Storage

Powering up and down a storage array may not be done in the order you think

Powering up a single server is easy. Turn on the direct attached storage, then turn on the server.  Done.  When powering your storage array down or back up there is quite a bit more to it than that. The proper procedure for powering down your array is:

1. Power off the...

Using Service Broker instead of Replication

During my SQL Service Broker sessions I talk about using SQL Service Broker as a replacement for SQL Replication.  But I've never really documented how to do this other than bits and pieces here and there.  So here I'm going to try and spell out how I put a system like this together for an auto...

EMC and NetApp are having a little fun with each other to help cure cancer

I read this on the net tonight and thought it was an awesome idea.

A friend and colleague at NetApp let me know they were doing a drive for St. Baldricks – a campaign...

IO, IO, It’s Off To Disk We Go! #TSQL2sDay

So today is #TSQL2sDay, and this months topic is Disk IO.  Storage is something I love working in, so I figured why not, I'll post something. Hopefully everyone knows that your storage solution is the most critical when it...

Taking backups is good, but testing them is better.

I bet that if asked when the last time the database backup was taken and if it succeeded you would know off of the top of your head when that was.  But if I asked you when the last time your database was restored successfully would you know?

My professional goals for 2010

It being the new year (ok, so I'm a couple of weeks late) it is time to come up with my professional goals for the new year. Continued »

Not everything needs a public IP address.

For those of you in bigger shops you can probably ignore this.  If you work in a smaller shop where everything in the datacenter has a public IP, this post is for you.

What you can and can’t do with SAN replication

SAN replication is a very power tool which will let you get real time (or near real time) backups of your database on another location on your storage array, to another storage array at the local site, or to a remote storage array at another site. However like all technologies there are some...

Dual HBAs (or iSCSI ports) should be a requirement for every server

Proper network design is very important to ensuring the highest availability between your storage array and your server.  This design is important weither you are using a Fibre Channel SAN or an iSCSI SAN.  The basic design is the same.

Not all multi-pathing software is created equal

Once you've setup a good redundant network design you need to invenst in some goo multi-pathing software to ensure that you are making the most of the...