Spring 2009

Below is information from the last time I taught this course. This is for informational purposes only. The Spring 11 offering of this course will differ in some ways. For example, the homeworks will be replaced with case studies, where students discuss and analyze real-world storage architectures.

Required Text: None

Optional Texts:

• Tom Clark, Designing_Storage_Area_Networks: A Practical Reference for Implementing Fibre Channel and IP SANs, 2/e, Addison Wesley (2003).
• Tom Clark, Storage_Virtualization: Technologies for Simplifying Data Storage and Management, Addison Wesley (2005).
• Thomas C. Jepsen, Distributed_Storage_Networks: Architecture, Protocols and Management, Wiley (2003).
• Marc Farley, Storage_Networking_Fundamentals: An Introduction to Storage Devices, Subsystems, Applications, Management, and File Systems, Cisco Press (2005).

Prerequisites:

Below is a list of recommended electives. They are not an absolute requirement, especially if you have taken a similar course. See instructor if you have one or more deficiencies.

- CSC 246 (OS); - CSC 401 (networks) or experience in distributed programming; - CSC 314 or 316 (data structures); - Experience/confidence with Unix; and - Programming competence in C or C++ is recommended.

Course objectives:

By the end of the course, students should be able to do the following.

• Discuss the challenges in an information management environment.
• Describe, compare, and contrast storage technology solutions such as SAN and NAS.
• Understand solutions for information infrastructure including
  • information availability,
  • local and remote replication,
  • business continuity,
  • backup, and
  • disaster recovery.
• Understand data storage management and monitoring tasks.

Calendar

Grading

A weighted grade average will be calculated as follows:

• Homework 20%
• Project 60%
• Exams 20%

Exams

There will be two in-class exams. Exams are closed-book and closed-notes. Students can bring an 8-1/2”x11” paper of notes to each exam. Students enrolled in 591B are required to answer one or two more questions than those enrolled in 495B.

Homework

There are 2 homework assignments. See the course web page for details on individual assignments and due dates. If the homework is created using some electronic typesetting system, it needs to adhere to the following guidelines. The homework must use at least 10-point font and have approximately 1-inch margins. The report must be left- and right- justified and use a reasonable font. Courier or other fixed-width fonts are not reasonable, except in isolated instances. Use Times or ComputerModern if you are unclear about what is reasonable. If homework is hand written, if must be legible and neat. Each homework will have different (and more difficult) requirements for students enrolled in 591B than those enrolled in 495B.

The primary deliverable in this course is the semester project. Students will devise, design, and develop their own project. Great latitude will be given for the project. The only requirements are that (1) the scope justifies an entire semester of work, and (2) the area is storage. The instructor will approve each project. Groups: projects may be done in groups of 2 students or individually. (Larger groups, 3 or more, are discouraged.) The work expected from CSC 495B students is less than that expect from CSC 591B students.

Deliverables

1. Preliminary project idea 5%
2. Draft proposal 5%
3. Project proposal 10%
4. Intermediate report (3-5 pages). 10%
5. In-class presentation (details TBD) 10%
6. Demonstration to instructor (details TBD) 35%
7. Final report. 25%