Overview of Disksets

Solstice DiskSuite's diskset feature lets you set up groups of host machines and disk drives in which all of the hosts in the set are connected to all the drives in the diskset.

DiskSuite requires that the device names be identical on each host in the diskset. There is one metadevice state database per shared diskset and one on the local diskset.

Each host in a diskset must have a local diskset that is separate from the shared diskset. The local diskset for a host consists of all drives that are not part of a shared diskset. The host's local metadevice configuration is contained within

this local diskset in the local metadevice state database replicas. Refer to Chapter 10, "State Database Replicas," for more information. Only the local host knows about its local diskset.

Drives in a shared diskset may not be in any other shared diskset. None of the partitions on any of the drives in a shared diskset can be mounted on, swapped on, or part of a local metadevice. Also, all of the drives in a shared diskset must be accessible by both hosts in the set.

Figure 8-1 illustrates an example of a diskset shared between two host machines, named red and blue. The shared diskset is named relo-red. Each host's local diskset is shown.

Figure 8-1

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Note - While DiskSuite's diskset feature enables a "high-availability" configuration, it does not actually provide a high-availability environment.

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Metadevices and hot spare pools in any diskset must consist of drives within that diskset. Likewise, metadevices and hot spare pools in the local diskset must be made up of drives from within the local diskset.

Administering Disksets

All the DiskSuite administration tasks described in this manual can be performed on disksets, just as they would be performed on disks in a local set. However, you can administer and create metadevices in only one diskset at a time.

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Note - When disks are placed in or taken out of disksets, the actions must be done using the DiskSuite command-line interface as documented in Chapter 8 of the Solstice DiskSuite 4.0 Administration Guide.

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To bring up DiskSuite Tool and administer a diskset, invoke the metatool(1M) command using the -s option followed by the diskset_name. For example:

# metatool -s diskset_name

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Note - The metatool command must be invoked on the host that has ownership of the diskset. Once the DiskSuite Tool is running, you can perform all DiskSuite administration on the diskset, just as you would on disks not in a set. However, to administer disks in another diskset you must exit DiskSuite Tool and restart the program specifying the other diskset_name.

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