Logical Volume Managers (LVMs) are an unusual subject to UNIX system administrators. They make disc management less painful than just having straightforward volumes but you still end up referring to the manuals before undertaking anything but the simplest task for fear of losing the odd gigabyte or two. If you come to an HP system from another flavour of UNIX then this compounds the problem as the terminology and the commands often differ. Even within HP-UX, differences between version 9 and 10 of the operating system can also catch you out. Tom Madell's book offers a 'cook book' approach to disc and file management in an HP environment.

The book explains in 8 chapters what LVMs are, how to look after them, diagnose, repair and set them up to suit different situations. Disc mirroring and striping are covered and in most cases, examples are used to explain the differences. The book also describes and explains when to use one of the five file system typesimplemented by HP; HFS, NFS, VxFS, CDFS and LOFS.

I can recommend this book to anyone in an HP systems administration role, especially if LVMs are new to you.