Building Storage Networks offers an excellent introduction to the burgeoning field of storage networks.

A few years ago, someone pulled me aside, looked me in the eye, and informed me that the future was storage. I felt like young Ben Braddock in The Graduate, being told the future was plastics. While the average IT engineer isn't dealing with Mrs. Robinson, he or she does need to manage a staggering amount of data.

Storage devices have been around as long as computers. From cassettes or tape drives to multigigabyte hard drives, the growth of storage has gone hand in hand with the growth of computers, and storage capacity has risen dramatically. Even 10 years ago, industry professionals touted the phrase "disk is cheap," effectively writing off storage as a commodity--and this was when hard drives were 120MB or less. During the last decade, continuing improvements in storage technology coincided with the explosion of the Internet, creating a huge demand for reliable, large-scale storage systems. Most businesses have recognized that data is a critical part of their IT systems, what author Marc Farley calls an "independent asset," equal in stature to applications and other system software.

Building Storage Networks gives information professionals the basic skills to understand modern storage technologies. The author argues that the common storage types SAN (Storage Area Network) and NAS (Network Attached Storage) are two different manifestations of a common set of principles, which all professionals should understand no matter which solution they implement.

After an in-depth discussion of his three key storage concepts--wiring, storing, and filing--Farley fleshes out the role of storage in today's corporate networks. This includes the details of storage implementation, different cabling and communication options, backup management, and future developments (e.g., InfiniBand).

This book is easily accessible to intermediate readers familiar with basic networking topologies and computer terminology. A healthy number of illustrations are used to effectively communicate complex topics. At the end of each chapter is a comprehensive summary, followed by several exercises, allowing the reader to fully grasp various storage concepts before proceeding.

Building Storage Networks can be used as an entry point for those wishing to learn about modern storage technologies, or as a reference for IT professionals already knee-deep in storage networks. However, almost all storage issues are considered in the abstract, without explicit reference to a particular vendor's hardware. Although an occasional reference is made to a specific product, the author sets out to educate the reader on storage issues, not to replace the manual for a particular piece of storage hardware. --Pete Ostenson