While not all the information detailed in this list is verified through these exams, a majority of it is.
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| Your competence in these areas will directly impact your ability to understand the concepts described within this document and your ability to take the Xyratex Certified System Engineer (XCSE) course and pass the XCSE exam. |
Compare and contrast the differences in disk technologies
| Define and understand the relationship between LBA and physical disk geometry |
| Describe distinguishing characteristics of all drive types e.g. dual ported, single ported, protocols, queuing, etc… |
| Describe the reliability, application, performance, and costs of FC, SAS, and SATA disks, e.g. RPM, MTBF, Enterprise, server, seek times, latency, capacity, etc… |
| Describe what an SSD is and its advantages and disadvantages, i.e. Solid State Disk, ultra high performance, not subject to mechanical latencies, very expensive, etc… |
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Describe the different characteristics of each interface technology
Describe FC characteristics
| Describe characteristics of Fibre Channel that make it appropriate for SAN implementation, e.g. distances, topologies, media types, fabric, services |
| Describe the distance and speeds available in FC SAN, e.g., distance, 1/2/4/8/10 Gb speeds, SM & MM fibre, etc… |
| Describe topologies and the connectivity implied, e.g., point-to-point, arbitrated loop, switched fabric |
| Describe naming conventions, WWNN, WWPN, addresses, and AL_PAs |
| Identify different FC connectors, e.g. SFP, GBIC, Copper, etc... |
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Describe SAS and SATA characteristics
| Describe SAS link speeds |
| Describe SAS narrow vs wide ports |
| Describe a SAS expander |
| Describe SAS support for SATA devices, e.g., connectors, STP protocol |
| Identify different external SAS and SATA connectors |
| Describe command queuing |
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Describe SCSI Protocol characteristics
| Describe how SCSI command language is used in Fibre Channel & SAS |
| Understand basic differences between the parallel SCSI bus and SCSI Command Language |
| Define SCSI command protocol and basic SCSI architecture i.e. the concept of initiators, targets, command, data, status |
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| Describe the differences, advantages, and disadvantages between Serial & Parallel interfaces |
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| Define what an interposer-card/dongle is and what it does, e.g. it may provide interface conversions, failover capability for SATA devices in a SAS backplane, etc... |
Configure storage administration characteristics of all Xyratex supported Operating Systems
Describe how Windows provisions storage, e.g. disk administrator
| Describe the characteristics of Windows file systems, e.g. NTFS and FAT-32, default I/O size (allocation) |
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Describe how Linux provisions storage, e.g. Fdisk, disk manager, logical volume manager
| Describe the characteristics of Linux file systems, e.g. XFS or EXT3, difference between 2.4 and 2.6 limits, default I/O size, etc… |
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Describe RAID technology
| Describe technical characteristics of host-based RAID vs non-host based RAID |
| Describe RAID levels commonly used for data protection and trade-offs relative to performance & redundancy (e.g., common RAID levels) |
| Describe RAID terminology, i.e. chunk, strips, stripes, parity, spares, hot spares, degraded, critical, LUN, volumes, etc... |
Describe how different RAID levels are applied to standard industry applications, e.g. video, databases, OLTP, archiving, MS Exchange, etc…
| Describe the impact of the various RAID level characteristics on various IO Profiles |
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Describe the performance characteristics of different RAID levels
| Describe the performance impact of Read/Modify/Write compared to Full Stripe Write, etc. |
| Describe the differences between all RAID levels, i.e. performance, overhead, and redundancy, etc… |
| Describe the characteristics and impact of caching on RAID performance, e.g. writeback, write through, read ahead, or any other variations, etc… |
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Describe differences between JBOD, SBOD, EBOD and RAID
| Describe the basic architecture of a RAID storage subsystem, e.g. redundant controller, power, cooling, storage, etc. |
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| Describe the architectural elements of a typical RAID controller, e.g. host interface, drive interface, RAID engine, cache, and battery backup |
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Describe FC SAN characteristics and components
| Describe basic FC switch characteristics, e.g. provides connectivity, managed entity, provides addresses, provides zoning, security, etc. |
Describe the characteristics of HBAs
| Describe HBA parameters e.g. speed, connection-mode/topologies, Q-depth, port WWN, host bus, number of ports, etc. |
| Describe what needs to be maintained on HBAs, e.g. Firmware, BIOS, Drivers |
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Describe advantages of FC SAN Applications, e.g. backup & recovery, consolidation, Disaster Recovery, virtualization, etc.
Awareness of virtualization providers, e.g. FalconStor, VMWare, Virtual Iron, etc.
| Describe the characteristics of virtualization, e.g. masking of physical components for flexibility, host based, fabric based, storage based, etc. |
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Describe Tiered Storage concepts
| Describe the different storage tiers and their characteristics, e.g. tier 1 - 4, performance, redundancy, cost, nearline, archive, etc. |
Xyratex Certified System Engineer Training
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