1. What is a SAN?

A SAN is a dedicated network for sharing storage resources. A SAN provides

accelerated 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 resource
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 substantially
faster than parallel SCSI. In addition, Fibre Channel supports both Fibre Optic and
copper cabling at distances of up to 10 Kilometers. It also connects up to 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 parallel SCSI replacement. Fibre
Channels IP support gives its networked storage devices access to multiple servers or
nodes for accelerated data access and enhanced data management.
7. What is a Point-to-Point Topology?
Point-to point topology provides a simple, direct connection between just two nodes.
This topology is the closest approximation to the traditional SCSI topology and provides
a direct connection between two nodes, such as between a file server 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
standard 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 loop 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 destination
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 Channels topology independence. With the advent of point-to-point and
FC-AL topologies, its value has been enhanced.The Fibre Channel Fabric was
designed as a generic interface between each node and the physical layer
interconnection of the nodes. By adhering to this interface, any Fibre Channel node
could communicate over the Fabric without having to know the interconnecting
scheme between 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 detailed
information about the interconnection mechanism used to establish the call between two
points.
11. Where does SAN fit into Todays Networking Environment?
SANs compliment todays 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
extending 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 Channelbased SAN accelerates I/O performance, relieving the burden from servers in the tiered
client/server architecture. SANs also support advanced storage management 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 question and answers:

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
storage,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 improved
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 the storage
requirements, Raid 1+0
10. What is the functionality of multi pathing?
Load balancing, fail over on different path, security
- See more at: http://www.tsmtutorials.com/2013/03/san-storage-interview-questionand.html#sthash.WoLD3W7j.dpuf

Q: - What is Network Attached Storage (NAS)?

Network attached storage (NAS) is an alternative way to connect storage to servers that is
built using standard network components such as Ethernet or other LAN technologies. The
application servers access storage using file system functions such as open file, read file,
write file, close file, etc.. These higher-level functions are encapsulated in protocols such as
CIFS, NFS or AppleShare and run across standard IP-based connections.
Q: - Can Server clusters use NAS for the shared storage?
Yes, providing the applications can store data on file shares and the file shares are
accessible to the applications as they failover across the cluster, there is no reason why NAS
cannot be used as the storage solution in a cluster.
Q: - What are the benefits of NAS for SMBs?
The key benefit is the ability to consolidate structured and unstructured data into a filesharing environment that utilizes the existing IP infrastructure. Since NAS clients rarely
require any additional hardware to access data, the initial investment is contained to the
NAS array itself.
Q: - Is NAS a better storage option for SMBs than a SAN or a mixed solution?
Absolutely, it is a much better option. NAS can leverage your existing IP infrastructure and
very rarely requires any additional hardware or software for access. It easily integrates with
corporate security and authentication domains such as Radius, Active Directory and LDAP,
making it a very attractive option for SMBs.
Q: - What is clustered NAS and what are its benefits?
Clustered NAS is typically defined as a concurrent multi-node access to and servicing of
data. This is usually accomplished by implementing some kind of distributed or clustered file

system that allows any node to serve data regardless of where it's located or who actually
owns it. In a traditional NAS environment, the filer head actually owns that data and that is
typically what serves it -- very much like a server-based file-serving environment. If the
server or head goes down, you can typically have a passive or a standby node pick it up and
serve that same storage. Traditionally, NAS has suffered from a scalability issue at the
higher end and the inability to service multiple concurrent connections. Clustered NAS
overcomes these limitations by dynamically distributing client connections to multiple heads.
The key thing with clustered NAS is again cost, which will need to be considered in the SMB
space

