Solaris Volume Manager Administration

Course Overview

The Solaris Volume Manager Administration course provides Sun partners, resellers, and customers with the knowledge and skills to ensure proper implementation and support of the Solaris Volume Manager software. These skills include, but are not limited to planning, configuration, and administration.

Audience

Students who can benefit from this course are:

• Post-sales channel resellers
• Value added retail (VAR) field service engineers (FEs)
• Customer FEs and end users

Skills Gained

Upon Completion Of This Course, Students Should Be Able To:

• Administer the Solaris Volume Manager software by using command-line programs and the Enhanced Storage tool
• Administer the Solaris Volume Manager software state databases
• Create and administer simple, striped, concatenated, and mirrored volumes
• Create volume structures using both hard and soft partitions
• Verify the status of the Solaris Volume Manager software volumes and state databases
• Create and administer the Solaris Volume Manager software file systems
• Replace failed volume components
• Replace a failed disk
• Describe the features of the Solaris Volume Manager software disksets

Prerequisites

To succeed fully in this course, students should be able to:

• Use the OPEN LOOK graphical user interface (GUI)
• Use the Solaris 2 Operating System (OS) device naming conventions
• Administer disks and file systems
• Back up and restore file systems
• Change system run levels
• Configure environmental variables
• Use basic OpenBoot commands
• Configure UNIX file systems (UFS)
• Use the following UNIX administrative commands:
  • chmod, chown, and chgrp
  • format
  • mkdir
  • mkfs and newfs
  • mount
  • patchadd
  • vi
  • man

Course Outline

Module 1 - Introduction to Managing Data

• Describe the advantages of virtual disk management
• Describe RAID technology standards and terminology
• Desbribe the appropriate use of each supported RAID level
• Optimize system configurations for each supported RAID level

Module 2 - Introduction to the Solaris Volume Manager Software

• Describe the upgrade process for the Solaris 10 OS
• Perform basic Solaris Management Console operations
• Perform basic Enhanced Storage tool operations
• Describe state database features
• Initialize the Solaris Volume Manager software

Module 3 - Administer the State Database

• Describe the state database consensus algorithm
• Describe state database best practices
• Describe the Solaris Volume Manager software configuration files
• Analyze state database status flags
• Add state database replicas
• Recover from state database failures

Module 4 - Administer Concatenated and Striped Volumes

• Describe non-redundant volume characteristics
• Describe concatenated and striped volume best practices
• Describe logical volume naming conventions
• Use the metainit command to create non-redundant volumes
• Use the md.tab file to create non-redundant volumes
• Use the Enhanced Storage tool to create non-redundant volumes
• Display volume properties and status
• Add file systems to new volumes
• Create soft partitions

Module 5 - Administer Mirrored Volumes and Hot Spares

• Describe mirrored volume characteristics
• Describe mirrored volume best practices
• Describe optimized mirror resynchronization
• Describe mirrored volume read, write, and synchronization policies
• Use the metainit command to create mirrored volumes
• Configure hot spares for mirrored volumes
• Describe the use of complex mirror structures
• Administer volume submirrors
• Use the Enhanced Storage tool to create mirrored volumes
• Mirror existing file systems
• Mirror the system boot disk
• Use soft partitions with mirrored volumes

Module 6 - Administer RAID-5 Volumes

• Describe RAID-5 volume characteristics
• Describe RAID-5 volume best practices
• Create RAID-5 volumes
• Create soft partitions on top of RAID-5 volumes

Module 7 - Performing Advanced Operations

• Modify the mdmonitord daemon error reporting behavior
• Describe using soft partitions with hardware RAID devices
• Describe how to recover from soft disk errors
• Expand existing file systems
• Use the metassist command to perform top-down volume creation
• Un-mirror the system boot disk
• Replace a failed disk drive

Follow Up Courses

Before:

• UNIX Essentials Featuring the Solaris 9 Operating System (SA-119)
• Intermediate System Administration for the Solaris 9 Operating System (SA-239)

After:

• Sun Cluster 3.1 Administration (ES-338)