Serial Attached SCSI (SAS)

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Training Description

This 3-day self-paced Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) technical training course covers the architecture and components of SAS. The course provides an introductory module showing why serial protocols are required for true high speed communications and discusses the equipment necessary to test, validate and troubleshoot SAS. This course investigates the function and interaction of each SAS protocol layer, illustrating how SAS addresses the issues interference suppression, initialization techniques, resets, encoding methods, speed negotiation and clock skew management. The introduction of SAS expanders, multiplexing techniques and zoning demonstrate how SAS enhances scalability and improves performance. Through STP, SAS interoperation with existing SATA storage environments is explored. Demonstrations with SAS analyzer software are used throughout the course to illustrate the behavior and performance of SAS.

Training Objectives

As a result of attending this course, you will be able to:

• Describe the architecture of SAS and its components
• Explain the operation of serial protocols and frame based transmission methods
• Compare and contrast the features and benefits of SAS with SCSI, SATA, ATA and Fibre Channel architectures
• Be aware how of the concepts of ports, connections, data paths and links are used in SAS architectures
• Discuss SAS transmitter and receiver characteristics, jitter tolerance and cable and connector options
• Investigate the role of expanders, expander types, their operation and routing and arbitration methods used in SAS and SATA environments
• Examine in detail the function and interaction of all SAS protocol layers including initialization procedures, management services, error handling, flow control and physical layer encoding methods
• Explore in depth the use of SAS specific primitives, addressing schemes, speed negotiation and Phy reset sequences
• Develop an understanding of the operation of SMP, SSP, STP protocols in SAS and SATA applications
• Acquire testing and troubleshooting skills with a serial protocol analyzer

Prerequisites

This course is intended for hardware, software and validation engineers who are involved with designing, troubleshooting and validating SAS based products. Additionally, the course is beneficial to managers, systems engineers and technicians who are responsible for integration of SAS devices. Attendees are expected to have a good understanding of serial communications techniques and storage network methodologies.

Who Should Attend

Technical personnel who need to develop an in-depth understanding of SAS, emphasizing the power, performance and flexibility that are required by today’s organizations. (Technical staff and managers, engineers, technicians, system administrators…)

Non-technical personnel who wish to develop a thorough understanding of serial protocol technologies that will enhance the knowledge required for sound planning and decision-making. (Line and staff management, contract and personnel supervisors, marketing and sales employees, finance specialists… )

Modular Outline

SAS Training Module 00: Course Introduction

SAS Training Module 01: Testing Equipment Issues and Equipment Options

• Layered Protocols
• Serial switches
• Serial protocols analyzers

SAS Training Module 02: SAS Defined

• Introduction to SAS
• SAS architecture

SAS Training Module 03: SAS Devices and Connections

• SAS devices
• Connections

SAS Training Module 04: State Machines, Expander Operation and Zoning

• State machines
• Expander operation
• Zoning and multiplexing

SAS Training Module 05: SAS Physical Layer

• Hardware
• Electrical characteristics
• Timing

SAS Training Module 06: SAS Phy Layer

• Encoding
• Bits, Bytes and Dwords
• OOB signals and resets
• Phy layer State machines

SAS Training Module 07: Link Layer Protocols

• Primitives
• Clock skew management
• Error management

SAS Training Module 08: Link layer- Connections, identification and resets

• Identification and resets
• Connections

SAS Training Module 09: Link layer- Arbitration and Rate Matching

• Arbitration and deadlocks
• Rate matching

SAS Training Module 10: SSP, SMP at the Link Layer

• SSP
• SMP

SAS Training Module 11: STP at the Link Layer

• STP

SAS Training Module 12 : SSP Port, Transport Layers

• Port layer overview
• SSP transport layer

SAS Training Module 13: STP,SMPTransport and Application Layers

• STP transport layer
• SMP transport layer
• SMP application layer

SAS Training Module 14 : Course Summary