You can create multiple cache areas on single and multi-node systems running the VxFS file system. The cache areas can be different for read and write-back operations. Each application can use one cache area for its read operation and another cache area for write-back operations. You can configure the same cache area to be used as a read cache for some applications as well as a write-back cache for other applications.

VxFS supports the following types of cache areas:

You can set the cache type at the time of creating the cache area. The cache area is set to "default" if not specified otherwise. Cache areas can be converted from one type to another. If a cache area is not defined for an application, the default cache area is used.

Figure: Read and write-back caching on multiple SmartIO cache areas illustrates read and write-back caching on multiple SmartIO cache areas.

Figure: Steps to create multiple SmartIO cache areas on a single node system illustrates the steps to create multiple SmartIO cache areas on a single node system.

Figure: Steps to create multiple SmartIO cache areas on a multi-node cluster illustrates the steps to create multiple SmartIO cache areas on a multi-node cluster.