InfoScale™ 9.0 Release Notes - AIX

Last Published:
Product(s): InfoScale & Storage Foundation (9.0)
Platform: AIX
  1. Introduction and product requirements
    1.  
      About this document
    2.  
      VCS system requirements
    3.  
      Supported AIX operating systems
    4.  
      Storage Foundation for Databases features supported in database environments
    5.  
      Storage Foundation memory requirements
    6.  
      Supported database software
    7.  
      Supported hardware and software
    8.  
      Number of nodes supported
    9.  
      Required attributes of LUNs for DMP devices
  2. Changes introduced in this release
    1.  
      Veritas High Availability Configuration wizard is no longer available
    2.  
      Upgraded OpenSSL and TLS versions for enhanced security
    3.  
      New attributes cache and cachesize added to the vradmin startrep command
    4.  
      File System (VxFS) deduplication no longer available
    5.  
      Support for dynamic LUN expansion in FSS environments
  3. Fixed issues
    1.  
      Issues fixed in this release
  4. Limitations
    1. Storage Foundation software limitations
      1. Dynamic Multi-Pathing software limitations
        1.  
          DMP settings for NetApp storage attached environment
        2.  
          DMP support in AIX virtualization environment (2138060)
        3.  
          LVM volume group in unusable state if last path is excluded from DMP (1976620)
      2. InfoScale Volume Manager software limitations
        1.  
          Snapshot configuration with volumes in shared disk groups and private disk groups is not supported (2801037)
        2.  
          SmartSync is not supported for Oracle databases running on raw VxVM volumes
        3.  
          InfoScale does not support thin reclamation of space on a linked mirror volume (2729563)
        4.  
          Thin reclamation requests are not redirected even when the ioship policy is enabled (2755982)
      3. File System (VxFS) software limitations
        1.  
          Recommended limit of number of files in a directory
        2.  
          The shell cannot handle 64-bit inode numbers inside the .checkpoint directory when uniqueino is enabled
        3.  
          The vxlist command cannot correctly display numbers greater than or equal to 1 EB
        4.  
          Limitations with delayed allocation for extending writes feature
      4. SmartIO software limitations
        1.  
          The sfcache operations may display error messages in the caching log when the operation completed successfully (3611158)
    2. Replication software limitations
      1.  
        Bunker replication configuration limitations
      2.  
        VVR support for replicating across InfoScale Storage versions
      3.  
        VVR Replication in a shared environment
      4.  
        VVR IPv6 software limitations
    3. Cluster Server software limitations
      1. Limitations related to bundled agents
        1.  
          Programs using networked services may stop responding if the host is disconnected
        2.  
          Volume agent clean may forcibly stop volume resources
        3.  
          False concurrency violation when using PidFiles to monitor application resources
        4.  
          Volumes in a disk group start automatically irrespective of the value of the StartVolumes attribute in VCS [2162929]
        5.  
          WPAR agent registered to IMF for Directory Online event
        6.  
          Application agent limitations
        7.  
          Campus cluster fire drill does not work when DSM sites are used to mark site boundaries [3073907]
        8.  
          Live Partition Mobility (LPM) of management LPAR is not supported
        9.  
          Mount agent reports resource state as OFFLINE if the configured mount point does not exist [3435266]
      2. Limitations related to VCS engine
        1.  
          Loads fail to consolidate and optimize when multiple groups fault [3074299]
        2.  
          Preferred fencing ignores the forecasted available capacity [3077242]
        3.  
          Failover occurs within the SystemZone or site when BiggestAvailable policy is set [3083757]
        4.  
          Load for Priority groups is ignored in groups with BiggestAvailable and Priority in the same group[3074314]
      3.  
        Limitations related to IMF
      4. Limitations related to the VCS database agents
        1.  
          DB2 RestartLimit value [1234959]
        2.  
          Pluggable database (PDB) online may timeout when started after container database (CDB) [3549506]
      5.  
        Systems in a cluster must have same system locale setting
      6.  
