SFHA Solutions 6.0.1: Compression integration with SmartTier is available on AIX and HP-UX
File compression was introduced in Storage Foundation and High Availability (SFHA) 6.0. Compressing files reduces the space used, while retaining the accessibility of the files and being transparent to applications. Compressed files look and behave almost exactly like uncompressed files: the compressed files have the same name, and can be read and written as with uncompressed files.
To learn more about compression, see:
About SmartTier
SFHA 6.0.1 integrates compression with SmartTier on AIX and HP-UX platforms. SmartTier is a VxFS feature that enables you to allocate file storage space from different storage tiers according to rules you create. With SmartTier, you can manage data in a way that less frequently used data can be moved to slower, less expensive disks, and the frequently accessed data can be stored on faster disks for quicker retrieval.
SmartTier placement policies control initial file location and the circumstances under which existing files are relocated. For more information on SmartTier placement policies, see:
Administering placement policies
Compressing or Uncompressing files with SmartTier on AIX and HP-UX
You can use the SmartTier feature to compress and uncompress files automatically based on the rules defined in a placement policy. SmartTier uses gzip as the default compression algorithm, and 1MB is the default block size for compression. These default values are not configurable through an XML policy file.
SmartTier supports compressing or uncompressing files in the following ways:
The two methods perform different compressing and uncompressing operations.
To learn more about compressing or uncompressing files with SmartTier, see:
