LVM vs VxVM(usage)

[Manoj Radhakrishnan]

Anybody have an idea about Volume mgr usage on HP-UX(both 11iV1 & V2) ? Like how much percentage use LVM and how much are using VxVM ?
Not able to find much info on this by googling. So any information based on actual facts would be appreciated.

thanks
-m

[Pete Randall · Accepted solution]

Do you mean how many sites are using one versus the other? I would say, and I have no proof other than my observations, that most people use LVM: probably 80 to 90 percent. VxVM has some unique features which have encouraged some to convert but the vast majority are comfortable and happy with LVM and see no reason to switch.


Pete

[Geoff Wild]

Currently, I use lvm on 35 HP servers, and vxvm on zero (had it on 1 - but migrated back).

I will be moving to vxvm in the near future, to take advantages of new features in ServiceGuard 11.17.

Rgds...Geoff

[Manoj Radhakrishnan]

Thanks. Thats the kind of information that I was looking for. If anybody has any link to documented(by HP) information of this type, that'll be awesome.

-thanks
m

[Bill Hassell]

Since LVM has been available since 10.xx and VxVM has only been bundled with HP-UX very recently, the number is much closer to 95% based on all the installed systems in the last 15-20 years. LVM is much simpler to understand while VxVM can be configured in quite obtuse arrangements. Most VxVM usage is used in shops where other Unix flavors (like Solaris) exist as there is only VxVM as an available volume manager. In that case, it's a matter of familiarity. There is really no method to count the different volume manager usage as systems change over time.

[Devender Khatana]

Hi Manoj,

The usage of LVM vs VxVm is still in the ratio of somewhere around 90:10 atleast. The reason being that the LVM was bundled alongwith OS from longback and the VxVm has started to come only recently. Also the features are not much different apart from a few.

And still the free part is still allmost similar to LVM freeware.

HTH,
Devender

[Pratyush Paul_1]

Hi -

in any HP-UX installation you will be seeing only LVM usage( rarely vxvm), as its free and flexible. On the other end vxvm is not free the base version is free, rest you have to pay and use. Vxvm will have a greater over heads on the OS and resources than lvm. I personally feel LVM is lot more simple and organised than vxvm on HP-UX. Please be sure that VXVM is not there for all the releases of HP-UX. Upgrading from one version of VXVM to another is a pain too. VXVM works great with Solaris, it is not for AIX or HP-UX as of now, probably they are going to port this in the future releases. Before you move from LVM standards to VxVM please think twice.

Regards

Pratyush

[Zinky]

All my previous HP-UX clients and the current one used to run LVM exclusively until I came in and implemented VxVM and ancillary features. LVM is now simply relegated to managing the OS disks - and this is the track until HP-UX 11.23 or 11.3x. Let me say that most of my clients are very large enterprises. The reason why VxVM was introduced are as follows:

- freedom from being bound to array-based snapshot/replication solutions
- scalability
- more options to build your volumes for either filesystem use or raw
- closer affinity to VxFS or OnlineJFS
- Current and futurte HP clustering technologies ahead are Veritas solutions.
- DMP (multi-path)

For large enterprises, I would say it is growing.. possibly in the realm of 25% usage vis a vis LVM.

[Manoj Radhakrishnan]

Thanks to everybody who replied. That gives me some information about current VM trends on HP-UX.
This will help us in discussions on Feature support on LVM/VxVM for our product.