        Limitations with DiskGroupSnap agent [1919329]
      7. Virtualizing shared storage using VIO servers and client partitions
        1.  
          Supported storage
        2.  
          Disk Restrictions
        3.  
          Accessing the same LUNs from Client Partitions on different Central Electronics Complex (CEC) modules
      8. Cluster Manager (Java console) limitations
        1.  
          VCS Simulator does not support I/O fencing
      9.  
        The operating system does not distinguish between IPv4 and IPv6 packet counts
      10.  
        A service group that runs inside of a WPAR may not fail over when its network connection is lost
      11. Limitations related to LLT
        1.  
          LLT over IPv6 UDP cannot detect other nodes while Arctera InfoScale tries to form a cluster (1907223)
        2.  
          LLT does not start automatically after system reboot (2058752)
        3.  
          Limitation of LLT support over UDP using alias IP [3622175]
      12. Limitations related to I/O fencing
        1.  
          Preferred fencing limitation when VxFEN activates RACER node re-election
        2.  
          Limitation with RDAC driver and FAStT array for coordinator disks that use raw disks
        3.  
          Stopping systems in clusters with I/O fencing configured
        4.  
          Uninstalling VRTSvxvm causes issues when VxFEN is configured in SCSI3 mode with dmp disk policy (2522069)
        5.  
          Node may panic if HAD process is stopped by force and then node is shut down or restarted [3640007]
      13.  
        Limitations related to global clusters
      14.  
        Clusters must run on VCS 6.0.5 and later to be able to communicate after upgrading to 2048 bit key and SHA256 signature certificates [3812313]
    4. Storage Foundation Cluster File System High Availability software limitations
      1.  
        cfsmntadm command does not verify the mount options (2078634)
      2.  
        Upgrade of secure clusters not supported using native operating system tools
      3.  
        Stale SCSI-3 PR keys remain on disk after stopping the cluster and deporting the disk group
      4.  
        Unsupported FSS scenarios
    5. Storage Foundation for Oracle RAC software limitations
      1.  
        Supportability constraints for normal or high redundancy ASM disk groups with CVM I/O shipping and FSS (3600155)
      2.  
        Limitations of CSSD agent
      3.  
        Oracle Clusterware/Grid Infrastructure installation fails if the cluster name exceeds 14 characters
      4.  
        Policy-managed databases not supported by CRSResource agent
      5.  
        Health checks may fail on clusters that have more than 10 nodes
      6.  
        Cached ODM not supported in InfoScale environments
    6. Storage Foundation for Databases (SFDB) tools software limitations
      1.  
        Parallel execution of vxsfadm is not supported (2515442)
      2.  
        Creating point-in-time copies during database structural changes is not supported (2496178)
      3.  
        Oracle Data Guard in an Oracle RAC environment
  5. Known issues
    1. Issues related to installation, licensing, upgrade, and uninstallation
      1.  
        InfoScale 9.0 installation may fail if minimum data segment size is not set on AIX 7.3
      2.  
        While simultaneously upgrading from 7.4.2 to 8.0.2 and AIX7.3 TL0 to AIX7.3 TL1 the following error message was observed (4113428)
      3.  
        Enabling compression on VxFS filesystems, especially under heavy load might lead to filesystem corruption. (4108374)
      4.  
        Rolling upgrade from InfoScale 7.4.1 to 8.0 gets stuck during phase 1 (4037913)
      5.  
        Uninstallation fails if system panics while uninstalling VRTSvxvm in a DMP environment (4055903)
      6.  
        Switch fencing in enable or disable mode may not take effect if VCS is not reconfigured [3798127]
      7.  
        During an upgrade process, the AMF_START or AMF_STOP variable values may be inconsistent [3763790]
      8.  
        Stopping the installer during an upgrade and then resuming the upgrade might freeze the service groups (2574731)
      9.  
        If you have a shared (system) WPAR configured, when you install, upgrade, or uninstall any Arctera product, the filesets in the WPAR are not synchronized correspondingly (3313690)
      10.  
