Goal: The main purpose of the course is to show the main features of data storage systems, by introducing data storage building blocks, and structures built upon them. By the end of the course students are expected to know the major data storage physical devices (disks, tapes, SSDs, etc.), data storage networks (SAN, NAS, FC, etc.), and generic storage solutions needed to use virtual facilities (like volumes, redundancy structures, multipathing) based on the physical devices.
Course description: We start with introducing the fundamental terms of storage infrastructures, then introducing the physical data storage devices, followed by the widely used data storage networks. We follow the logical layered model of data storage architectures, at each layer showing the most frequently used virtualization solutions as well as parameters. The lab practices will correspond to the theoretical overview, where students are allowed to try out in practice what they learn in theory.