Multipathing software enables you to define and control redundant physical paths to I/O devices such as storage devices and network interfaces. 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, you must configure the server with redundant hardware, such as redundant network interfaces or two host bus adapters connected to the same dual-ported storage array.
For the servers, three different types of multipathing software are available:
Oracle Solaris IP Network Multipathing software provides multipathing and load-balancing capabilities for IP network interfaces. This software includes commands and other software resources for server administration. For instructions on how to configure and administer Oracle Solaris IP Network Multipathing, refer to one of the following manuals in the documentation collection for your Oracle Solaris OS release:
Oracle Solaris 11 OS – Oracle Solaris Administration: Network Services and Network Virtualization
Oracle Solaris 10 OS – System Administration Guide: IP Services
VVM software includes a feature called DMP, which provides disk multipathing as well as disk load balancing to optimize I/O throughput. For information about VVM and its DMP feature, refer to the documentation provided with the VERITAS Volume Manager software.
Oracle Solaris Multiplexed I/O (MPxIO) is an architecture fully integrated within the Oracle Solaris OS that enables I/O devices to be accessed through multiple host controller interfaces from a single instance of the I/O device. (Previously, this functionality was called StorageTek Traffic Manager.) For information about MPxIO, refer to Oracle Solaris Administration: SAN Configuration and Multipathing Guide in Oracle Solaris OS documentation.