IT question about disc arrays and RAID

[th3w01f]

If you have an older PC or Laptop that you're not using you can load FreeNAS on it and get a bit of experience.

http://www.freenas.org/

I had a Lenovo with a couple of external USB drives attached running as a NAS for a while and it worked well.

NetApp also has a simulator you can download to get some experience with their frontend. This is all more towards the storage side rather than DBA side but it's pretty easy to learn the basics.

[mitch]

You probably won't like to hear this, but Enterprise customers seldom use Microsoft for their back end. It's very rare when one considers the current installed base size - typically Windows is the desktop and desktop services applications. The back end systems will be mostly HPUX, Solaris, AIX, and Linux, with Linux predicted to be the dominant enterprise OS in the very near future (say, maybe 2 lease refresh cycles aka 6-8 years).

You should get a linux box or two up and running as soon as possible. Stick MySQL (if you want to work on web stuff) or PostgreSql (compatible with Oracle scripting) on there and get to churning out some configurations. Neither of these will get you experience with things like HANA, but it will enable you to speak and think intelligently about the stack when you meet it in the real world.

[Gman]

Enterprises do use SQL in addition to Oracle, DB2, etc. We're a Fortune 200 and we have more SQL DBs than Oracle or the others combined. SQL is a good product and is quite robust and flexible. We use it in some pretty impressive ways. SQL has powered the NASDAQ for quite some time. http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlse...e-studies.aspx

I've been hearing about Linux taking over the world since the 90s. HP is driving their proprietary high-availability features into Windows and Linux, so don't expect HP-UX to be out there for more than about 5 years or so. Oracle doesn't seem to know what they're going to do with Solaris. IBM is expensive, so I've encountered more limited use of AIX/DB2.

[ChadAmberg]

Enterprises do use SQL in addition to Oracle, DB2, etc. We're a Fortune 200 and we have more SQL DBs than Oracle or the others combined. SQL is a good product and is quite robust and flexible. We use it in some pretty impressive ways. SQL has powered the NASDAQ for quite some time. http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlse...e-studies.aspx

I've been hearing about Linux taking over the world since the 90s. HP is driving their proprietary high-availability features into Windows and Linux, so don't expect HP-UX to be out there for more than about 5 years or so. Oracle doesn't seem to know what they're going to do with Solaris. IBM is expensive, so I've encountered more limited use of AIX/DB2.

Agreed. My company is in the Fortune 15 and we've got every kind of sql imaginable out there. DB2, MSSQL, SQL Anywhere, Oracle, open source DBs, etc. I talked to one of the folks in our centralized DB group and there are THOUSANDS of sql server databases he's responsible for. And that's just the centralized group, my current projects aren't in that group, and I've got probably 10-15 MSSQL databases in our environment.

What you'll find as you get deeper into bigger enterprises is the less you need to know. At your level, you'll probably specify and configure the hardware which is what you're learning to use. When you get to bigger companies, you'll tell the SAN folks you are hooking a DB server into their SAN and they'll know what to do. Past that, you'll request a DB from a big group of folks who just run and manage giant SQL cluster farms.

[drift_g35]

So what you are saying is I need to learn a lot about a lot and not focus on just one thing?

[ChadAmberg]

At this state of your career, I'd say becoming a dba/sqldev is a good choice. You'll need to know basic Windows administration.
Most importantly: LEARN ABOUT PERFORMANCE MONITORING!!! I can't stress this enough. Probably only about 2% of sysadmins know about the correct use of perfmon and other tools. Learn it, live it, love it. It is the difference between a good admin and a great one. You can troubleshoot weird issues about 20x faster if you know tools like this.
You're also on the right track about learning about RAID and disk performance. All about spindles, LUNs, etc. Soak up that knowledge. Buy the SAN guys donuts for them to show you how and why they set up LUNs and RAID groups for your servers.
Then definitely keep going down the track of the certifications for SQL.

[james_bond_007]

Define "enterprise"... In my experience it's 2500+ seats. Which makes everything you said correct and applicable. But no 2500+ seat company is going to hire someone for a DBA that doesn't know anything about RAID configurations. For the jobs he could get (without the knowledge) none of those are applicable. Because they can't afford it.

I've seen enterprise used in 2 ways:
1) # of users (similar to what you describe) and
2) Style or class of data management - smaller companies often use more sophisticated/robust methods, if they or their customers are in a position to pay to offset the expense. I have seen this with smaller financial clients, government contractors managing sensitive data, clients that are may be audited by various private/government agencies

What I was trying to imply was the he should get familiar with the pros/cons (I.E "LEARN ABOUT") of different approaches, but not that he become an expert at this point. Learning about the higher end stuff will allow him to better understand 1) What CAN be done, if needed and 2) What the trade-offs are by NOT doing them.

About the only thing I recommended him to do is to restore things once in a while, to make ABSOLUTELY sure things are being backed up as planned.

I was also generalizing...I don't know what type of Job he is after at this point.

Reading through some more, I would also say that learning to use/program SQL would be a useful skill, in all cases.

[drift_g35]

At this state of your career, I'd say becoming a dba/sqldev is a good choice. You'll need to know basic Windows administration.
Most importantly: LEARN ABOUT PERFORMANCE MONITORING!!! I can't stress this enough. Probably only about 2% of sysadmins know about the correct use of perfmon and other tools. Learn it, live it, love it. It is the difference between a good admin and a great one. You can troubleshoot weird issues about 20x faster if you know tools like this.
You're also on the right track about learning about RAID and disk performance. All about spindles, LUNs, etc. Soak up that knowledge. Buy the SAN guys donuts for them to show you how and why they set up LUNs and RAID groups for your servers.
Then definitely keep going down the track of the certifications for SQL.

Unfortunately I am at a satelite office with only developers and QA. So the guy that sets up the stuff isnt easily accessable nor would he be excited about me asking him questsions... He's quite the . Which is why i'm asking here. I can offer free beer for specific training though!

[ChadAmberg]

Unfortunately I am at a satelite office with only developers and QA. So the guy that sets up the stuff isnt easily accessable nor would he be excited about me asking him questsions... He's quite the . Which is why i'm asking here. I can offer free beer for specific training though!

Hehheh... I think that generally comes with being a SAN guy. Not sure why...

Well, keep going down your path and add performance testing/monitoring as a secondary thing for you to learn. I'm sure some of us would be able to share some SAN/DASD/Disk/LUN knowledge with you.

[buckshotbarlow]

ok, so you want to learn raid...first figure out market share...then hit the websites and search for their tuning docs.
netapp has a simulator that you can use...remember that lsi was bought out by netapp so the old lsi interface is going bye bye...
emc might have a simulator, i just refuse to work on it after dealing with a 33PB setup...i think their stuff is garbage.
hitachi has some kewl stuff, you'd have to google to see if they have a simulator.
IBM has/is trying to standardize their interface. They do have a simulator. But they have a gazillion vidz on youtube. Start with the v7000 and SanVolumeController (SVC). The sim is for the lower end stuff...ds3xxx to midrange ds53xx.
DDN has some really kewl stuff, but they don't have the market share.

Ebay is the right answer, but make sure that you have the power to drive the older stuff. You'll need at least 1 20amp circuit. Tuning storage and optimizing IO to the disk array is where you'll make your money...