Simplified administration

GPFS offers many of the standard file system interfaces allowing most applications to execute without modification.

Operating system utilities complement the GPFS utilities, which means you can continue to also use the commands you have always used for ordinary file operations. For more information, see Considerations for GPFS applications.

GPFS administration commands are similar in name and function to UNIX and Linux® file system commands with one important difference: the GPFS commands operate on multiple nodes. A single GPFS command can perform an administration function across the entire cluster. For more information on the individual commands, see Command reference.

GPFS commands save configuration and file system information in one or more files. These are collectively known as GPFS cluster configuration data files. GPFS maintains the consistency of its configuration files across the cluster, and this provides accurate and consistent confirmation information. For more information, see Cluster configuration data files.