518Configuring Veritas Volume Manager

Controlling VxVM’s view of multipathed devices

subdisks to determine whether they should be relocated to more suitable disks to regain the original performance benefits.

Although it is possible to build Veritas Volume Manager objects on spare disks (using vxmake or the VEA interface), it is recommended that you use spare disks for hot-relocation only.

See Administering hot-relocation on page 379 for more information.

Accessing volume devices

As soon as a volume has been created and initialized, it is available for use as a virtual disk partition by the operating system for the creation of a file system, or by application programs such as relational databases and other data management software.

Creating a volume in a disk group sets up block and character (raw) device files that can be used to access the volume:

/dev/vx/dsk/diskgroup/volume

block device file for volume

/dev/vx/rdsk/diskgroup/volume

character device file for volume

The pathnames include a directory named for the disk group. Use the appropriate device node to create, mount and repair file systems, and to lay out databases that require raw partitions.

Controlling VxVM’s view of multipathed devices

To control how a device is treated by the Dynamic Multipathing (DMP) feature of VxVM, use the vxdiskadm command as described in Disabling and enabling multipathing for specific devices” on page 133.

Configuring cluster support

The Veritas Volume Manager software includes an optional cluster feature that enables it to be used in a cluster environment. The cluster functionality in Veritas Volume Manager allows multiple hosts to simultaneously access and manage a set of disks under Veritas Volume Manager control. A cluster is a set of hosts sharing a set of disks; each host is referred to as a node in the cluster.

Note: The Veritas Volume Manager cluster feature requires a license, which can be obtained from your Customer Support channel.

For information about enabling cluster functionality in Veritas Volume

Manager, refer to the Veritas Storage Solutions Getting Started Guide.