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iSCSI Multipath Load Balancing Method: "shortest-path"

Stuart HowardAug 16 2018 — edited Aug 17 2018

Hi all,

Does anyone know anything about the "shortest-path" load balancing method when setting up iSCSI multipathing?  I see it referenced here https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E53394_01/html/E54792/gqfhh.html:

# mpathadm show mpath-support libmpscsi_vhci.so

  Vendor: Sun Microsystems

  Driver Name: scsi_vhci

  Default Load Balance: round-robin

  Supported Load Balance Types:

  round-robin

  logical-block

  shortest-path

...

...but this isn't listed on our (SPARC) systems as a supported load balance type for the libmpscsi_vhci.so library:

# mpathadm show mpath-support libmpscsi_vhci.so

mpath-support:  libmpscsi_vhci.so

        Vendor:  Sun Microsystems

        Driver Name:  scsi_vhci

        Default Load Balance:  round-robin

        Supported Load Balance Types:

                round-robin

                logical-block

In fact, I cannot seem to find it documented anywhere.  The Oracle page at: https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E53394_01/html/E54792/gqnrd.html  only lists the following policies:

  • none or same-path
  • round-robin
  • logical-block

I ask because if 'shortest-path' is true to its name, it would be ideal for our infrastructure setup where we are intending to make multiple path connections to iSCSI storage volumes at different physical sites on a 'campus' network.  Under these circumstances it would make sense to have the multipath driver use only the 'shortest' path to the nearest storage, and only use the other one when necessary in a failover situation.

Thank you,

Stuart

This post has been answered by Dave Miner-Oracle on Aug 16 2018
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