Micheal Tramont had questions about using DSMFMT vs. SMIT to create ADSM
volumes.

Just to clear up a possible point of confusion: DSMFMT does not create raw
volumes, as SMIT does. Rather, DSMFMT creates and formats regular JFS files
for ADSM to use.

Unless there is a compelling reason to use raw volumes, I *strongly* recommend
that you use JFS volumes. Raw volumes provide little to no benefit. The usual
argument for raw volumes is performance. But since we cache database and
recovery log pages in memory, raw volumes generally don't offer much of a
performance benefit. The downside to raw volumes is that they don't enjoy the
same file system level of protection that JFS offers.

As far as how to allocate the volumes goes: ADSM does not support volumes
that are 2 GB or larger. Thus your volumes must be LESS THAN 2 GB (support of
volumes 2 GB and greater is a known requirement).

It is probably better to allocate a smaller number of larger volumes rather
than a large number of small volumes. This is because for each volume that
ADSM mounts (database, recovery log, storage pool), a separate process or
thread is created, which does consume some of the system's resources. As I
mentioned above, the only caveat is that each volume must be less than 2 GB.

Andy Raibeck
ADSM Level 2 Support
408-256-0130