Q: - what is SAN ?
A storage area network (SAN) is defined as a set of interconnected devices (e.g. disks and
tapes) and servers that are connected to a common communication and data transfer
infrastructure such as a fibre channel. The common communication and data transfer
mechanism for a given deployment is commonly known as the storage fabric. The purpose
of the SAN is to allow multiple servers access to a pool of storage in which any server can
potentially access any storage unit.
Q: - WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF FIBRE CHANNEL SANS?
Fibre Channel SANs are the de facto standard for storage networking in the corporate data
center because they provide exceptional reliability, scalability, consolidation, and
performance. Fibre Channel SANs provide significant advantages over direct-attached
storage through improved storage utilization, higher data availability, reduced management
costs, and highly scalable capacity and performance.
Q: - WHAT CUSTOMER PROBLEMS DO FIBRE CHANNEL SANS SOLVE?
The increased performance of Fibre Channel enables a highly effective backup and recovery
approach, including LAN-free and server-free backup models. The result is a faster, more

scalable, and more reliable backup and recovery solution. By providing flexible connectivity
options and resource sharing, Fibre Channel SANs also greatly reduce the number of
physical devices and disparate systems that must be purchased and managed, which can
dramatically lower capital expenditures. Heterogeneous SAN management provides a single
point of control for all devices on the SAN, lowering costs and freeing personnel to do other
tasks.
Q: - HOW LONG HAS FIBRE CHANNEL BEEN AROUND?
Development started in 1988, ANSI standard approval occurred in 1994, and large
deployments began in 1998. Fibre Channel is a mature, safe, and widely deployed solution
for high-speed (1Gb, 2Gb, 4Gb) communications and is the foundation for the majority of
SAN installations throughout the world.
Q: - WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF FIBRE CHANNEL SANS?
Fibre Channel is a well-established, widely deployed technology with a proven track record
and a very large installed base, particularly in highperformance, business-critical data center
environments. Fibre Channel SANs continue to grow and will be enhanced for a long time to
come.The reduced costs of Fibre Channel components, the availability of SAN kits, and the
next generation of Fibre Channel (4Gb) are helping to fuel that growth. In addition, the
Fibre Channel roadmap includes plans to double performance every three years.
Q: - WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF 4GB FIBRE CHANNEL?
Benefits include twice the performance with little or no price increase, investment protection
with backward compatibility to 2Gb, higher reliability due to fewer 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 suited for applications that need to quickly
transfer large amounts of data such as remote replication across a SAN, streaming video on
demand, modeling and rendering, and large databases. 4Gb technology is shipping today.

Q: - HOW IS FIBRE CHANNEL DIFFERENT FROM ISCSI?

Fibre Channel and iSCSI each have a distinct place in the IT infrastructure as SAN
alternatives to DAS. Fibre Channel generally provides high performance and high availability
for business-critical applications, usually in the corporate data center. In contrast, iSCSI is
generally used to provide SANs for business applications in smaller regional or departmental
data centers.
Q: - WHEN SHOULD I DEPLOY FIBRE CHANNEL INSTEAD OF ISCSI?
For environments consisting of high-end servers that require high bandwidth or data center
environments with business-critical data, Fibre Channel is a better fit than iSCSI. For
environments consisting of many midrange or low-end servers, an IP SAN solution often
delivers the most appropriate price/performance
Q: - WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF 4GB FIBRE CHANNEL?
Benefits include twice the performance with little or no price increase, investment protection
with backward compatibility to 2Gb, higher reliability due to fewer 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 suited for applications that need to quickly
transfer large amounts of data such as remote replication across a SAN, streaming video on
demand, modeling and rendering, and large databases. 4Gb technology is shipping today.
Q: - HOW IS FIBRE CHANNEL DIFFERENT FROM ISCSI?
Fibre Channel and iSCSI each have a distinct place in the IT infrastructure as SAN
alternatives to DAS. Fibre Channel generally provides high performance and high availability
for business-critical applications, usually in the corporate data center. In contrast, iSCSI is
generally used to provide SANs for business applications in smaller regional or departmental
data centers.

Q: - WHEN SHOULD I DEPLOY FIBRE CHANNEL INSTEAD OF ISCSI?

For environments consisting of high-end servers that require high bandwidth or data center
environments with business-critical data, Fibre Channel is a better fit than iSCSI. For
environments consisting of many midrange or low-end servers, an IP SAN solution often
delivers the most appropriate price/performance.

