Veritas Dynamic Multipathing; Sun Storedge Traffic Manager - Sun Microsystems Sun Fire V445 Server Administration Manual

VERITAS Dynamic Multipathing

VERITAS Volume Manager software actively supports multiported disk arrays. It
automatically recognizes multiple I/O paths to a particular disk device within an
array. Called Dynamic Multipathing (DMP), this capability provides increased
reliability by providing a path failover mechanism. If one connection to a disk is lost,
VERITAS Volume Manager continues to access the data over the remaining
connections. This multipathing capability also provides greater I/O throughput by
automatically balancing the I/O load uniformly across multiple I/O paths to each
disk device.

Sun StorEdge Traffic Manager

A newer alternative to DMP that is also supported by the Sun Fire V445 server is
Sun StorEdge Traffic Manager software. Sun StorEdge Traffic Manager is a server-
based dynamic path failover software solution, used to improve the overall
availability of business applications. Sun StorEdge Traffic Manager (previously
known as multiplexed input/output, or MPxIO) is included in the Solaris OS.
The Sun StorEdge Traffic Manager software integrates multiple path I/O
capabilities, automatic load balancing, and path failover functions into one package
for Sun servers connected to supported Sun StorEdge systems. Sun StorEdge Traffic
Manager can provide you with increased system performance and availability for
building mission-critical storage area networks (SANs).
The Sun StorEdge Traffic Manager architecture provides the following capabilities:
Helps protect against I/O outages due to I/O controller failures. Should one I/O
controller fail, Sun StorEdge Traffic Manager automatically switches to an
alternate controller.
Increases I/O performance by load balancing across multiple I/O channels.
Sun StorEdge T3, Sun StorEdge 3510, and Sun StorEdge A5x00 storage arrays are all
supported by Sun StorEdge Traffic Manager on a Sun Fire V445 server. Supported
I/O controllers are single and dual fibre-channel network adapters, including the
following:
PCI Single Fibre-Channel Host Adapter (Sun part number x6799A)
PCI Dual Fibre-Channel Network Adapter (Sun part number x6727A)
2 GByte PCI Single Fibre-Channel Host Adapter (Sun part number x6767A)
2 GByte PCI Dual Fibre-Channel Network Adapter (Sun part number x6768A)
Chapter 6 Managing Disk Volumes 119