volumes to provide failure-tolerant, high-performance online storage for Windows server applications.

Using both capabilities delivered by the Windows 2000 operating system and enhanced features of the VERITAS Volume Manager-- the de facto standard for Windows online data storage-- Massiglia illustrates how to organize disks so that all data can receive the right balance of availability, I/O performance, and storage cost. You'll learn about:

• Intelligent disk drives
• Storage architectures for enterprise servers
• Combining disks into logical volumes to improve data availability and I/O performance
• Properties of striping, mirroring, and RAID technologies
• Hardware and software alternatives for implementing logical volumes
• Using failure-tolerant volumes to reduce backup windows
• Managing logical volumes in clusters of Windows servers
• Long-distance data replication for publication and disaster recovery

A guide to managing online storage in Windows server environments

Managing online storage effectively is becoming an essential component of the information processing strategy as enterprises place increasing reliance on their data assets. The many online storage management options available for the Windows server environment can be bewildering to a system administrator, however. In this book, Paul Massiglia draws on his twenty-plus years of experience in enterprise data storage to dispel the uncertainty and provide the Windows system administrator with a complete toolkit for online storage management.

Starting with an explanation of how disks can be combined under software management to enhance data availability and I/O performance, Massiglia goes on to discuss hardware and software implementation options available in the Windows server environment. Numerous examples illustrate the use of both embedded and external RAID subsystems, as well as software management of logical disk volumes to provide failure-tolerant, high-performance online storage for Windows server applications.

Using both capabilities delivered by the Windows 2000 operating system and enhanced features of the VERITAS Volume Manager-- the de facto standard for Windows online data storage-- Massiglia illustrates how to organize disks so that all data can receive the right balance of availability, I/O performance, and storage cost. You'll learn about:

• Intelligent disk drives
• Storage architectures for enterprise servers
• Combining disks into logical volumes to improve data availability and I/O performance
• Properties of striping, mirroring, and RAID technologies
• Hardware and software alternatives for implementing logical volumes
• Using failure-tolerant volumes to reduce backup windows
• Managing logical volumes in clusters of Windows servers
• Long-distance data replication for publication and disaster recovery

Paul Massiglia is Technical Director of Engineering for VERITAS Software Corporation. He has spent the last twenty years engineering and product managing enterprise data storage for some of the industry’s leading suppliers, including the former Digital Equipment Corporation, Adaptec Inc., Quantum Corporation, and VERITAS Software Corporation. Massiglia is a member of the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) Board of Directors and is the author of three previous books on data storage topics.

Wiley Computer Publishing has teamed with VERITAS Software Corporation to de-liver a series of books for the enterprise storage management community. These titles will provide system and network administrators, server application developers, and storage engineers with in-depth, hands-on information on how to build scalable, quick, and highly available storage area networks. Key books in the series, including this one, are designed to help CIOs make the decisions as to when and how to embark on investing in new technology.