HP MPIO Full Featured DSM for SAN Virtualization Services Platform 4.01.00 installation and reference guide (5697-0237, January 2010)

Glossary
This glossary defines the terms used in this guide or related to this product. It is not a comprehensive
glossary of computer terms.
ALB Adaptive Load Balance (ALB) is a feature provided by the SVSP DSM that utilizes
certain features supported by the array, to deliver better performance for host
I/O requests.
controller A hardware device that facilitates communication between a host and one or
more LUNs organized as an array.
DSM Device Specific Module
fabric A network that contains high-speed fiber connections resulting from the
interconnection of switches and devices. A fabric is an active and intelligent
non-shared interconnect scheme for nodes.
failover The automatic substitution of a functionally equivalent system component for a
component that has failed.
HBA Host Bus Adapter. An I/O device that serves as the interface connecting a host
system to the SCSI bus or SAN (Storage Area Network)
host The computer system on which the Multipath software is running.
LUN Logical Unit Number. The actual unit number assigned to a device by the RAID
system controller.
MPIO Multipathing Input/Output.
path A virtual communication route that enables data and commands to pass between
a host server and a storage device.
path state An attribute that describes the operational condition of a path. A path can exist
in one of the following states:
• Active — Path is currently used for the I/O stream or is available for load
balancing.
• Available — Path is currently available, but not used for device access. The
path is only in this state when no load balancing policy has been selected
for the LUN.
• Standby — Path is currently unusable for the I/O stream.
• Unavailable — Path is currently unusable for the I/O stream.
• Failed — Path is currently unusable for the I/O stream.
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