VxVM for hpux

[Alzhy]

Just wanted to gather your thoughts on when VxVM is a good idea on HPUX systems? I can understand it offers more features, etc. and works seamlessly with Oracle but are there really any pressing need to have VxVM on large HP systems these days? We're planning a server that'll be multi TB in size, multi-channels and hooked up to a SAN (Compaq EVA...).

Are there any limitations with LVM+OJFS that might really require going to VxVM+VxFS?

Thanks all!

[A. Clay Stephenson]

I would say that the biggest advantage that VxVM offers is cross-platform support. If you are running AIX, Solaris, and HP-UX then Veritas might be attractive in that one set of commands works everywhere.
The other possible advantage might be if you want to run Oracle RAC and used cooked files. Veritas has this support on other platforms and may now (or soon have it on HP-UX). I must say that the very thought of multiple platforms accessing cooked files on the same devices scares me to death and I wouldn't trust anybody to "get it right" - without imposing considerable overhead to the process.

VxVM is more flexible in striping and mirroring but nowadays when using drive arrays instead of JBOD's that's not much of a concern.

My experience with VxVM is that it adds about 5% overhead to the system.

[Chris Vail]

I've been using VxVm (and VxVa) for a long time: I'm one of the very few people in the whole history of Western Civilization who will admit to having used them on SCO Xenix AND Unix, as well as various Sun flavors. However, advancing years, increased experience, and moral decrepitude have made me an "Operating System Agnostic" when it comes to this kind of thing. AFAIC, this is both a "no-brainer" and and "I don't really care any more" issue. One of the reasons why I believe HPux is so far behind the technology curve is precisely because this hasn't been available in the past. However, its really hard to argue with success, and HPux is a very successful OS.
The short answer to your questions: its really not a big deal. You may have to learn something new, but you'll adapt quickly.

Chris

[Kevin Wright]

I would recommend to use it. It has much more features than LVM, including DMP among others. If you ever plan on administering other platforms, it's worth your while to learn it too.

[Sridhar Bhaskarla]

Hi Nelson,

If your systems are large with multi TB in size, then I would suggest to go for VxVM. LVM has a lot of limitations starting from creating the PV and volume groups forget the later maintenance.

It may be easier to troubleshoot and correct the performance issues *online* with VxVM than LVM. You can migrate the hot spots much easily with vxvm than LVM. DMP has no equivalence in standard LVM. Raid5, Raid0+1 etc., are bonuses.

-Sri

[Sunil Sharma_1]

I think VxVM is best available volume manager today. it is very powerfull in maintence and best part is it's platform independent.
it has lots of features whcih LVM doesn't and it's very easy to use.

once i come across the situation where i have to take out a disk out from one diskgroup with it's data and i could do it easily with VxVm without loosing/restoring data ...

Sunil