Data Center Fundamentals

Product Description

Master the basics of data centers to build server farms that enhance your Web site performance

• Learn design guidelines that show how to deploy server farms in highly available and scalable environments
• Plan site performance capacity with discussions of server farm architectures and their real-life applications to determine your system needs

Today's market demands that businesses have an Internet presence through which they can perform e-commerce and customer support, and establish a presence that can attract and increase their customer base. Underestimated hit ratios, compromised credit card records, perceived slow Web site access, or the infamous "Object Not Found" alerts make the difference between a successful online presence and one that is bound to fail.

These challenges can be solved in part with the use of data center technology. Data centers switch traffic based on information at the Network, Transport, or Application layers. Content switches perform the "best server" selection process to direct users' requests for a specific service to a server in a server farm. The best server selection process takes into account both server load and availability, and the existence and consistency of the requested content.

Data Center Fundamentals helps you understand the basic concepts behind the design and scaling of server farms using data center and content switching technologies. It addresses the principles and concepts needed to take on the most common challenges encountered during planning, implementing, and managing Internet and intranet IP-based server farms. An in-depth analysis of the data center technology with real-life scenarios make Data Center Fundamentals an ideal reference for understanding, planning, and designing Web hosting and e-commerce environments.

Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful Exceptional for any networking proffesional, October 24, 2004 By  Todd Keller "Senior VoIP/Data Engineer" (Idaho Falls, ID) - See all my reviews This review is from: Data Center Fundamentals (Hardcover) Data Center Fundamentals ISBN - 1587050234 By - Mauricio Arregoces and Maurizio Portolani Publisher - Cisco Press As someone who has worked in and help design a couple Data Centers I looked to this book thinking I would find a good reference in design but one which covered much of my own knowledge already. While I wasn't entirely wrong I can honestly say this book holds much more inside it's covers than many much more expensive or comparable books hold combined. Being a `Fundamentals" book it follows true to the nature of not being for the plain interested or uninitiated technical type but then surprised me when I found a majority of the book exceptionally well thought out and explained in ways that even my mother could grasp. Those interested in learning what high availability really means and entails should read this book and understand it thoroughly. The tips and knowledge one can glean from this book is awesome just for the... Read more Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  Was this review helpful to you?  Report abuse | Permalink  Comment 11 of 12 people found the following review helpful A Ton of Information, April 18, 2005 By  Paul Miller "Network Planner" (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews    This review is from: Data Center Fundamentals (Hardcover) I recently read the title "Data Center Fundamentals", by Mauricio Arregoces and Maurizio Portolani. ISBN: 1587050234. This title has a ton of information in it. It covers just about every technology that could make up a Data Center environment. The authors have done a good job of cover detail about the several technologies in this title. Some technologies are covered in more detail than others. For example there's a lot of information on HTTP related technologies and not so much detail on say routing protocol. This makes sense, because the title is "Data Center Fundamental". This is a great title for someone that is not well versed in several technologies, because the authors have covered a great deal of information and has done a good job presenting the basics of each. This will give someone that is not familiar with a certain technology the information they need to get an idea of the technology so they can continue to expand on what they've learned. Even though... Read more Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  Was this review helpful to you?  Report abuse | Permalink  Comment 2 of 3 people found the following review helpful Read this book...if you want to work for hi-techmovers, April 2, 2007 By  Gare "Private intellectual, writer, and retir... (CLIFTON, VA, United States) - See all my reviews    This review is from: Data Center Fundamentals (Hardcover) This is an excellent primer for everyone who uses, plans, or manages a modern data center. This is a must read for our all our senior coordinators. Here at hi-techmovers we are responsible for moving million dollar data centers, so our insurance carrier required us to put together a must read list, as a way of qualifying our potential senior employees...this book is at the top of the list. As with all computer books, it is dated, but it contains much of the base knowledge for data center professionals. Its a bit dry...but who needs water, when you have such feast of information. Gare Henderson Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  Was this review helpful to you?  Report abuse | Permalink  Comment

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Praise For Data Center Fundamentals

Data Center Fundamentals
Reviewer Name: Todd Keller
Reviewer Certification: CCNA

As someone who has worked in and helped design a couple of data centers, I looked to this book thinking I would find a good reference in design, but one that covered much of my own knowledge already. While I wasn’t entirely wrong I can honestly say this book holds much more inside its covers than many much more expensive or comparable books hold combined. Being a "Fundamentals" book it follows true to the nature of not being for the plain interested or uninitiated technical type, but then surprised me when I found a majority of the book exceptionally well thought out and explained in ways that even my mother could grasp.

