Vendor Specific Content and Resources

Brocade
            SAN Health Check - http://www.brocade.com/support/sanhealth.jsp - If you are running a Brocade based SAN Infrastructure, be sure to go to this site, download the software and run the Health Check.  It is a non-intrusive utility that will map and document your current SAN infrastructure.  Best of all, it’s free!  It does take about an hour to get set up and run, and it takes anywhere from an hour to about a day to get the results back from Brocade.  But it is worth it.  You do need to have the system you are running the utility from connected to the same IP network as the switches and servers you are checking.

            Brocade Online Education - http://www.brocade.com/education_services/index.jsp
Several good (and free) online courses available for SAN basics and design.  Just register on the site and you can get free training as well as paid training and certifications.

            Brocade Bookshelf – http://www.brocade.com/bookshelf - Two of the books I recommended are available here.

Cisco
            Cisco Learning Connection - http://www.cisco.com/web/learning/le31/le46/products/products-storage-networking.html - This is the current section dedicated to Storage Area Networking.

            Cisco Storage Product Line - http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/ps4159/index.html - This is the current storage product line from Cisco.

Hewlett-Packard
            SAN Design Guide – The URL to this moves around quite a bit, so I am not going to add a link.  But if you go to hp.com, about the center of the home site has a link to “storage”, click that, and then go to “SAN Infrastructure” (about center on the far left side).  There you will find the “bible” of HP SAN design.  It’s not the easiest read, but there is a lot of good information about basic SAN design as well as supported configurations.  They do a really good job of keeping it fairly current
           
            Product Bulletin/Quick Specs - http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/CD_Files.HTML - This can be a tough one to find, but well worth it.  If you use HP servers, storage, whatever, you are familiar with the Quick Specs.  This is a downloadable version so you can always have the most current (as well as historical) Quick Specs at your desktop (or laptop).  You can set it to update every day (I do), so you don’t have to dig through the HP/Compaq/Tandem/DEC websites to find part numbers and supported configurations.  This link may change on occasion, so if the link fails, send me an email, and I will find the current location for you.

IBM
            Two words, RED BOOKS!  Go to http://www.redbooks.ibm.com and start diving in. Also, look into the RedPapers (left side of the rebooks website) for free downloads of best practices, designs, etc.