Multipath I/O

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In computer storage, multipath I/O is a fault-tolerance and performance enhancement technique whereby there is more than one physical path between the CPU in a computer system and its mass storage devices through the buses, controllers, switches, and bridge devices connecting them.

A simple example would be a SCSI disk connected to two SCSI controllers on the same computer or a disk connected to two Fibre Channel ports. Should one controller, port or switch fail, the operating system can route I/O through the remaining controller transparently to the application, with no changes visible to the applications, other than perhaps incremental latency.

Multipath software layers can leverage the redundant paths to provide performance enhancing features, such as:

Recently, native multipathing technologies in operating systems like Windows, Linux and HP-UX (11.31) have progressively advanced and preferred by customers. Most of these software packages come free of charge thereby increasing the momentum of customer adoption in the market.

[edit] Multipath I/O software implementations

Some operating systems support multipath I/O natively:

Multipath software products:

[edit] External links

[edit] See also

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