HP OpenVMS Systems

Host-based RAID controllers?

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The Question is:

 
I feel like someone should ask this every so often...
 
The DS10 and DS20 AlphaServers provide very good value for "scale out" and/or
 I/O intensive computing, and even in light of the migration away from Alpha to
 IA64, Digital, Compaq, and the proposed merged company have a good track
 record for supporting har
dware after it's final sale date.  Given these servers currently outperform the
 first-draft Itanium servers, they're well worth their price.
 
However, while Tru64 has an Ultra-2 RAID controller for these systems, OpenVMS
 does not.  This is especially embarassing since similarly priced Proliant
 servers have an Ultra160 4-channel RAID controller supported under Linux and
 Windows.  The DS-series o
f AlphaServers are somewhat behind the times, storage-wise.
 
External RAID controllers are priced very high compared with the cost of these
 systems.  Fiberchannel even more so.
 
Can the Wizard provide guidance on attaching redundant storage to these
 systems?  Can his (her ?) crystal ball provide any guidance on future hardware
 support for these models?
 
 

The Answer is :

 
  Because OpenVMS handles multi-path operations and supports fully shared
  disk access, the use of off-bus RAID controllers (eg: HSG, HSZ, etc) and
  host-based RAID (host-based volume shadowing) are the most common and
  most expected approaches.
 

  

     

     
answer written or last revised on ( 2-OCT-2001 )
     
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