Coordinators:

Alberto Pace, CERN
Bernd Panzer, CERN

This series of lectures addresses the broad domain of data storage and management technologies. It starts by setting the scene and surveying the various data storage media, comparing their major features including performance and cost, as well as discussing their interconnections.

Then, the series describes possible data storage architectures and the associated software solutions. Focusing on Large Data Centres, it addresses the issues of heating and power consumption.

This is followed by a description of storage models and addresses data management issues and their supporting techniques and tools.

Finally, the series  focuses on reliability and performance of modern Data storage systems.

In the course of the series, elements of computer security an authentication that are relevant to data management are also presented.

The series of lectures is complemented by 5 hours of practical exercises on aspects such as Performance Tuning and Peer-to-Peer storage.

Series

Type

Lecture

Description

Lecturer

Data Technologies

Lectures

Lecture 1

Setting the scene: Storage technologies

The lecture presents the various Storage Models, and the supporting management  techniques including Name Servers and interfaces for Data Management.

Storage Reliability and performance

The lecture will and discuss the various solution to ensure long data preservation and reliability with the consequences on performance, including when using Peer to Peer Storage and data transfers.

Lecture 2

Lecture 3

Cryptography, authentication authorization and accounting

These lectures give elements of computer security that are relevant to data management. The lectures addresses the various technologies used in data storage systems to ensure data encryption, integrity, confidentiality and access control.

Alberto Pace
 

Lecture 4

Additional component for Data Replication, Caching, Monitoring, Alarms and Quota

This lecture describes the various possible technologies used to implement data workflows and complex data transfer processes. It also discusses problems with data caching and Garbage Collection to conclude on monitoring and quota enforcement.

Alberto Pace
 

Lecture 5

Storage technologies - Architectures of storage systems

This lecture is an Introduction to storage technologies. It presents the different types of storage media, discusses their respective performance and provides elements of cost analysis. The lecture also addresses the issue of connectivity between storage elements and describes the possible Architectures for Storage systems and the issues in Large Data Centres when taking into account issues of heating and power constraints.

Alberto Pace

Exercises

Exercise 1 Exercise 2 Exercise 3 Exercise 4 Exercise 5

The first part of hands-on exercises aims to improve understanding of basic parameters in IO systems:

  - network and media latency

  - access patterns

  - OS caching

  - bottlenecks and optimization strategies for local and remote data access.

Few essential Linux tools will be introduced to monitor and measure IO performance avoiding bias introduced by OS caching. Students will experience and measure the impact of latency and access patterns on IO performance.

The second part covers the concept of parallelism and redundancy in storage system. With Measurements we will demonstrate the benefits of parallelism in LAN and WAN environments. The exercises conclude with the implementation and performance tuning of a RAID verification algorithm.

Andreas Peters
Alberto Pace

Prerequisite Knowledge

Desirable prerequisite

and

References to further information

Ability to develop simple programs, basic understanding of networking technologies.