<a href=#Operating>Operating System Software</a> /
<a href=#Minimum>Minimum System Configuration</a> /
<a href=#Typical>Typical Configuration</a> /
<a href=#Distribution>Distribution Media</a> /
<a href=#Availability>Availability</a><p>
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<h4>Data Availability and Quick Recovery for Solaris 2</h4><p>
Solstice DiskSuite is co-packaged with Solaris WorkGroup Server and Enterprise Server products available from SunSoft. These products enhance the versatility and security of UNIX systems used in demanding technical and commercial applications. By increasing the availability, flexibility, safety and performance of UNIX storage subsystems, Solstice DiskSuite provides system administrators and users features previously available only on proprietary systems.<p>
Solstice DiskSuite addresses critical customer needs for I/O performance, high data availability, easy large system administration, and quick system recovery. It provides four main capabilities: disk mirroring and hot spares for data availability, large file system support and file system expansion for flexibility, disk striping for performance, and journalling UNIX file system for fast system reboots and quick recovery. These technologies are integrated into a single solution with the power and administrative features required for mission-critical applications.<p>
Users and administrators with demanding commercial and technical applications can take advantage of Solstice DiskSuite's powerful features:<p>
<UL>
<LI>
Disk mirroring handles all disk failures transparently<br>
<LI>
Fully automatic online recovery with "hot spares" facility<br>
<LI>
File system is expandable online beyond 2 Gigabytes<br>
<LI>
Increased performance through disk striping<br>
<LI>
Fully compatible with standard UNIX file system, all file systems, databases, and applications<br>
<LI>
Flexibility to manage and reconfigure hundreds of disks online<br>
<LI>
Uses loadable driver technology - no more kernel rebuilds<br>
<LI>
Multi-threaded (hot) drivers for scalable I/O performance<br>
<LI>
Journalling UNIX file system eliminates 'fsck' for fast system recovery<br>
<LI>
Journalling UNIX file system increases NFS(R) and database server performance.<p>
</UL>
<h3><a name=Solstice>Solstice DiskSuite Key Features and Benefits</a></h3>
<i><a name=Disk>Disk Mirroring</a></i><p>
Disk mirroring allows users to continue working even if there is a disk or controller failure. Solstice DiskSuite transparently maintains a "mirror" copy of the data on another disk and automatically uses the surviving copy in the event of hardware failure. With Solstice DiskSuite, all disks in the system can be mirrored; even system-disk failures will not interrupt users. The mirrored sets have full automatic replication consistency that prevents data corruption even when there are compound failures. Data recovery and reconfiguration are online. Online recovery is supplemented by the unique "hot spare" feature which automatically migrates new partitions in to replace failing ones. Not only are users still supported on the surviving copy of the data, but a new mirror is automatically generated.<p>
<i><a name=Striping>Disk Striping</a></i><p>
Disk striping augments application perfor-mance by increasing I/O throughput. Disk striping spreads the I/O load over several disks, increasing the throughput available to a single process. Disk striping can improve the performance of any properly-configured disk technology. With Solstice DiskSuite, striped disks can easily be mirrored for increased safety.<p>
<i><a name=Large>Large File System Support</a></i><p>
In the past, when a UNIX file system was out of space, the system administrator had to move files around or even completely reconstruct the file system on a larger disk. Users were interrupted for long periods. Solstice DiskSuite eliminates this problem with a set of virtual disk and file system enhancements to improve administrative flexibility. The UNIX file system can "grow" to include new disk capacity. With Solstice DiskSuite, the administrator just adds a new partition to the file system, and issues the online "grow file system" command. In addition, a file system can now grow to the full size of the storage subsystem - up to a terabyte of data can be held in a single file system, and mirrored for increased safety.<p>
When coming back online after a reboot, UNIX had to check file systems for integrity. Although a time consuming operation in large systems, "fsck" was necessary to avoid system panics and data corruption. The Journalling UNIX file system (UFS) included in Solstice DiskSuite eliminates the need for this process, enabling fast system recovery. This can show an improvement of over two orders of magnitude: previous "fsck" took 10 minutes or more per gigabyte, now with Solstice DiskSuite recovery can be done in less than 10 seconds per gigabyte. This feature is compatible with the standard UNIX file system and does not require any data conversion. With journalling UFS file system, updates are safely recorded in a "log" before they are applied. Solstice DiskSuite allows the "log" to be mirrored for increased safety. Journalling UNIX file system also increases system performance through faster directory and file create and delete operations and improved synchronous data writes. These enhancements can improve application performance significantly particularly when using NFS and database servers. <p>
<h3><a name=Requirements>Requirements</a></h3>
<i><a name=Operating>Operating System Software</a></i><br>
<UL>
<LI>
Solaris 2.1 or later for SPARC<br>
<LI>
Solaris 2.4 for x86<br>
<LI>
Solaris 2.4 for journalling UFS feature<p>
</ul>
<i><a name=Minimum>Minimum System Configuration</a></i><br>
Solstice DiskSuite is available immediately and is co-packaged with Solaris 2.4 Workgroup Server and Enterprise Server products. It is also available as an unbundled product. Source product is also available.<p>
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<H6><A HREF="http://www.sun.com/share/text/SMICopyright.html">Copyright 1994 Sun Microsystems, Inc.</A> 2550 Garcia Ave., Mt. View, CA 94043-1100 USA. All rights reserved. </H6>
