Cross-Platform Data Sharing: from Veritas Storage Foundation Advanced Features Guide

[Kimberley]

The Veritas Storage Foundation Advanced Features Administrator's Guide provides technical details about cross-platform data sharing, also known as Portable Data Containers (PDC). The following exerpt provides an overview of the feature. For full details, visit Veritas Operations Services to download the Veritas Storage Foundation Advanced Features Administrator's Guide for your operating system and check out the 'Using Cross-Platform Data Sharing' sections. Release 5.1 manuals can be found at:

Veritas Storage Foundation Advanced Features Administrator's Guide (AIX)
Veritas Storage Foundation Advanced Features Administrator's Guide (Linux)
Veritas Storage Foundation Advanced Features Administrator's Guide (Solaris)

This section presents an overview of the Cross-Platform Data Sharing (CDS) feature of Symantec's Veritas Storage Foundation™ software. CDS provides you with a foundation for moving data between different systems within a heterogeneous environment. The machines may be running HP-UX, AIX, Linux or the Solaris™ operating system (OS), and they may all have direct access to physical devices holding data. CDS allows Symantec's Veritas products and applications to access data storage independently of the operating system platform, enabling them to work transparently in heterogeneous environments.

The Cross-Platform Data Sharing feature is also known as Portable Data Containers (PDC).

The following levels in the device hierarchy, from disk through file system, must provide support for CDS to be used:

End-user applications	Application level.
Veritas™ File System (VxFS)	File system level.
Veritas™ Volume Manager (VxVM)	Volume level.
Operating system	Device level.

CDS is a license-enabled feature that is supported at the disk group level by VxVM and at the file system level by VxFS.

CDS utilizes a new disk type (auto:cdsdisk). To effect data sharing, VxVM supports a new disk group attribute (cds) and also supports different OS block sizes.

Note:

CDS allows data volumes and their contents to be easily migrated between heterogeneous systems. It does not enable concurrent access from different types of platform unless such access is supported at all levels that are required.