This section presents an overview of the Cross-Platform Data Sharing (CDS) feature of Symantec's Veritas Storage Foundation™ software. CDS provides you with a foundation for moving data between different systems within a heterogeneous environment. The machines may be running HP-UX, AIX, Linux or the Solaris™ operating system (OS), and they may all have direct access to physical devices holding data. CDS allows Symantec's Veritas products and applications to access data storage independently of the operating system platform, enabling them to work transparently in heterogeneous environments.
The Cross-Platform Data Sharing feature is also known as Portable Data Containers (PDC). For consistency, this document uses the name Cross-Platform Data Sharing throughout.
The following levels in the device hierarchy, from disk through file system, must provide support for CDS to be used:
End-user applications |
Application level. |
Veritas™ File System (VxFS) |
File system level. |
Veritas™ Volume Manager (VxVM) |
Volume level. |
Operating system |
Device level. |
CDS is a license-enabled feature that is supported at the disk group level by VxVM and at the file system level by VxFS.
CDS utilizes a new disk type (auto:cdsdisk). To effect data sharing, VxVM supports a new disk group attribute (cds) and also supports different OS block sizes.