The kernels allow processes to access peripheral
devices through device
drivers.
Task management
The kernel allows application execution. It performs context switching
between
software and hardware
Methods of storage management
Provision of options to failback of the LUN to the required paths
Monitoring and notifying if there
is any change in the path
Provision of options to the customization of names of the device-mapper to multipath
devices.
Provision of policy-based paths and grouping for a user to the customization of I/O
through defined paths
Facilitation of balancing of the loads among many paths.
Block storage
Block storage in Linux kernel is simply a synonym for the word block
device. A block device is any hardware device that stores data same as flash
memory, solid-state drive(SSD) and hard disk drive (HDD). Basically, a
block device is commonly known as disk storage in the computer. Once it
has been set the block device acts as an addition of the current file system
on
the device hence, you can read or even write information on the drive.
How Linux manages storage devices
Linux operating system represents almost everything by a file that
encompasses the storage devices present on the /dev category.
Files in
charge of the storage devices always named starting with sd or HD then
followed by a letter. For instance, the first
drive in a server can be
represented by /dev/sda. Similarly, partitioned files within these drives have
files within the /dev category. The partitions are usually appended by
adding a number after the drive name. For instance, the second partition
from the previous example would be /dev/sda2.
Since the /dev/sda* and /dev/hd* device files represent the olden ways of
