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• Given a SAN environment, identify the components, services, and features of the MDS 9000 platform that can be used to improve the availability, scalability, performance, and manageability of the SAN.
• Given the MDS platform components, design a multiprotocol SAN to meet a variety of customer requirements.
• Given a SAN environment, design a SAN that enables storage consolidation.
• Given a SAN environment, design a SAN security implementation that includes port and fabric security, secure management protocols, and role-based access control to meet security policy requirements.
• Given an understanding of SAN extension applications, design a SAN extension solution that meets application availability, performance, and scalability requirements.
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Module 1: MDS 9000 Platform Overview Given a SAN environment, the learner will be able to identify the components, services, and features of the MDS 9000 platform that can be used to improve the availability, scalability, performance, and manageability of the SAN
Lesson 1: Introducing MDS 9000 Platform Components
- Describe Cisco MDS 9100, 9200, and 9500 Series
- Describe Cisco MDS line card modules
- Describe Cisco MDS supervisor modules
- Describe Cisco MDS 9500 fabric modules
Lesson 2: System Architecture
- Explain the performance characteristics of the crossbar architecture and separation of the control plane from the data plane
- Describe the architecture of Cisco MDS line card modules and data flow across the crossbar
- Describe the benefits of VOQ and explain the purpose of destination indexes
- Explain the use of planned oversubscription in a SAN environment
- Explain the use of Port Bandwidth Reservation on second- and third-generation line card modules
- Explain how buffer credits are allocated to Fibre Channel interfaces and their importance over long-distance communication
- Explain the recommended practices for configuring port speed, rate mode, BB_credits, and bandwidth reservation
Lesson 3: Cisco Nexus 5000 Overview
- Describe I/O Consolidation, and the minimum requirements for FCoE
- Describe the Cisco Nexus 5000 switches
- Describe the Cisco Nexus 5000 expansion modules
- Explain the operation and benefits of CNAs
- Describe the Cisco Nexus 2000 Fabric Extender and its use in a Data Center architecture
- Describe the Cisco Nexus 4000 Blade Switch with FCoE capability and its use in a Data Center architecture
Lesson 4: Cisco Unified Computing System Overview
- Describe the Cisco Unified Computing System
- Describe the UCS B-series components
- Describe the UCS C-series components
- Describe the use of UCS B-series and C-series components in a Data Center architecture
Lesson 5: Using Intelligent Fabric Services
- Describe SAN scalability features on Cisco MDS Multilayer switches
- Describe VSAN and virtual fabrics
- Explain Dynamic Port VSAN Membership
- Explain SAN device Virtualization
- Explain the Flex Attach feature
- Identify SAN protocols that are supported by the Cisco MDS switch
- Describe Cisco MDS switch High Availability features
- Describe Traffic Engineering features on Cisco MDS switch
- Describe SAN Security features on Cisco MDS switch
- Describe the Cisco Fabric Services infrastructure and discuss the benefits of maintaining configuration synchronization to provide fabric consistency
Lesson 6: Software Packages and Licensing
- Describe the features that are included in the standard license
- Describe the features that are included within each of the optional licenses
- Describe 120 day license free period
Lesson 7: Implementing Integrated Management
- Describe the Cisco NX-OS CLI and explain how it is used to configure the Cisco MDS and obtain status info
- Describe the installation, connectivity, functions and capabilities of the Cisco Fabric Manager
- Describe the installation, connectivity, functions and capabilities of the Cisco Fabric Manager
- Describe the architecture and features of the Cisco Fabric Manager Server
- Describe the capabilities and applications of the Cisco Performance Manager and Cisco Traffic Analyzer
Lesson 8: Initial Switch Configuration
- Describe the use of System Memory Areas
- Describe the Cisco MDS 9000 Boot Sequence
- Describe the initial setup process and default settings
- Describe the installation process for Cisco Fabric Manager and Device Manager
Module 2: Designing SAN Fabrics Given a SAN environment, the learner will be able to design a multiprotocol SAN to meet a variety of customer requirements.
