Sun Datapath Policies for Disks and Disk Arrays

Overview

This paper contains policies for disk and disk array implementations. This paper is limited to datapath interfaces and does not address policies related to physical interfaces or management interfaces independent from the datapath. The software considered includes drivers for the Solaris Operating System (Solaris OS) version 9 and later, and management applications that issue SCSI, Fibre Channel, and iSCSI commands. Although disks and arrays implement many standard interfaces, there are still numerous problems with lack of interoperability. These areas of non-interoperability stem from gaps in standards, standards that have changed over time, overlapping standards, standards that do not meet the needs of the industry, and differing interpretations of the standards.