Storage Management & SAN Interview Questions

Preparing for exams and technical interviews in Storage Area Networks (SAN)

Section 1: Fundamental Concepts

1. What does storage management comprise?

Options:

• A) SAN Management

• B) Data Protection

• C) Disk Operations

• D) All of the above ✅

Explanation: Storage management includes SAN administration, data protection (backups, replication), and disk operations (partitioning, RAID).

2. Which are considered storage devices?

Options:

• A) Switch

• B) RAID Arrays

• C) Tape Drives

• D) All of the above ✅

Explanation: RAID arrays and tape drives are storage devices, while switches are networking components (though used in SANs).

3. Which protocol is used for storage management?

Options:

• A) SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) ✅

• B) LDAP (Directory Access Protocol)

• C) POP3 (Email Protocol)

• D) All of the above

Explanation: SNMP is widely used for monitoring and managing storage devices.

Section 2: SAN Administration Challenges

4. What difficulties do SAN administrators face with multi-vendor environments?

Options:

• A) Proprietary management interfaces

• B) Multiple management applications

• C) Lack of a unified view

• D) All of the above ✅

Explanation: Managing different vendors often requires separate tools, increasing complexity.

5. How do administrators secure access to storage devices?

Options:

• A) Zoning (SAN segmentation) ✅

• B) Physical locks

• C) Shutting down unused devices

• D) All of the above

Explanation: Zoning restricts device access in a SAN fabric for security.

Section 3: Capacity & Performance Management

6. Effective storage management includes:

Options:

• A) Security policies

• B) Backup strategies

• C) Reporting tools

• D) All of the above ✅

7. Key tasks in storage capacity management:

Options:

• A) Monitoring near-full systems

• B) Tracking usage trends

• C) Recording total/used/available space

• D) All of the above ✅

8. Tasks in storage performance management:

Options:

• A) Checking threshold breaches

• B) Ensuring SLAs are met

• C) Monitoring server/disk/CPU metrics

• D) All of the above ✅

Section 4: Standards & Interoperability

9. Benefits of open standards like SMI-S:

Options:

• A) Promotes interoperability

• B) Reduces vendor lock-in

• C) Encourages innovation

• D) All of the above ✅

10. Role of Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF):

Options:

• C) Promotes interoperability & provides multi-environment solutions ✅

11. SMI-S standard uses:

Options:

• B) CIM-XML/HTTP ✅

Key Takeaways for Interviews

• Zoning & LUN Masking: Critical for SAN security.

• SMI-S: Ensures cross-vendor compatibility.

• Capacity Planning: Monitor trends to avoid outages.

• Performance Metrics: Track latency, IOPS, and throughput.

Study Tip: Practice these concepts for 2–3 months for exams (e.g., SNIA, CompTIA Storage+).