Storage interview questions & answers for Series 1

We had 10 SAN interview questions in our earlier blogpost - Answers are given below
1) What is the difference b/w SAN and NAS ?
The basic difference between SAN and NAS , SAN is Fabric based and NAS is Ethernet based.
SAN - Storage Area Network
NAS - Network attached Storage
2)What is a typical storage area network consists of - if we consider it for implementation in a
small business setup ?
If we consider any small business following are essentials components of SAN
- Fabric Switch
- FC Controllers
- JBOD's
3) Can you briefly explain each of these Storage area components?
Fabric Switch: It's a device which interconnects multiple network devices .There are switches
starting from 16 port to 32 ports which connect 16 or 32 machine nodes etc. Vendors who
manufacture these kinds of switches are Brocade, McData.
FC Controllers: These are Data transfer Medias they will sit on PCI slots of Server, you can
configure Arrays and volumes on it.
JBOD: Just Bunch of Disks is Storage Box, it consists of Enclosure where set of hard drives are
hosted in many combinations such SCSI drives, SAS ,FC, SATA.
4) What is the most critical component in SAN ?
Each component has its own criticality with respect to business needs of a company.

5) Define RAID ? Which one you feel is good choice ?

RAID (Redundant array of Independent Disks) is a technology to achieve redundancy with faster
I/O. There are Many Levels of RAID to meet different needs of the customer which are :
R0,R1,R5,R10,R5.
Generally customers choose R5 to achieve better redundancy and speed and it is cost effective.
6)How is a SAN managed ?
There are many management software used for managing SAN's to name a few
- Santricity
- IBM Tivoli Storage Manager.
- CA Unicenter.
- Veritas Volume manger.
7) Which one is the Default ID for SCSI HBA ?
Generally the default ID for SCSI HBA is 7.
SCSI- Small Computer System Interface
HBA - Host Bus Adaptor
8) How do you install device drivers for the HBA first time during OS installation ?
In some scenarios you are supposed to install Operating System on the drives connected thru
SCSI HBA or SCSI RAID Controllers, but most of the OS will not be updated with drivers for
those controllers, that time you need to supply drivers externally, if you are installing windows
,you need to press F6 during the installation 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.
9) What is Array ?
Array is a group of Independent physical disks to configure any Volumes or RAID volumes.
10) Can u describe atleast 3 troubleshooting scenarios which you have come across in detail ?
SCENARIO 1:How do you find/debug when there is error while working SCSI devices?
In our daily SAN troubleshooting there are many management and configuration tools we use
them to see when there is a failure with target device or initiator device.
Some time it is even hard to trouble shoot some of the things such as media errors in the drives,
or some of the drives taking long time to spin up. In such cases these utilities will not come to
help. To debug this kind of information most of the controller will be implemented with 3-pin
serial debug port. With serial port debug connector cable you can collect the debug information
with hyper terminal software.

SCENARIO 2: I am having an issue with a controller its taking lot of time to boot and detect all
the drives connected how can I solve this.?
There are many possibilities that might cause this problem. One of the reason might be you are
using bad drives that cannot be repaired . In those cases you replace the disks with working ones.
Another reason might be slots you connected your controller to a slot which might not be
supported.
Try to connect with other types of slots.
One more probable reason is if you have flashed the firmware for different OEMs on the same
hardware.
To get rid of this the flash utilities will be having option to erase all the previous and EEPROM
and boot block entry option. Use that option to rectify the problem.
SCENARIO 3: I am using tape drive series 700X , even the vendor information on the Tape
drive says 700X, but the POST information while booting the server is showing as 500X what
could be the problem?
First you should make sure your hardware is of which series , you can find out this in the product
website.
Generally you can see this because in most of the testing companies they use same hardware to
test different series of same hardware type. What they do is they flash the different series
firmware. You can always flash back to exact hardware type.
VIDEO SECTION :
Thanks to Sun Microsystems - SunFire X4600 4-16 Way AMD Server Demo
This blog is updated daily so find more tutorials on Storage Area Networking or SAN
Storage Resume or System Administration Resume
1.What is SAN ?
2.What are the JOB opportunities in SAN ?
3.Which are the companies in SAN and How much they pay ?
4.How Can I Enter SAN industry ?
5.What are the tasks of a SAN professional- How will be a day in his office life?
6.How will be a SAN job interview ?
7.SAN or Storage engineer position - Interview questions : Series1
8.Real SAN Interview questions with answers: Series2
9.Answers for SAN interview questions Series1.
10.Tell me about some Job Openings in SAN or Storage industry?