        NetBackup 6.5 or older version is installed on a VxFS file system (2056282)
      11.  
        The VRTSvxvm fileset fails to install on a few cluster nodes because the template file is corrupted (2348780)
      12.  
        After a locale change restart the vxconfig daemon (2417547, 2116264)
      13.  
        Echo or print messages defined in any of the .rc file leads to failure in CPS configuration (3944034)
    2. Storage Foundation known issues
      1. Dynamic Multi-Pathing known issues
        1.  
          Migration of root disks under DMP control may fail with "VxVM vxdmpadm ERROR V-5-1-15253 bosboot" error [3930243]
        2.  
          In AIX 7.1, 'vxdmpadm native list' command does not display native volumegroups after DMP native support is enabled (3946326)
        3.  
          vxdmpadm exclude ctlr=emcp command doesn't exclude PowerPath devices properly [3741636]
      2. InfoScale Volume Manager known issues
        1.  
          Resizing of LVM disk or any other OS disk may result in failures
        2.  
          Issues with host prefix values in case of NVME disks (4017022)
        3.  
          vradmin delsec fails to remove a secondary RVG from its RDS (3983296)
        4.  
          FSS disk group creation fails for clusters with eight or more nodes that have several directly attached disks (3986110)
        5.  
          Core dump issue after restoration of disk group backup (3909046)
        6.  
          Failed verifydata operation leaves residual cache objects that cannot be removed (3370667)
        7.  
          LUNs claimed but not in use by VxVM may report "Device Busy" when it is accessed outside VxVM (3667574)
        8.  
          VxVM commands may respond slowly when you disable the primary paths and run the vxdisk scandisks command (3450060)
        9.  
          Unable to set master on the secondary site in VVR environment if any pending I/O's are on the secondary site (3874873)
        10.  
          Mounting CFS under VVR may fail, after rolling upgrade phase 1 on one node. [3764652]
        11.  
          VRAS verifydata command fails without cleaning up the snapshots created [3558199]
        12.  
          SmartIO VxVM cache invalidated after relayout operation (3492350)
        13.  
          Performance impact when a large number of disks are reconnected (2802698)
        14.  
          device.map must be up to date before doing root disk encapsulation (2202047)
        15.  
          Volume Manager (VxVM) might report false serial split brain under certain scenarios (1834513)
        16.  
          Co-existence check might fail for CDS disks
        17.  
          Recovery and rollback to original configuration may not succeed if the system reboots while the online migration setup is in partial state (2611423)
        18.  
          Disk group import of BCV LUNs using -o updateid and -ouseclonedev options is not supported if the disk group has mirrored volumes with DCO or has snapshots (2831658)
        19.  
          After devices that are managed by EMC PowerPath lose access to storage, Volume Manager commands are delayed (2757198)
        20.  
          vxresize does not work with layered volumes that have multiple plexes at the top level (3301991)
        21.  
          Running the vxdisk disk set clone=off command on imported clone disk group luns results in a mix of clone and non-clone disks (3338075)
        22.  
          Restarting the vxconfigd daemon on the slave node after a disk is removed from all nodes may cause the disk groups to be disabled on the slave node (3591019)
        23.  
          Failback to primary paths does not occur if the node that initiated the failover leaves the cluster (1856723)
        24.  
          Issues if the storage connectivity to data disks is lost on a CVM slave node while vxconfigd was not running on the node (2562889)
        25.  
          The vxcdsconvert utility is supported only on the master node (2616422)
        26.  
          Re-enabling connectivity if the disks are in local failed (lfailed) state (2425977)
        27.  
          Issues with the disk state on the CVM slave node when vxconfigd is restarted on all nodes (2615680)
        28.  
          Plex synchronization is not completed after resuming synchronization on a new master when the original master lost connectivity (2788077)
        29.  
          A master node is not capable of doing recovery if it cannot access the disks belonging to any of the plexes of a volume (2764153)
        30.  
