An issue I have run into on Solaris is the dreaded device rename during a reboot. This can wreak havoc on your system during booting making it unable to boot. This problem was addressed in multiple ways in Linux. One of the most common methods is via labels. This allows you to write a string name to the disk and mount the disk via the string name. I find this particularly useful when using hot swappable drives in my PC. To see the current label on a disk:
[root@linuxmonkey ~]# e2label /dev/sda1
/boot
so the label on disk /dev/sda1 is /boot
To set a label type
[root@linuxmonkey ~]# e2label /dev/sda1 label_name
In order to mount via label instead of the traditional /dev/sda1 in fstab use a
LABEL=/boot
And you have a mount that is not effected by reboots.