Multi-pathing software (MPxIO)

NOTE: The mpxio project is no longer active on this website so information here may be out of date. Current Oracle Solaris 11 product documentation can be found here. Information about downloading Oracle Solaris 11 can be found here.

Introduction

MPxIO provides a multipathing solution for storage devices
accessible through multiple physical paths. MPxIO was initially
delivered by PSARC/1999/647. It abstracts physical paths to a device,
providing unified access via a single virtual device. Physical path
failures are transparently recovered, so failures are not exposed to
the applications using the virtual device.

The scsi_vhci driver registers with the MPxIO framework and is the virtual host controller providing the abstraction for SCSI protocol devices.

MPxIO Essentials - Presentation

Take a look at MPxIO Essentials to view a presentation detailing the implementation of MPxIO in Solaris.

Release Status

MPxIO is included as part of the distribution in Solaris 10 onward. So when you download OpenSolaris sources or a binary distributions, you will automatically have access to this capability.
MPxIO for Tape is integrated in OpenSolaris sources. This release targeted tape drives with Fibre Channel connectivity only. Other protocols will be supported in subsequent releases.

Documentation

You will find the information on how to setup and use MPxIO here.

Sources

The majority of MPxIO source code is provided under the CDDL license.
The open source code for disk and tape MPxIO is provided as part of the current OpenSolaris code base.

Related PSARC Cases

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Created by on 2009/10/26 11:39

Last modified by Chris Horne on 2010/06/07 02:07