2001 FREENIX Track Technical Program - Abstract
Volume Managers in Linux
David Teigland and Heinz Mauelshagen, Sistina Software, Inc.
Abstract
A volume manager is a subsystem for on-line disk storage management which has
become a de-facto standard across UNIX implementations and is a serious enabler
for Linux in the enterprise computing area. It adds an additional layer
between the physical peripherals and the I/O interface in the kernel to present
a logical view of disks, unlike current partition schemes where disks are
divided into fixed-size sections.
In addition to providing a logical level of management, a volume manager will
often implement one or more levels of software RAID to improve performance or
reliability. Advanced logical management tools and software RAID are the
specialties of the Logical Volume Manager (LVM) and Multiple Devices (MD)
drivers respectively. These are the two most widely used Linux volume managers
today.
This paper describes the current technologies available in Linux and new work
in the area of volume management.
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