Disc Storage Technology Update - Storage and Storage Management

HP/Works Technical Focus Day

Tuesday 26 February 2002, HP Pinewood

HP/Works members, colleagues from member organisations, and non-members are most welcome to attend. Please book early to secure your place. The provisional agenda is:

09.45 Registration and coffee

10.15 An Introduction to Distributed Storage Technologies
           - Steve Boniwell, ABC Solutions

The sharing of data is a common thread through the modern, networked IT environment. As the awareness of data value increases and the volume of data grows, new technologies have evolved to improve shared data access. This presentation overviews some of these technologies and briefly compares some current acronyms such as NAS, SAN, SCSI3, FC and DAS.

10.45 Network Appliance - Enabling Enterprises for Today & Tomorrow
           - Julian Wheeler, Network Appliance Channel SE Manager

This presentation will cover a NetApp product overview and Key Product Advantages eg Unix/NT data sharing. Also included will be the NAS vs SAN argument and how the distinction between the two has become blurred. Future industry drivers and how the NetApp Centre to Edge solution addresses these now, easily scaling to meet future demands will also be covered. (Coffee break included.)

12.00 Storage Area Networks
           - John Harle, Exquip Storage Specialist

This presentation will include details of the technical benefits and circumstances where SAN should be considered.

12.30 Lunch - available in subsidised canteen

13.30 Experiences in deploying a complex wide-area SAN
           - Nick Mayes, Senior Technology Consultant, HP (UK)

HP is currently deploying for a UK customer one of its largest SANs to date, comprising a mixture of several server operating systems, multiple high-end disk arrays, dense wave division multiplexers, new 2Gb switches and fibre channel tape libraries. A core & edge switch topology is the preferred SAN design, chosen for its merits of scalability and performance. The mixed 1Gb/2Gb-switched SAN is split across 3 physical sites, and the solution enables servers at the primary site to access data almost 50km away by using Brocade Extended Fabric technology.

14.15 Brocade, the Intelligent Platform for Networking Storage
           - Paul Griffiths, Senior Systems Engineer, Brocade

This presentation will cover: the Brocade product family overview; how the technology fits in with SAN generally; some points to keep in mind when considering SAN implementation and deployment; and a brief discussion on emerging technologies such as iSCSI and Infiniband. With ever increasing rates of data creation, and with an increasing diversity of data types, Brocade provides a storage infrastructure which creates a safe, reliable, scalable and easily managed SAN environment.

15.00 Simplifying SAN Design and Management
           - Chris Lentz, European Product Manager, DataCore Software Corp

An in-band Virtualisation layer provides the tools for users to truly exploit the benefits of Networked Storage. The ability to simplify the infrastructure, to provision storage on demand and to allow all storage assets to be used within the storage pool are just a few key elements of storage virtualisation that Chris will present.

15.45 (approx) Tea and Close