Lesson 1: SAN Design Overview
- Identify flows and dependencies between hosts and storage
- Describe the SAN Design process, identifying host requirements, storage capabilities, network connectivity and security
Lesson 2: Designing n-tier Application Architectures
- Describe the one-tier, two-tier, three-tier and n-tier models
- Explain design requirements for the presentation tier
- Explain design requirements for the application tier
- Explain design requirements for the data storage tier
- Explain design requirements for HPC applications
Lesson 3: Designing Host Connectivity
- Discuss the variance in application profiles including burst and sustained, sequential and random, and latency sensitivity
- Define IOPS and identify tools that can be used to measure IOPS
- Explain where bottlenecks can occur in the host and discuss resulting effect on server performance
- Explain the difference between PCI, PCI-X, PCIe and InfiniBand and compare performance
- Explain the average and peak I/O requirements and discuss how these equate to I/O throughput through the HBA port. Explain the use of shared or reserved bandwidth ports for host connection
- Describe Server Virtualization and VMWare
- Describe design requirements for virtual servers
Lesson 4: Designing Storage Connectivity
- Identify key storage array components
- Explain why a storage array may not be able to sustain peak performance on all ports simultaneously
- Describe common RAID architectures and discuss their effect on application requirements
- Explain the use of shared or reserved bandwidth ports for storage connection
- Explain the use of FCoE compliant storage devices and their use in a Data Center architecture
- Describe the use and purpose of LUN Masking
- Explain the benefits of Single Initiator Zoning
- Describe LUN Zoning and how it can be used with LUN masking and LUN mapping
Lesson 5: Building the SAN
- Explain fan-in, fan-out and oversubscription in single-tier designs
- Explain fan-in, fan-out and oversubscription in multi-tier designs
- Describe a Core-Edge topology
- Describe the collapsed-core architecture
- Explain how port-channels provide load balancing across ISLs
- Explain the benefits of using reserved bandwidth for ISL ports and explain the use of them
Lesson 6: Designing Redundant Fabrics
- Describe redundancy in host, storage and in the network
- Describe active-passive redundant fabrics
- Describe load-balancing methods
- Explain the differences between designing for average throughput and designing for peak throughput
- Explain how to ensure sufficient overall bandwidth under failure conditions
- Discuss VSAN deployment in redundant fabric configurations
- Explain the purpose and use of Inter VSAN Routing
- Describe how IVR can be used to share resources across several VSANs
Lesson 7: SAN Migration and Interoperability
- Explain the SAN Migration strategies of: Live migration, Phased migration and Offline migration
- Describe Cisco MDS interoperability modes that allow Cisco MDS attachment to an existing 3rd party SAN
- Describe Data Migration solutions in a SAN environment
- Describe Cisco Data Mobility Manager
Lesson 8: Data Center Consolidation and Virtualization
- Describe the benefits of consolidation and virtualization in the Data Center to make more efficient use of resources
- Describe network consolidation and virtualization methods utilizing the Cisco MDS, Cisco Nexus and Cisco Catalyst platforms
- Describe how blade servers can be used to consolidate servers
- Describe how storage consolidation can be used to consolidate direct attached storage
- Describe how storage virtualization can be used to consolidate heterogeneous storage devices
- Explain the Fabric Application Interface Standard (FAIS)
- Describe how the Cisco MDS provides a platform for Storage Virtualization solutions using FAIS
Lesson 9: Traffic Engineering
- Explain VSAN tagging and how frames are multiplexed on an ISL or Port Channel
- Explain how data flows from different applications can be directed using per-VSAN FSPF routing
- Describe the use of QoS and explain how priority can be given to latency-sensitive applications when congestion occurs
- Explain the impact of congestion and how to minimize the effects using FCC
Lesson 10: SAN Design using Unified I/O
- Describe NFS and CIFS file-based protocols and their use in a Data Center environment
- Describe the SCSI protocol and how it can be carried over Fibre Channel and over TCP/IP using iSCSI
- Describe the iSCSI protocol, software iSCSI, TOE and iSCSI adapters, and discuss the method of encapsulation
- Describe how the iSCSI gateway on Cisco MDS switches provides an iSCSI host with access to storage in a Fibre Channel SAN
- Describe iSCSI connectivity through the IPS Module, MPS 14/2, MDS 9216i, MSM 18/4 and MDS 9222i
- Describe Data Center Bridging (DCB) and the standards that provide minimum requirements for FCoE
- Describe how CIFS, NFS, iSCSI and Fibre Channel can be carried over Unified I/O
- Describe how unified storage devices can provide NAS and SAN storage requirements
- Compare and contrast NFS, CIFS, iSCSI, Fibre Channel and FCoE explaining throughput, latency, payload size and overhead
Module 3: Designing SAN Extension Solutions Given a SAN design, the learner will design a SAN Extension solution that meets application availability, performance and scalability requirements.
