HP Integrity NonStop J-Series - Manual (Page 46)

Preparing to Use SMF
HP NonStop Storage Management Foundation User's Guide—523562-007
2-12
SMF and FastSort
SMF and FastSort
The FastSort program’s SCRATCHON and NOSCRATCHON parameters allow you to
specify volumes that FastSort must use or avoid when creating scratch files. If
SCRATCHON contains a single virtual disk name, FastSort repeatedly creates scratch
files on the same virtual disk, allowing the SMF volume selection algorithm to pick the
scratch location. If multiple names are specified in the SCRATCHON list, FastSort
ignores any virtual volumes.
If the volume specified in the SCRATCHON parameter is direct, FastSort uses the
current scratch volume selection algorithm.
If SMF virtual disks are used for scratch volumes, the storage pool may be dynamically
expanded if the scratch files consume all existing space in the pool.
Applications and operational functions that use these options may require
modifications when migrating to SMF.
SQL Catalog Availability
The SQL Catalog Manager creates all SQL catalog files on the same disk if the user
specifies a PHYSVOL option during SQL catalog creation. Otherwise, the catalog files
are distributed among the physical disks in the SMF Pool. See
SQL Catalog
Performance on page 2-4 for further information.
BACKUP/RESTORE Usage
Because the files on a virtual disk can be located on any disk within the associated
pool, volume mode backup of virtual disks is not supported. While it is possible to
perform volume mode backups of the physical disks in a pool, HP does not
recommend this. Restoring such volume mode backups can cause SMF catalog
inconsistencies. Refer to
Section 6, Pool Management for more information.
OSS Usage
Starting with H06.26 and J06.15 RVUs, OSS applications can access SMF disks. OSS
applications that use the /G interface to access Guardian files can access files on
logical volumes. If a remote system is running H06.26, J06.15 or later RVUs,
accessing Guardian files on remote SMF disks from OSS applications is similar to
accessing Guardian files on remote physical disks. If a remote system is running an
RVU prior to H06.26 or J06.15, the behavior is unchanged. In this case, OSS
applications cannot access Guardian files on remote SMF disks.
On RVUs prior to H06.26 or J06.15, any attempt by an OSS application to access SMF
disks results in an error from the OSS file system. Therefore, in a mixed Guardian and
OSS file access environment, all files that OSS applications access must be on direct
volumes. This access includes OSS file systems, which cannot be created on logical
volumes.