Sun Microsystems Fire 880, Owner'S Manual

Page: 166 / 236

148 Sun Fire 880 Server Owner’s Guide • August 2001
About Multipathing Software
Multipathing software lets you define and control redundant physical paths to I/O
devices such as storage devices and networks. If the active path to a device becomes
unavailable, the software can automatically switch to an alternate path to maintain
availability. This capability is known as
automatic failover . To take advantage of
multipathing capabilities, your server must be configured with redundant hardware,
such as redundant network interfaces or two FC-AL host bus adapters connected to
the same dual-ported storage array.
Multipathing software is often used in conjunction with Solaris Dynamic
Reconfiguration (DR) software (see “About Hot-Pluggable and Hot-Swappable
Components” on page 144). In response to a component failure in an active path, the
multipathing software automatically switches to an alternate path, while the DR
feature lets you remove and replace the faulty component without impacting normal
system operations.
For Sun Fire 880 systems, two different types of multipathing software are available:
■
Solaris IP Network Multipathing provides multipathing and load balancing
capabilities for IP network interfaces.
■
VERITAS Volume Manager includes a feature called Dynamic Multipathing
(DMP), which provides disk multipathing as well as disk load balancing to
optimize I/O throughput.
For More Information
For information about setting up redundant hardware interfaces for storage devices
or networks, see:
■
“About Sun Fire 880 Mass Storage Features” on page 92
■
“About Redundant Network Interfaces” on page 105
For instructions on how to configure and administer Solaris IP Network
Multipathing, consult the
IP Network Multipathing Administration Guide provided
with your specific Solaris release.
For information about VERITAS Volume Manager and its DMP feature, see “About
Volume Management Software” on page 152 and refer to the documentation
provided with the VERITAS Volume Manager software.