25.3 Storage Directories and Access Paths

Each ClearCase VOB and view has a physical location and a global name:

• Physical location. Each VOB storage directory and view storage directory is actually a directory tree, located on a ClearCase host in a regular file system. For daily work, developers need not know the actual locations of these storage directories.

• Global name. Each VOB and view also has a tag, a name that is associated with a global path to the VOB or view storage directory. In their daily work, developers use VOB-tags and view-tags to access the data structures.

Distributed VOBs and Views on UNIX

On UNIX computers, ClearCase allows you to distribute the data storage for a given VOB or view to more than one host. You can create any number of additional VOB storage pools that are remote from the VOB storage directory (mkpool command); similarly, you can place a view's private storage area on a remote host (mkview -ln command).

In both cases, remote data storage is implemented at the UNIX level. As far as ClearCase servers are concerned, the data is located within the VOB or view storage directory; standard UNIX symbolic links implement the reference to remote storage.

NOTE: Remote data storage is outside the scope of this chapter; see Chapter 8, Understanding VOBs and VOB Storage, for more information. The ClearCase storage registries discussed here are not used to resolve the symbolic links that implement distributed data storage.