Data Storage Management Survival School: Table of contents 
Data is growing out of control. Your hardware and software from six different vendors don't work nicely together and you have just been asked to cut staff. Sound familiar? Storage managers aren't only having a hard time corralling data, but even knowing what systems are on their floors and what systems are managing what is still a mystery to many. Where to put data, how to move data and who should have their hands on data are other major issues still being sorted out by managers everywhere.
Data Storage Management Survival School is dedicated to exposing you to all of the aspects of managing storage and how to optimize your environments so the pains described above can be minimized.
If this is the first time you are asking yourself, "How am I ever going to manage all this data?" -- Data Storage Management Survival School is for you. If you are implementing your first storage management software suite or SRM tool -- Data Storage Management Survival School is for you. If you need to know the benefits of tiered storage, automation or how to create policies and procedures that can maximize your systems -- Data Storage Management Survival School is for you.
In each of these 15-minute lessons, management experts will walk you through starting a storage management plan, operational best practices and setting up a storage management group. Data Storage Management Survival School is in session -- enjoy!
Lesson 1: Data storage planning: Where on earth do I begin?
Determining ROI for storage management can be a challenge given the varying types of metrics used. In this session, analyst Jamie Gruener looks at how to begin your own ROI analysis of storage management tools, including the metrics you need to consider, how to measure them, and how to use the results to your benefit. This session should be relevant to anyone considering purchases of storage management tools in the next 12 months, as well as those considering chargeback, cost sharing and other billing tactics when dealing with business units on the storage budget.
Listen to Lesson one right now.
Get the worksheet, follow along with class
Lesson 2: Best practices: Data storage management operations
Are poor day-to-day operations stymieing your storage network? In this 15-minute lesson Greg Schulz, Senior Analyst of the Evaluator Group, looks at the real nuts and bolts of daily storage management. Learn the best practices, processes and tools necessary to maximize the efforts of your systems and staff in lesson two of "Data Storage Management Survival School."
Listen to Lesson two right now.
Get the worksheet, follow along with class
***TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE -- TAKE OUR QUIZ***
Once you've viewed lessons 1-2, test your skills by taking the Data Storage Management Survival School Quiz
Lesson 3: Managing growth: How to stop the bleeding
This lesson aims to provide tips on how to plan for and manage exponential growth. This lesson will look at automation, policy and procedure, meeting/creating SLAs.
Listen to Lesson three right now.
Get the worksheet, follow along with class
Lesson 4: Taming the e-mail beast
E-mail is one of the biggest problems most storage admins are facing. Research firm IDC estimates corporate e-mail volumes have increased 29% annually, from 9.7 billion per day in 2000 to 16.2 billion in 2002 and 20.9 billion daily messages in 2003. Projections have 7.6 trillion e-mails hitting inboxes this year. How do you cope and manage this growth?
Listen to Lesson four right now.
Get the worksheet, follow along with class
Lesson 5: Tiered storage, the next wave
The concept of tiered storage is to re-engineer how storage is deployed and managed in easily classified tiers that have different characteristics to meet varying application and line of business needs. Sounds good, but it can be harder than one might expect. In this lesson, Jamie Gruener examines the steps you should consider in designing a tiered storage model.
Listen to Lesson five right now.
Get the worksheet, follow along with class
***TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE -- TAKE OUR QUIZ***
Once you've viewed lessons 3-5, test your skills by taking the Data Storage Management Survival School Quiz
Lesson 6: Services architecture, a new approach to an old concept
Quality-of-service is an enterprise networking concept that is starting to take hold in larger enterprise storage groups. In lesson six, analyst Jamie Gruener talks about where to start when looking at turning your storage operations into services. This will include what to consider when designing the service architecture, which storage operations are ripe to be "service-ized" and what you can do with a services approach to improve your group's (and your) standing in the organization.
Listen to Lesson six right now.
Get the worksheet, follow along with class
Lesson 7: Building a storage group
Systems are only as good as the people running them. This lesson is devoted to making sure you have the people in place to maximize your HW/SW investments.
Listen to Lesson seven right now.
Get the worksheet, follow along with class
***TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE -- TAKE OUR QUIZ***
Once you've viewed lessons 6 & 7, test your skills by taking the Data Storage Management Survival School Quiz
Take a look at SearchStorage.com's other Schools:
SAN School
Backup School
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