Learn what's happening inside the black box!  Brent Ozar is a Microsoft Certified Master of SQL Server who got fed up with his SAN admin saying, "Everything's fine - it must be a SQL Server problem."  When the SAN admin quit, Brent took over, learned how SANs worked, and started putting the pieces back together.

In this four-hour session, production DBAs will learn what happens inside the SAN including:

• The differences between RAID levels (5, 6, 10, DP)
• How pools of disks are shared between servers, and why you might like it
• Pathing: the route between your server and your data
• How solid state PCI Express drives like Fusion-IO work differently

After that, you'll understand how SQL Server interacts with storage.  We'll cover:

• Why the SAN admin always thinks you're not pushing the SAN hard enough
• When you don't need to separate your data and log files - and when you do
• Why pathing may determine the number of data files you need for speed
• When you might actually need two log files in your database - despite what the "experts" say
• And a start-to-finish storage setup and testing checklist

This session is for DBAs who are frustrated with slow or unreliable SAN performance, or DBAs who are about to embark on buying a new SAN.

About the Presenter - Brent Ozar

Brent has over a decade of hands-on experience with SQL Server, and he specializes in performance tuning for SQL Server, VMware, and storage.  He co-authored Professional SQL Server 2008 Internals and Troubleshooting, including writing the storage chapter.  His sessions have won awards around the world including Best of the PASS Summit for two years running.