Bull Multipath Solutions support

Bull supports two kinds of multipath solutions: Bull StoreWay? Multipath EMC PowerPath

StoreWay ? Multipath for Linux Secured disk access. SAN connectivity needs stability, simplicity and consistency. Business continuity for applications is more and more critical. Availability, performance and robustness of the physical links between servers and Fibre-Channel storage arrays are becoming key factors for a well designed and easy-to-manage IT environment. Failover or Round-robin path selection policies. Automatic failover and path recovery. Qualified for High Availability solutions. Integrated with major Linux releases. Compatible with Intel based servers including 64 bits architectures support.

Overview

The Bull OS robustness add-on:

Modern Operating Systems, including Windows? and multiple flavours of UNIX?, directly include in their core software a basic disk access failover environment that is the starting point to address these needs. The generic name of ?Multipathing Framework? is used for this environment. This environment needs modules to complete the basic OS framework. Bull has a charter to ease, simplify and stabilize SAN infrastructures, putting on the market a coherent set of modules removing the compatibility hassle.

Linux focus for the Bull StoreWay storage products:

Starting with Linux kernel version 2.6, the open-source community has added the multipathing environment into the Linux kernel as an extension of the new I/O architecture (?device-mapper? architecture).

Within the Bull?s StoreWay offer, the StoreWay Multipath for Linux product is a Bull-made module that perfectly fits into this device-mapper framework to bring ease of installation and configuration, as well as fully tested integration with the Bull StoreWay storage products.

A High-end high-available product:

A high-end SCSI reservation feature complements the standard Linux kernel and distribution environment; to bring the Linux I/O stack features to the same level of functionality as other high-end Unix systems, allowing strict data protection needed by clustering and high availability software.

Data protection and boot:

As StoreWay Multipath is supporting boot, data and Linux OS are protected enabling continuous access.

Services and support:

Bull provides professional services and support for optimal operation.

Characteristics

Fonctions Software and supported versions

Specsheet

StoreWay? Multipath for Linux specsheet

EMC Powerpath EMC PowerPath is a server-resident solution that enhances performance and application availability. It automatically tunes the storage area network (SAN) when it detects imbalances by selecting alternate paths for the data to be routed through. It also combines multiple path I/O capabilities, automatic load balancing, and path failover functions into one integrated package. PowerPath supports servers including cluster servers connected to EMC Symmetrix, EMC CLARiiON, Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) Lightning, HP XP, IBM Enterprise Storage Server (Shark), and HPQ storage systems.

• Multiple paths: Enhance application availability and optimize performance.
• Automatic load-balancing: Improve efficiency and throughput.
• Centralized management: Simplify the management of heterogeneous storage with a single solution.
• Dynamic configuration options: Relieve system administration workload.
• Automatic I/O path failure detection: Keep applications running and information flowing in the event of failure.
• Automated path management: Manage more storage with fewer resources.
• Dynamic reconfiguration: Reduce planned outages to restore services with automatic online path recovery.