Lesson 1: Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity
- Describe the Recovery Time Objective and the Recovery Point Objective
- Describe tiered recovery methods, including tape vaulting, remote backup and restore, and replication between sites
- Describe the difference between synchronous and asynchronous array-to-array replication, and discuss the impact of each on application latency
- Explain the impact of distance on application latency
- Describe data protection techniques including Backup, Restore, Mirroring, Snapshots and Continuous Data Protection (CDP)
- Describe the use of array-based replication between data centers
- Explain how to attach external heterogeneous data replication appliances using the Cisco MDS 9000 SANTap protocol
Lesson 2: SAN Extension Connectivity with Optical Networks
- Explain the use of dark fiber, including distance limitations and bandwidth restrictions
- Describe basic CWDM concepts and components
- Describe basic CWDM topologies
- Describe basic DWDM concepts and components
- Describe basic DWDM topologies
- Describe basic SONET and SDH components and topologies
- Explain how the ONS 15454 MSTP consolidates multiple tiers of WAN connectivity into a single platform
Lesson 3: SAN Extension Connectivity with FCIP
- Describe the relevant characteristics of the FCIP protocol
- Describe the logical structure of a Gigabit Ethernet port and explain how it supports three FCIP tunnels
- Describe the point-to-point and hub-and-spoke FCIP topologies and discuss where they may be used
- Compare and contrast dark fiber, CWDM, DWDM, SONET/SDH, and FCIP in terms of distance, latency, bandwidth, reliability and cost
Lesson 4: Improving Performance and Availability
- Describe the factors affecting FCIP performance
- Explain how FCIP Write Acceleration can improve FCIP performance
- Explain how FCIP Tape Acceleration can improve backup performance
- Explain how Tape Read Acceleration can improve restore performance
- Explain the benefits of using a centralized I/O Acceleration engine within a SAN environment
- Explain the benefits of tuning TCP/IP for maximum performance
- Explain the benefits of using Packet Shaping to improve TCP/IP performance over the WAN
- Explain how FCIP compression can increase FCIP performance
- Explain how Port Channels, IVR and Transit VSANs can be used to minimize disruption in a SAN extension environment
- Explain how hardware-based FCIP encryption can help protect data across the WAN
Module 4: SAN Security Given a SAN design, the learner will design a SAN security implementation that includes port and fabric security, secure management protocols, and role-based access control to meet security policy requirements.
Lesson 1: Securing the SAN Fabric
- Discuss the vulnerabilities that exist in a SAN environment
- Explain how IP ACLs, SNMPv3, SSH and SFTP protocols can help protect management access
- Describe the use of RBAC and VSAN-Based RBAC for secure SAN Management
- Explain how to use RADIUS and TACACS+ servers to centralize security management
- Describe the function of RADIUS, AAA, and TACACS+ and explain how they interact with centralized LDAP, AD, and RDBMS authentication
Lesson 2: Storage Security Features
- Describe how Fibre Channel zoning can be used to group host and storage ports
- Describe how Read-Only zoning can be used to prevent unauthorized data modification and how LUN Zoning can be used to prevent unauthorized hosts from accessing LUNs
- Describe WWN spoofing and explain how port security can minimize this threat
- Describe Fabric Binding and how it can prevent unauthorized hosts or switches from connecting to a SAN
- Describe the use of Fibre Channel Link-level encryption and how it can secure in-transit Fibre Channel data
- Describe the use of SME and how it can protect data at rest on tape devices and storage arrays
- Describe the use of Cisco Secure Erase to erase data on de-commissioned storage arrays
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