OK, you would probably benefit a lot from the courses highlighted by others.

If you are mostly curious about Data Domain and the terms NAS (ethernet) and SAN (FC) - what it can do for you with regards to connectivity.

These are often generically referred to as FC vs ethernet - as above.

The DD can receive backups over FC or ethernet (10Gbe ethernet cables can be optical and use FC multimode fibre cables, so may appear the same but they aren't).

For NAS (network attached storage (Ethernet)) Data Domain can do the following;

• CIFS (essentially just a share to backup to on the DD)
• NFS (essentially just a share to backup to on the DD)
• DDBoost over ethernet (like an intelligent version of a share using your ethernet network but with backup application integration/intelligence)

For SAN (Storage area Network (FC)) Data Domain can do the following;

• VTL (this is to make the Data Domain look like a tape library (Virtual tape library) - all your backups are sent to the DD via FC.
• DDBoost over FC (like an intelligent version of an FC device (not tape) using your FC SAN but with backup application integration/intelligence)

For distance, you will need Network/FC devices in place to create great distances, the DD won't be able to do long distance without them with either method and then you need to consider latency etc... It's a large topic.

DD is multimode and not single mode FC as just one example to distances that are possible.

In reality if you are heavily invested in FC/SAN then obviously those 2 options are perfect, if you have invested in 10Gbe Networks then the other option is good but you may still choose one method over the other anyway.

IMHO, FC/SAN is more straight forward and easier to understand/provision performance but thats probably just my background, others may well not agree

HTH,

Jonathan