Those interested in learning what high availability really means and entails should read this book and understand it thoroughly. The tips and knowledge one can glean from this book are awesome just for the TCP/IP and network portions of the book, and it truly does lead you down the path to large-scale success.

While every section of the book is almost a book of its own (it is an extremely long book) and could likely get sold as such, this book takes head on the task of trying to cram into it every aspect you would need to delve into a world made up of fully redundant server and network architecture.

As a good example, DNS, while reasonably simple and elegant has many facets to it that if improperly configured or understood can be a make or break item in many data centers. Security is yet another aspect that can either help or hurt a company and its client base. If either of these is something you want to ensure is part of your considerations when building a data center then this is likely a book right up your alley. The Cryptography section is perfect for those looking to help out a bit in their search for a CISSP and the section on layer 2 and layer 3 functions is almost invaluable to anyone in a network administration field.

Lastly, the aspect of this book that most astounded me was the depth that it was able to attain. With the stress of putting together a book so focused on redundancy it is hard to believe as much foundation material made it into this book as it did. The authors made sure to try to cover every aspect of the underlying technology beneath every higher level solution they proposed.

This book is a must read for anyone interested in networking and server support regardless of being in a true "data center."

Data Center Fundamentals
Reviewer Name: Paul Miller, Network Planner
Reviewer Certifications: SCE, CNX, NetAnalyst Architect
Rating: **** out of *****

This title has a ton of information in it. It covers just about every technology that could make up a Data Center environment. The authors have done a good job of covering detail about the several technologies in this title. Some technologies are covered in more detail than others. For example there's a lot of information on HTTP related technologies and not so much detail on say, routing protocol. This makes sense, because the title is Data Center Fundamental.

This is a great title for someone that is not well-versed in several technologies, because the authors have covered a great deal of information and has done a good job presenting the basics of each. This will give someone that is not familiar with a certain technology the information he or she needs to to expand on what's been learned. Even though most of the basics are covered, the authors throw in great advanced information on technology that would pertain to Data Centers. I've learned a few nice advanced techniques on how to speed up network convergence when failures occur. The book is littered with nuggets of advanced techniques on ways to improve the overall architecture and performance of a Data Center.

I would recommend this title to all IT personnel that are responsible for either networking, system administration, or system and network Operations—even managers and project managers should have a copy on their desk. In this day and age, it's imperative that technical support personnel have knowledge that crosses over their job function and into other technologies that make up the rest of the network. This makes them more proficient at their work and more valuable. I would highly recommend this title to personnel responsible for Small to Medium Business Networks especially, because those folks don't always have the exposure to the many different technologies that are covered in this title and will give them a great start to doing it right.

I think the authors make good use of figures, diagrams and tables to augment the text where needed. The title isn’t loaded with diagrams, but there are plenty to support the authors' objective.

There is enough information in here about the lower level working of protocols to give protocol analyzer enthusiasts there money's worth. There are other books out there that cover protocol analysis, but few books do it well. This book covers protocol analysis well and with an easy-to-understand format with supporting window diagrams.

The authors have kept the sections straight and to the point. There is little wasted ink in here. There is some repetitive information in the book, specifically pertaining to HTTP header error codes. Not sure how the topic got covered three times. I suppose instead of having the reader reference one chapter/section on the topic, it was included in the text when needed. The information isn't exactly the same and by the time you're done reading the book, you should have a solid understanding of Hyper Text Transport Protocol (HTTP).

I think the information contained in this book is a little heavier on the system side than the data networking side. I'm not suggesting there is a lack of information on the data networking side, only that there is more pertaining to systems.

Overall I thought this was a great title. It crosses many boundaries of responsibility in the Enterprise Networks and ties them all together very nicely. I would certainly purchase another title written by these authors. They are thorough in their writing, without a lot of fluff.

Index

Download - 394 KB -- Index

Sample Pages

Download the sample pages (includes Chapter 4 and Index)

Table of Contents

Introduction.

I. AN INTRODUCTION TO SERVER FARMS.

II. SERVER FARM PROTOCOLS.

III. INFRASTRUCTURE PROTOCOLS.

IV. SECURITY AND SERVER LOAD BALANCING.

V. DATA CENTER DESIGN.

VI. APPENDIXES.

Downloadable Sample Chapter

Download - 704 KB -- Chapter 4: Data Center Design Overview