The Oracle Solaris I/O multipathing feature supports both symmetric and asymmetric disk and tape storage devices. A symmetric storage device is one in which all paths to the storage device are active and I/O commands can be issued through any path. An asymmetric storage device is one in which paths to the storage device may have different access states. For example, active and standby paths, or active/optimized and active/non-optimized paths.
The following storage devices are supported by the Oracle Solaris I/O multipathing feature:
All T10 Asymmetric Logical Unit Access (ALUA) compliant devices
All T10 and T11 standards-compliant third-party symmetric devices
Third-party asymmetric devices
Also, to know if your device is supported, see your storage vendor documentation.
Oracle Solaris I/O multipathing is based on open standards for communicating with devices and device management, ensuring interoperability with other standards-based devices and software. The following standards are supported by Oracle Solaris I/O multipathing:
T10 standards, including SCSI-3, SAM, SPC, and SBC
T11.3 FC standards, including FCP, FC-PH, FC, FC-LS, and FC-GS
T11.5 storage management standards, including FC-HBA
IETF standards, including RFC 2625
Serial Attached SCSI-2 (SAS-2)
ANSI Standard: Information Technology – SNIA Multipath Management API Specification (ANSI INCITS 412-2006)