VxVM DMP versus SecurePath (AutoPath?) on XP (1024/12000) Storage

[Alzhy]

Planning to get an XP1024/12000 soon as replacement storage for the problematic EVA 5000's (HP-UX11i Environments):

1. How does VxVM DMP compare with AutoPath (or SeurePath)?
2. Does SecurePath (or AutoPath) come free with the XP? Is it expensive?
3. Does BusinessCopy/XP require AutoPath?
4. Does BusinessCopy/XP support VxVM as HP-UX's volume manager?

Thanks!

[Fabian_Nowee]

VxVM is much more than SecurePath.
they can both loadballance, only VxVM is heterogenic!, securepath works only with HP.

If you want cheap, look at MPIO (it's free, but it is only basic failover, works also for one HBA(for eg controller replacement)

[Sunil Sharma_1]

Hi,

1. Both are capable of providing load balancing and failover facility. If you are using HP server and HP storage i will recommend Auto path will be batter.

2. Secure path is not free, please contact HP sales for pricing.
3. BusinessCopy does not requir Auto Path.

4. Yes. BusinessCopy has nothing to do with volume manager you can use LVM or VXVM as volume manager.

Sunil

[Marek Smejkal]

Nelson,

2. Secure Path is not free SW
3. BC is XP internal data mirroring with no involvement of OS. Autopath/Securepath is used when data transfer between XP-System.
4. As stated in 3. BC is XP internal, does not matter what volume manager you are using.
Marek

[Alzhy]

I know BC is HP's In-Array software but I thought it has dependency on what VM is actuallybeing used if one is to use the SMA (appliance) totally for all BC operations. In the case of XP, I know the BC is not actually an HP product - but rather Hitachi's.

So if I were to use VxVM with the XP, I can actually save on SecurePath (AutoPath really)licenses since the XP' LUNs can be presented in DMP mode - which is an active-active configuration. My experience with SecurePath has so far been with EVA5K/HSG80 systems and I notice it's not active-active per se - it only distributes LUN bandwidth accross the fibe channels.

We are migrating from EVA5K to XP storage. I think SecurePath /EVA will not be able to coexist with SecurePath/XP. So we'll probably end up with using PVLINKS for the XP Luns if we're not getting VxVM's full license.