Technical Interview

Part I: Storage
What is a data centre?

A data centre is a facility that contains storage, compute, network, and other IT resources to
provide centralized data-processing capabilities.

What are the core components/elements of a data centre?

 Application
 Database Management System (DBMS)
 Host or Compute
Client/Workstation
Server
 Network
LAN/WAN
Storage Network
 Storage
RAID arrays
Tape libraries

What are the characteristics of a data centre?

 Availability
 Scalability
 Manageability
 Data Integrity
 Security
 Capacity
 Performance

What are the viable information storage solutions available for use by organizations?

 Direct-attached storage (DAS)

 Network-attached storage (NAS)
 Storage area networks (SAN)

Prepared by: Yasmin Amin

What are the criteria to be considered when selecting the right storage technology for an
organization?

 Capacity – the amount and type of data (file level or block level) that needs to be
stored and shared
 Performance – I/O and throughput requirements
 Scalability – Long-term data growth
 Availability and reliability – how mission-critical are your applications?
 Data protection – Backup and recovery requirements
 IT staff and resources available
 Budget concerns

What is DAS?

Direct-attached storage (DAS) is the most basic level of storage, in which storage devices are
either:

 Part of the host computer, as with drives

 Directly connected to a single server, as with RAID arrays or tape libraries

Network workstations must therefore access the server in order to connect to the storage
device.

What is the key difference between DAS and NAS/SAN?

In DAS, network workstations must access the server in order to connect to the storage
device. This is in contrast to networked storage such as NAS and SAN, which are connected
to workstations and servers over a network.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of DAS?

Advantages

 Simple to deploy and low complexity

 Low initial cost
 Ease of management and administration

Disadvantages

 Server connected to required storage device is a single point of failure

 Network bottlenecks and slowdowns in data availability
In addition to the server’s regular duty of storing and retrieving files, the
server also bears the extra load of processing applications such as e-mail and

Prepared by: Yasmin Amin

 databases. As such, network bottlenecks and slowdowns in data availability
may occur as server bandwidth is consumed by applications
 Limited scalability
 Low utilization rate
Since resources cannot be shared beyond a single server in DAS, systems
may be using as little as half of their full capacity
 No heterogeneous data sharing
Each server is running its own operating platform, so there is no common
storage in an environment that may include a mix of Windows, Mac and
Linux workstations

What are the ideal uses of DAS?

 Small businesses or departments and workgroups that do not need to share

information over long distances or across an enterprise traditionally utilize DAS for
file serving and e-mail
 Large enterprises may leverage DAS in a mixed storage environment that likely
includes NAS and SAN

What is the key difference between NAS and SAN?

NAS uses file-level data access, whereas SAN uses block-level data access.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of NAS?

Advantages

 Eliminates single point of failure

 No network bottlenecks or slowdowns in availability
NAS relieves the server of storage and file serving responsibilities, and
provides a lot more flexibility in data access by virtue of being independent
 Low entry cost
 Plug and play solution that is easy to install, deploy and manage, with or without IT
staff at hand
 High utilization rate, since storage is shared across multiple servers
 High scalability
 Heterogeneous data sharing
NAS systems can integrate into any environment and serve files across all
operating platforms

Prepared by: Yasmin Amin

What are the ideal uses of NAS?

 Medium sized business

 Large enterprises

What are the common NAS file sharing protocols?

 Common Internet File System protocol (CIFS)

 Network File System protocol (NFS)

What is NFS?

NFS is a client/server application that enables a computer user to view, optionally store, and
update files on a remote computer as though they were on the user’s own computer.

What are the features of NFS?

 Client/server application
 Uses Remote Procedure Calls (RPC) to communicate between computers
 Uses TCP/IP to transfer files
 The user or system administrator can mount all or a portion of a file system. The
portion of the file system that is mounted (Designated as accessible) can be
controlled using permissions (e.g., read-only or read-write)
 Uses Network Information Service (NIS) for domain name resolution

Compare between NFSv2, NFSv3 and NFSv4.

 NFSv2 was stateless and uses UDP as the transport layer protocol
 NFSv3 added TCP as a option for transport layer protocol (alongside UDP)
 NFSv4 is stateful, allows scalable parallel access to files distributed among multiple
servers, and provides support to cluster server deployment

What are the advantages and disadvantages of SAN?

Advantages

 High and predictable performance

 24x7 data availability and reliability
 Excellent scalability
 Very high utilization of resources
Extra capacity in SANs can be pooled

Prepared by: Yasmin Amin

What are the ideal uses of SAN?

 Mission-critical applications in the enterprise space

 Bandwidth-intensive applications such as database, imaging and transaction
processing
 Large enterprises

What is meant by SAN/NAS convergence?

With SAN/NAS convergence, companies can consolidate block-level and file-level data on
common arrays.

What are the interconnect technologies that are commonly used in conjunction with SAN?

 Fibre Channel (FC)

 Small Computer System Interface (SCSI)

What is Fibre Channel (FC)?

Fibre Channel (FC) is a highly reliable, gigabit interconnect technology that enables
simultaneous communication among workstations, mainframes, servers, data storage
systems and other peripherals.

What is the preferred interconnect technology in SANs? Why?

Fibre Channel (FC)

Without the distance and bandwidth limitations of SCSI, FC is ideal for moving large volumes
of data across long distances quickly and reliably.

Prepared by: Yasmin Amin