This is a post in series of me studying for the BCFD - Brocade Certified Fabric Designer and it's my comments on the document SAN Design Best Practices. Apparently this document is planned to be updated. The one I have is version 2.1. To find the latest go to My …

Fabric migration planning and implementation Why: faster, better scaling (less switches to manage), running out of ports, hardware refresh, new features. Most of the time is spent assessing, determining strategy, development planning and site preparation. Only 20% is for deployment and validation. The first page describes the order as above …

Second Last module! But that's not the end of it, there are more admin guides, best practices to wade through :) This one is a bit more complicated though, a lot to think about when designing FCR and FCIP SAN networks. FC Routing This is when you have SAN islands (isolated …

Objectives: Discuss general considerations such as attachment, availability, performance and scalability. But also solutions for needs: replication, tape backup, application and databases. This module is quite long. Topologies and Topology Considerations Single Switch Simplest: one switch. HA: use two. Pro: 0 hops. Con: no redundancy. Starting point. Management becomes difficult …

Overview / Preparation Module 3 / SAN Infrastructure The idea for this is for me to write down the things I read about in the modules. As a way for me to learn what they're about and think about them other than just reading them and forgetting them. If I write it …

This is a post in a series where I will go through the modules made available for free by Brocade for the beta test of the BCFD 16Gbps exam. If there's any objection to me writing about these in this detail here please let me know. First module available (is …

BCFD exam is going into Beta testing in January as well! This post will be updated as I move along through the different objectives / documents. // Update 2012-01-15: Added the Knowledge Assessment Test. // Update 2012-01-28: Went through each .pdf and updated some in here. The link to the Brocade page where …

In a moment of frustration/impatience I posted on 'Brocade Certified' that it was still 3 weeks until the results are posted. Good boss of training Joe Cannata replied that I could e-mail him and get the results before. I did, and I passed! Most excellent and kind of them …

OK, did the exam. Took 2.5 hours. It felt like I was plowing through them pretty fast but after some 80-questions the speed dropped significantly and I started to have trouble focusing. Short unfocus/try to think about something else , stand up a bit helped. This test wasn't as …

Until now I've been just reading the material, when there's something unclear in the material I've looked it up in command reference guides, release notes, user guides or otherwise on the Intertubes. This doesn't really prepare you for the format the exam is in. I mean the exam is in …