Storage Networks Explained

Ulf Troppens and Rainer Erkens are employed at IBM TotalStorage Interoperability Center in Mainz, a testing, development and demonstration laboratory for storage products and storage networks. Both authors work at the interface between technology and customers. Their duties include the testing of new products and the validation of concepts on the basis of customer environments set up in the laboratory. They present the latest hardware and software products in the field of storage networks to customers and discuss the set up test environment with them.

Ulf Tropes studied Computer Science at the University of Karlsruhe until 1995. Since 1989 he has been primarily involved in the administration of Unix systems, storage systems, data and storage networks and distributed applications. In April 2004 Ulf joined Wolfgang's team to help with the roll-out of a software for tape library virtualization.

Rainer Erkens studied Mathematics at the University of Mainz until 2000. His experience in the management of computers and the management of distributed applications goes back to 1992. Since 2000 he has been working primarily with storage systems and storage networks. In February 2004 he was appointed to Chairman of the SNIA Europe Solutions Committee.

Wolfgang Müller is currently working as a software architect in the Storage Software Development Department at IBM in Mainz, Germany, where the focus is on software development projects supporting open standards such as SMI-S/CIM/WBEM and IEEE 1244. He received his Dipl.-Inform. (FH) degree in computer science from the University of Applied Sciences, Darmstadt, Germany, in 1993.