9.1 Storage Requirements for DST Volume Pairs

9.1.1 Storage Devices

Volumes in a shadow volume pair can reside on any device that is seen as local to the DST server, such as direct-attached storage and Fibre Channel SAN devices. For information about using iSCSI SAN devices, see Section 9.1.2, iSCSI Block Storage Devices.

Block storage devices used for the primary and secondary storage can have different performance characteristics. Typically, the secondary storage area is slower and less expensive.

9.1.2 iSCSI Block Storage Devices

Dynamic Storage Technology supports using target iSCSI block storage devices to store the primary and secondary volumes in a shadow volume pair. Any iSCSI block storage device should work in a shadow volume pair, if it is compatible with the Linux iSCSI initiator software running on the OES 11 SP3 server where you create and manage the shadow volume pair. However, only iSCSI targets running on the following OES servers (or later versions) have been tested and are supported for OES 11 SP1 and later:

  • OES 11 or later

  • OES 2 SP3

IMPORTANT:Third-party iSCSI solutions have not been tested, so they are not supported.

For information about setting up iSCSI target devices on OES 11 SP3 servers, see Setting Up an iSCSI Target in the SLES 11 SP3 Storage Administration Guide.

The iSCSI targets are connected by using the Linux iSCSI initiator software on the OES 11 SP3 server where you are creating DST shadow volumes. For information about configuring iSCSI initiators and discovering iSCSI target devices, see Configuring iSCSI Initiator in the SLES 11 SP3 Storage Administration Guide.

IMPORTANT:OES 11 SP3 does not support running iSCSI target software and initiator software on the same server.

9.1.3 File Systems

Dynamic Storage Technology supports using two Novell Storage Services (NSS) volumes in a shadow volume pair.

IMPORTANT:Mixing file system types for the primary storage area and secondary storage area in a given DST shadow volume pair is not supported.

For information about using NSS features and file system attributes while the NSS volumes are in a shadow volume pair, see Section 9.4, Using NSS Volumes in DST Shadow Volume Pairs.