Storage Area Networks for Dummies Reviews

• Excellant over view of NAS servers.

  
  By A5UENVNGKB8QV on 2005-03-03
  This is the first book that I have seen that gives a clear and concise over view of SAN. I have looked at several books, and while they may be very good and detailed, they usually assume that the reader has has previous experiece with SAN servers. In essence they describe their speciality and not how the system works as a whole. You could say that they describe a tree or particular plant and not the ecology of the whole forest.
  
  This book begins at a high level explaining how the system works as a whole and then works down to the detail level with examples of installing switches and servers, with command line entry examples.
  
  If you are getting started in system adminiatration and storage servers, I highly recommend this book as one of your first reads. This books covers using both Windows and UNIX.
  
  

• A bit outdated now..

  
  By A2G1ICUY3XMT3Y on 2007-11-14
  Hardly a mention of iSCSI and mostly deals with 1 & 2MBit Fiber Channel, which displays some of it's age. Though, it does a reasonable job of explaining LUN's, naming conventions and the security models in reasonably simplistic terminology. I personally wanted to know more specifically about iSCSI and other newer technologies.
  
  

• Great for storage concepts

  
  By A3NB1NLEGRTNJM on 2007-01-09
  I had very little experience with storage before reading this book. Now I feel that I've been properly armed with the basics such that I could dig into an environment and know pretty much what's going on and would be able to draw up an architecture diagram from what I'd be able to learn looking at switches and such. Definitely a good primer for those with little to no storage experience.
  
  

• excellent book. complete and easy to read

  
  By A1Z60T6ZSJ4DYN on 2006-01-19
  only gripe i have is that some parts are boring, but that's
  how the subject matter is.
  
  Also, not really for dummies. you need to have some idea
  about networks and storage (not much, though).
  
  Otherwise, superb book. Can be used as tutorial and as
  a reference.
  
  
  
  

• Great buy

  
  By A1JLTAWZNNT70T on 2006-11-03
  This book gives a complete view on SANs in a very clear language, with lots of techical information and practical examples. It is the best book I know to obtain a more than enough knowledge to decide what to buy and how to design and implement. Simply great.
  
  
• Worth every penny
  By A2SVL8CPHJXK2S on 2006-11-04
  Superb introduction to SAN technology. I have a clear understanding of various components that make up a SAN architecture after reading just the first few chapters. This book will be helpful to SAs, DBAs and anyone who is interested in the technology. Kudos to the authors
  
  
• Taught Us Enough to Decide We Didn't Want One
  By A1M8PP7MLHNBQB on 2007-01-12
  A very good book on SANs, but needs to be upgraded. For instance in one place it says that you shouldn't set up a SAN if you don't need more than 10 GB of storage. I don't think you can buy hard drives that small, this probably needs upgrading to something like a 1000 GB of storage. ==That sentence was one in a section that talks about reasons to not use a SAN. I found this section to have excellent advice. And by following their advice we made the decision to not put in a SAN at all. By making this decision, the twenty bucks or so that this book cost was saved many, many times over. ==We, like I suspect, a lot of companies had a problem with data storage and someone said, 'put in a SAN.' So we started talking to SAN salesmen who certainly agreed with that suggestion. After reading this book we knew a lot more about the technology, about SANs; we knew the questions to ask and eventually even the SAN salesmen had to agree that we didn't need one. ==If you want to learn about SANs, or if you've all of a sudden been charged with getting one up and running, I recommend you start with this book. It's clear, it is descriptive, it covers the area, except as stated above, it is a bit dated.
  
  
• I was very happy and so was my HP SAN teacher
  By A1T1ZPT5E6FV2V on 2007-02-12
  I read this book just before taking an HP SAN training class and before this book I knew Zero about SAN; after I not only understood the class, I understood it well. I told my teacher I was going to try to take the snia exam and he looked through the book and said it was written well and covered most if not all of the important material.
  
  
• Excellent Primer
  By A8XN2957ERXCO on 2006-05-17
  This book is an excellent introduction into SAN background, Design, Technologies. Perfect for Admin, Managers. Easy enough to understand, but detailed enough to be of value.
  
  
• Good introduction to the technology
  By A3RBUHN4JESLET on 2006-08-28
  I thought this book did a good job of introducing the subject matter, especially if you treat it as a high level overview. It gave enough information and examples so that I could evaluate how I might use the technology.
  
  My only gripe was that the book was dated on some of the technology. It seems the industry has changed quite quickly and we could use a new refresh of the material.
  
  
• This book delivers -- Big Time!
  By A1TSGO81VOXGQR on 2007-04-16
  I'm a DBA and needed to understand a few technologies about SANs and I had no where to look, until I read the reviews about this book on Amazon and decided to trust most of the reviewers and boy were they right. Excellent, excellent material delivered in a way that non-storage Admins would understand. I wish it wasn't put under the 'Dummies' series though.
  
  
• Great Book
  By A3DD4HMZKNEVK5 on 2006-01-07
  Best book on SAN suprisingly.
  
  
• Excellent Newbie Book
  By A2S1G53WLP5WDK on 2006-03-23
  I have been in IT for 7 years and only recently have had exposure to SANs. I have never really cared for "Dummies" books, but this one is great as an intro to SANs. It lays the ground work for SANs and afterwards you can jump into an intermediate level book or material. It IS NOT for those who have had exposure to SANs.
  
  
• Chris Poelker is a storage god!
  By A29C6ZSZTSBDKB on 2007-02-14
  Talk about an awesome read. If there's anyone out there that wants to learn about SAN/NAS, this is the book for you!
  
  
• Incredibly difficult subject to conquer, but Dummies makes it entertaining
  By A1NC01LMB7YG5L on 2008-01-12
  Good overview of subject, would have like the option to go more into the details of switches. Should be updated too. Easy read, entertaining writers. A true must read for anyone even related to the SANS industry.
  
  

• Using SANs and NAS
• Virtualization For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech))
• Designing Storage Area Networks: A Practical Reference for Implementing Fibre Channel and IP SANs (2nd Edition)
• Storage Virtualization: Technologies for Simplifying Data Storage and Management
• VMware Infrastructure 3 For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech))