Benefits of SMAPP

System-managed access-path protection (SMAPP) can greatly reduce the amount of time it takes to restart your system or vary on an independent disk pool, after an abnormal end.

The time is reduced by protecting access paths. A protected access path can be recovered much quicker than a unprotected access path. It is an automatic function that runs without attention. SMAPP determines which access paths to protect without any intervention by the user. It adjusts to changes in the environment, such as the addition of new applications or new hardware.

SMAPP does not require any setup. You do not have to change your applications. You do not have to journal any physical files or even use journaling at all. You simply need to determine your policy for access path recovery:

• After a failure, how long you can afford to spend rebuilding access paths when you restart the system, or vary on an independent disk pool.
• How to balance access path protection with other demands on system resources.
• Whether to have different target times for recovering access paths for different disk pools.

You may need to experiment with different target recovery times for access paths to achieve the correct balance for your system. If you configure additional basic or independent disk pools, you must also evaluate your access path recovery times.

The system protects access paths by journaling the access paths to internal system journals. Therefore, SMAPP requires some additional auxiliary storage for journal receivers. However, SMAPP is designed to keep the additional disk usage to a minimum. SMAPP manages journal receivers and removes them from the system as soon as they are no longer needed.