In-Depth Exploration of Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) and Serial ATA (SATA) Training Class Description

The In-Depth SAS and SATA course provides students with a comprehensive insight into the operation of the Serial Attached SCSI and Serial ATA interfaces. The class examines and explores in detail the operation of both Serial interfaces at all architectural levels. This seminar will take you on a journey starting with the basic beginnings of SAS & SATA and then dive deep into the technical aspects of each architecture.

In the SAS section, you will learn how SCSI works in a SAS environment, what SCSI commands changed and what actually changed in those commands. This will provide the necessary information on what to change in your current SCSI implementations to deploy SAS. The Management Application (MA) layer is covered to such detail that you will be able to know and design your own MA Client. Every SMP function will be covered as well as all SCSI-3 information units.

In SAS, we will cover each protocol and layer of the architecture from the top down. Starting with the Serial SCSI Protocol (SSP), we will cover the Application Layer, the Transport Layer, and the Link Layer. Next we will discuss the SAS Management Protocol (SMP) from the Application Layer through the Link Layer. The Serial ATA Tunneled Protocol will be covered in the SATA section. Additional topics will include the Port Layer and all aspects of the common Link layer including primitives, connections, addressing, and transmit data paths. We will end with the Phy and Physical Layers and learn about OOB sequences, resets, speed negotiation, and how the devices are connected to one another. Electrical design considerations like pre-emphasis and equalization are also discussed.

In the SATA section, topics will include all layers of the SATA architecture and how SATA enables tiered storage applications when coupled with SAS infrastructures.

This course is geared for any engineer or person who has to design, develop, architect, program, write software, test, or troubleshoot SAS and SATA technologies. This course may be accompanied by eyes-on demonstrations using real test equipment, analyzers, and disk drives. Through demonstrations of the technology you will gain knowledge on how to design and troubleshoot every aspect of a SAS and/or SATA implementation.

Course Outline

Serial Attached SCSI Section
  SAS Connections and Protocols
  SAS Configurations
  SAS Service Delivery Subsystem
  SAS and SCSI Standards
Serial SCSI Protocol
  SCSI Application Layer
  SSP Transport Layer
  SSP Link Layer
  SSP Error Handling
  Reading SAS State Machine Diagrams
Serial Management Protocol (SMP)
  SMP Functions
  Discovery Process
SAS Port Layer
SAS Link Layer
  Primitives
  Clock Skew and Scrambling
  Address Frames
  Identification and Hard Reset
Connections
Expanders
SAS Phy Layer
  Dwords, Encoding and Serialization
  Out-of-Band Signaling
  PHY Reset Sequences and Speed Negotiation
  SAS Physical Layer
  Cables and Connectors
  Transmitter and Receiver Characteristics

Serial ATA Section
Introduction
  ATA Standards and Architecture
  ATA Technical Overview
Serial ATA Physical Layer
Serial ATA Link Layer
SATA and SATA Tunneled Protocol (STP)
Serial ATA Transport Layer
SATA Command/Application Layer
  Command Sets
  SCSI/ATA Translation
The SATA Superset Registers
Resets and Signatures
Error Handling
SATA II Extension Overview
  SATA Command Queuing
  SATA Port Multipliers
  SATA Storage Enclosure Services
  SATA Networked Storage Applications
  Routing, Switching and Multiplexing (RSM)
Future SATA Enhancements

Who Should Attend:	This in-depth technical class is targeted towards hardware and software engineers involved in the design, development, integration, test, and maintenance of Serial Attached SCSI and Serial ATA storage devices, storage subsystems and servers that intend to utilize SAS and/or SATA technologies.
Prerequisites:	The attendee should have experience on SCSI architectures and understand the SCSI command language. This means you know what CDB means, you understand parallel SCSI protocol, and how a SCSI system works. While this course has SCSI information within it, understanding SCSI makes the course much easier. If the student has an understanding of the Fibre Channel architecture, then this will also assist you in understanding SAS and SATA. While numerous references to both SCSI and Fibre Channel are made, it is not necessary to have an in-depth understanding of these interfaces.
Course Length:	4-5 days