HP AD510A HP Modular Smart Array FC VDS Hardware Provider administration guide - Page 13

Third party management applications Third party management applications control the Microsoft VDS service to manage array disks and volumes. Microsoft command line interfaces Microsoft offers two command line utilities: DiskPart and DiskRaid. These interfaces enable you to script disk management tasks so you can automate configuration of multiple storage disks. The DiskPart utility, which comes standard with Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, manages disks, volumes, and partitions. Using DiskPart, you can use the command line to manage the disk array. The DiskRaid utility which is an application used to configure hardware RAID storage systems, works with any storage hardware that includes a VDS provider, including HP arrays using the HP MSA FC VDS Provider. DiskRaid comes with the Windows 2003 Server Resource Kit (SP1, VDS 1.0) or with the SAN Manager (R2, VDS 1.1). DiskRaid has a command syntax similar to DiskPart. Windows software providers The Microsoft software providers (called Basic Disk Provider and Dynamic Disk Provider) interface between the Windows OS, Windows applications, and disks, drives, and disk arrays. Through these Software Providers and VDS, Windows sees the disks, drives, and disk array volumes and performs actions such as partitioning, mounting, and managing the file system. An HP Hardware Provider is not required in order for the Microsoft or third party software providers to perform the tasks described above on the HP disk arrays. However, the HP Provider extends the capabilities of various Windows providers and applications to do additional LUN and port management tasks that normally require the HP array management software. HP Modular Smart Array FC VDS Hardware Provider administration guide 13