Upon completion of this module, you should be able to:
Describe the concepts, terminology, and components of the application
Describe hardware(HW) and software(SW) RAID compatibility
List the benefits of integrating HW and SW RAID
Describe the integration procedures for the supported configurations
Create a volume
Perform additional volume operations
Veritas Volume Manager Basics
Disk management software developed by Veritas
Veritas Volume Manager creates the virtual volumes "on top" of the hardware RAID LUNs created by RAID Manager 6 or pSOS
A typical hardware RAID LUN path name is similar to /dev/(r)dsk/c1t2d0
A typical virtual volume path name is similar to /dev/vx/dsk/DGa/vol01
When Veritas Volume Manager software RAID is integrated with hardware RAID, the improved synergy can increase availability, performance, and manageability
The connection between physical objects and VM objects is made when you place a physical disk under the control of the VM software.
Volume Manager creates virtual objects and makes logical connections between the objects. The virtual objects are then used by Volume Manager to perform storage management tasks.
A VM disk typically includes a public region and a private region on which Volume Manager internal configuration information is stored.
Volume Manager User Interfaces
Volume Manager offers three different user interfaces:
vmsa-The storage administrator, which is the GUI for Volume Manager
vxdiskadm-The support operations administrator, which is a menu-driven interface for Volume Manager
Command-line interface facilitates scripting of volume creation
Volume Manager objects created by one interface are compatible with Volume Manager objects created by the other interfaces
One can manually stop and start the server portion of the VMSA software on the VM server using the following options:
vmsa_server -V:Prints the version
vmsa_server -q:Verifies the server software is running
vmsa_server &:Uses the normal startup
vmsa_server -k:Kills the vmsa server software
Benefits of Plaiding
Plaiding can maximize the performance and flexibility of your system while, at the same time, minimizing its complexity. Plaiding offers a sizeable margin of benefit in relation to the investment of time and labor. The key advantages of plaiding are:
Predictable, low-risk performance enhancements
Simplified planning, implementation, and manageablility throughout the configuration process
Flexiblity in resizing, removing, or adding volumes on demand
Even distribution of workload demand over the available storage resources
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