Supported device drivers

This topic describes the device drivers that are supported by the storage subsystems in the SAN infrastructure.

For the clients, SAN File System requires either a single-pathing or a multi-pathing device driver to communicate with the storage subsystems.

Single-pathing device drivers

A single-pathing device driver allows for basic communication between the client machine and a storage subsystem. You can use any standard single-pathing device drivers that are supported by your storage subsystems.

Multi-pathing device drivers

A multi-pathing device driver allows multiple Fibre Channel paths to be connected to the storage subsystem and to be managed for functions such as redundant-path failover and load balancing. The multi-pathing device drivers you need on the clients depends on the types of storage subsystems you have in the SAN environment:

IBM® Enterprise Storage System (ESS) 800 and F20
Subsystem Device Driver (SDD) version 1.5.1
IBM TotalStorage® SAN Volume Controller 2145
Subsystem Device Driver (SDD) version 1.5.1
IBM FAStT 600T, 700, and 900 running firmware version 8.40
RDAC for FAStT firmware version 8.41
Note:
  • All metadata servers that are attached to a FAStT in the same storage pool must run RDAC for coordinated controller failover.
  • RDAC is not supported on Red Hat Enterprise Linux Advanced Server 3.0. Consider using a single-path device driver on client that run on the Red Hat Linux platform.
Refer to the following Web site for current information about multi-pathing device drivers, including release and firmware levels:

www.ibm.com/storage/support/sanfs/

Parent topic: Client prerequisites

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