# HOMEWORK No.

Course : Storage Technology Foundation

Date of Assignment : Date of Submission :

PART A

Q1. “FC-SW provides greater Flexibility and Performance over FC-AL”. Being an administrator,
Under what conditions would you prefer either of two. State reasons and justifications also.
Ans1) Yes fibre channel switched fabric provides greater Flexibility and Performance over fibre
channel arbirated loop
The limitation of fc-al is that only one node may send out traffic at a time.FC-AL has been
replaced by (FC-SW) for server attachment with some legacy storage devices still supporting
loop attachment provided by some switches. Some storage systems still utilize loop attachment
of disk drives to storage controllers with servers attaching via FC-SW.
FC-AL operation has its share of problems, but sometimes a device doesn't support
FC-SW operations and there's no choice.We have to eventually use Fc-Al in these cases
A hub has no choice but to operate in FC-AL mode, and therefore attached hosts must as well.
When a device joins an FC-AL, or when there's any type of error or reset, the loop must
reinitialize. All communication is temporarily halted during this process, so it can cause
problems for some applications.
FC-AL is limited to 127 nodes due to the addressing mechanism. FC-AL is mostly releted to
niche uses now, including but not limited to internal disk array communications and internal
storage for high-end servers.
Fc sw is more widely used

Q2 Under what conditions will you prefer Different types of Zoning? Formulate some of the
benefits of using Soft Zoning , Hard Zoning and mixed Zoning.
Ans2) In dedicated switch infrastructure we use port zoning
We use mixed zoning when we want to use more than one type of zoning at the same time on the
same swutch.
WWN zoning is used in those areas where we dont need much security as wwn zone can be
easily bypassed
Benefits of WWN Zoning
Administrators can move devices to different switch ports without manually reconfiguring
zoning. This is major flexibility to administrator. You don't need to change once you create zone
set for particular device connected on switch. You create a zone set on switch and allocate
storage to host. You can change any port for device connectivity
Benefits of Port Zoning
This system is easier to create and manage than a long list of element WWNs.
- Switch hardware enforces data transfers and ensures that no traffic goes between
unauthorized zone members.
- Port zoning provides stronger enforcement of the policy (assuming physical security on the
switch is well established).
Benefits of Mixed Zoning
mixed zoning is employed by combining zones using different types of zoning in a single zone
set. Under some circumstances, this may combine some of the advantages of each form of
zoning.

Q3 Being a Storage Administrator, how will you suggest your company that they should go for
either NAS or SAN. How will you list the considerations for capacity design for Storage in a
NAS environment?
Ans3)NAS utilize TCP/IP based networks, such as Ethernet, FDDI, or ATM whereas SAN
solutions use Fibre Channel connections
NAS use TCP/IP and NFS/CIFS/HTTP based networks whereas SAN utilizes Fibre Channel
encapsulated SCSI setups
A SAN addresses the data by logical block numbers, and transfers the data in (raw) disk blocks.
A NAS identifies the data by file name and byte offset
Which one to use

If the application requires block I/O or there is a significant performance requirement, use a
SAN. If it's file based I/O for the application or you need to share files and you want simple
administration, use NAS.Nas works for following applications- File serving,File sharing,Users'
home directories,Content archiving,Metadata directories

San works for following applications-Databases,Server clustering,Messaging applications,

Q4 Discuss in Detail the role played by FILE SYSTEM in case of a NAS environment. List the features of
NFS and CIFS.
Ans 4) The role played by FILE SYSTEM in case of a NAS environment
A file system is located and managed on the NAS device and data is transferred to clients over industry
standard network protocols (TCP/IP or IPX) using industry standard file sharing protocols (SMB/CIFS,
NCP, NFS, AFP or HTTP)

Cifs

 CIFS uses the same multiuser open, close, read, and write operations, as well as file-
sharing semantics that are used on most enterprise networks.

 File and record locking prevents multiple users from overwriting the work that
another person is doing on a file or record.
 CIFS runs over TCP/IP and uses the Internet's global DNS (Domain Naming Service).
 CIFS support fault tolerance and can automatically restore connections and reopen
files that were open prior to interruption.
 CIFS is "tuned" to provide optimal performance over dial-up links.
 Users refer to remote file systems with an easy to use file naming scheme.
 CIFS is also widely available on UNIX, VMS, and other platforms.

NFS
NFS is a client/server distributed file service that provides transparent file-sharing network
environments.NFS allows remote hosts to mount file systems over a network and interact with those file
systems as though they are mounted locally. This enables system administrators to consolidate resources
onto centralized servers on the network. NFS allows a system to share directories and files with others
over a network. By using NFS, users and programs can access files on remote systems almost as if they
were local files. file access is completely transparent to the client, and works across a variety of server and
host architectures. to access them. The Network File System(NFS) was developed to allow machines to
mount a disk partition on a remote machine as if it were on a local hard drive. This allows for fast,
seamless sharing of files across a network.
Q5 In case of CAS environment a host need not to know about the physical Address (LBA) whereas it is
required in case of SAN. Suggest some valid justifications for the above scenario.
Ans5)

Q6 Formulate Some real life examples which can be Implemented using CAS environment.
Ans6)