11.Do You Want to see an Enterprise SAN infrastructure - Thanks to Dell - Watch this
informative Video - See a High End Lab
Posted by Roger at 1:09 AM
Labels: interview questions answers, job tips, storage interview questions

2 comments:

venkata said...
hi Roger,now i am going to learn san course.how it will be in the feture.i mean, is it healp to me in
the future? also and is there growthing for this course?
thanks.
10/08/2009 11:26 PM

Kairam said...
Hi roger,
This is Ravi. I have little bit knowledge in SAN. But would like to get more exposure and also work
in storage environment. I have bit of more exposure in netapp.Could you please provide the
interview questions and also share some CBT if you have.

...

Question Interview questions on Fiber Channel & Storage Technology

.WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF FIBRE CHANNEL SANS?

Fibre Channel SANs are the de facto standard for storage networking
in the
corporate data center because they provide exceptional reliability,
scalability, consolidation, and performance. Fibre Channel SANs
provide
significant advantages over direct-attached storage through
improved
storage utilization, higher data availability, reduced management
costs,
and highly scalable capacity and performance.
2.WHAT ENVIRONMENT IS MOST SUITABLE FOR FIBRE CHANNEL
SANS?

Typically, Fibre Channel SANs are most suitable for large data
centers
running business-critical data, as well as applications that require
highbandwidth performance such as medical imaging, streaming media,
and large
databases. Fibre Channel SAN solutions can easily scale to meet the
most
demanding performance and availability requirements.
3.WHAT CUSTOMER PROBLEMS DO FIBRE CHANNEL SANS SOLVE?
The increased performance of Fibre Channel enables a highly
effective
backup and recovery approach, including LAN-free and server-free
backup
models. The result is a faster, more scalable, and more reliable
backup
and recovery solution. By providing flexible connectivity options and
resource sharing, Fibre Channel SANs also greatly reduce the
number of
physical devices and disparate systems that must be purchased and
managed,
which can dramatically lower capital expenditures. Heterogeneous
SAN
management provides a single point of control for all devices on the
SAN,
lowering costs and freeing personnel to do other tasks.
4.HOW LONG HAS FIBRE CHANNEL BEEN AROUND?
Development started in 1988, ANSI standard approval occurred in
1994, and
large deployments began in 1998. Fibre Channel is a mature, safe,
and
widely deployed solution for high-speed (1Gb, 2Gb, 4Gb)
communications and
is the foundation for the majority of SAN installations throughout the
world.

5.WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF FIBRE CHANNEL SANS?

Fibre Channel is a well-established, widely deployed technology with
a
proven track record and a very large installed base, particularly in
high performance, business-critical data centre environments. Fibre
Channel
SANs continue to grow and will be enhanced for a long time to
come.The
reduced costs of Fibre Channel components, the availability of SAN
kits,
and the next generation of Fibre Channel (4Gb) are helping to fuel
that
growth. In addition, the Fibre Channel roadmap includes plans to
double
performance every three years
6.WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF 4GB FIBRE CHANNEL?
Benefits include twice the performance with little or no price
increase,
investment protection with backward compatibility to 2Gb, higher
reliability due to fewer 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 suited for applications that need
to
quickly transfer large amounts of data such as remote replication
across a
SAN, streaming video on demand, modeling and rendering, and
large
databases. 4Gb technology is shipping today.
7.HOW IS FIBRE CHANNEL DIFFERENT FROM ISCSI?
Fibre Channel and iSCSI each have a distinct place in the IT
infrastructure as SAN alternatives to DAS. Fibre Channel generally
provides high performance and high availability for business-critical

applications, usually in the corporate data center. In contrast, iSCSI

is
generally used to provide SANs for business applications in smaller
regional or departmental data centers.
8.WHEN SHOULD I DEPLOY FIBRE CHANNEL INSTEAD OF ISCSI?
For environments consisting of high-end servers that require high
bandwidth or data center environments with business-critical data,
Fibre
Channel is a better fit than iSCSI. For environments consisting of
many
midrange or low-end servers, an IP SAN solution often delivers the
most
appropriate price/performance.