          CVM fails to start if the first node joining the cluster has no connectivity to the storage (2787713)
        31.  
          CVMVolDg agent may fail to deport CVM disk group when CVMDeportOnOffline is set to 1
        32.  
          The vxsnap print command shows incorrect value for percentage dirty [2360780]
        33.  
          Mksysb restore fails if physical volumes have identical PVIDs (3133542)
        34.  
          vxconfigd daemon hangs when InfoScale is run on AIX7.2SP1 or any earlier version (3901325)
        35.  
          Systems may panic after GPT disk resize operation (3930664)
      3. File System (VxFS) known issues
        1.  
          Delayed allocation may be turned off automatically when one of the volumes in a multi-volume file system nears 100%(2438368)
        2.  
          The fsappadm subfilemove command moves all extents of a file [3760225]
        3.  
          dchunk_enable does not get set through vxtunefs in AIX (3551030)
        4.  
          Cannot use some commands from inside an automounted Storage Checkpoint (2490709)
        5.  
          On the online cache device you should not perform the mkfs operation, because any subsequent fscache operation panics (3643800)
        6.  
          You are unable to unmount the NFS exported file system on the server if you run the fsmigadm command on the client (2355258)
        7.  
          A restored volume snapshot may be inconsistent with the data in the SmartIO VxFS cache (3760219)
        8.  
          When in-place and relocate compression rules are in the same policy file, file relocation is unpredictable (3760242)
        9.  
          The file system may hang when it has compression enabled (3331276)
        10.  
          Unaligned large reads may lead to performance issues (3064877)
    3. Replication known issues
      1.  
        Upgrade causes disconnect between VVR primary and secondary on AIX (4116979)
      2.  
        Switching the VVR logowner to another node causes the replication to pause (4114096)
      3.  
        Secondary RVG creation using addsec command fails with a hostname not responding error (4113218)
      4.  
        Syslog gets flooded with vxconfigd daemon V-5-1-15599 error messages (4115620)
      5.  
        vradmind and vxcommands hang about 40 minutes after replication starts in CVR configurations (4050516)
      6.  
        RVG goes into secondary log error state after secondary site reboot in CVR environments (4046182)
      7.  
        Data corruption may occur if you perform a rolling upgrade of InfoScale Storage or InfoScale Enterprise from 7.3.1 or earlier to 7.4 or later during replication (3951527)
      8.  
        vradmind may appear hung or may fail for the role migrate operation (3968642, 3968641)
      9.  
        After the product upgrade on secondary site, replication may fail to resume with "Secondary SRL missing" error [3931763]
      10.  
        vradmin repstatus command reports secondary host as "unreachable"(3896588)
      11.  
        RVGPrimary agent operation to start replication between the original Primary and the bunker fails during failback (2036605)
      12.  
        A snapshot volume created on the Secondary, containing a VxFS file system may not mount in read-write mode and performing a read-write mount of the VxFS file systems on the new Primary after a global clustering site failover may fail [3761497]
      13.  
        In an IPv6-only environment RVG, data volumes or SRL names cannot contain a colon (1672410, 1672417)
      14.  
        vradmin functionality may not work after a master switch operation [2158679]
      15.  
        Cannot relayout data volumes in an RVG from concat to striped-mirror (2129601)
      16.  
        vradmin verifydata may report differences in a cross-endian environment (2834424)
      17.  
        vradmin verifydata operation fails if the RVG contains a volume set (2808902)
      18.  
        Bunker replay does not occur with volume sets (3329970)
      19.  
        SmartIO does not support write-back caching mode for volumes configured for replication by Volume Replicator (3313920)
      20.  
        During moderate to heavy I/O, the vradmin verifydata command may falsely report differences in data (3270067)
      21.  
        While vradmin commands are running, vradmind may temporarily lose heartbeats (3347656, 3724338)
      22.  
        Write I/Os on the primary logowner may take a long time to complete (2622536)
      23.  
        DCM logs on a disassociated layered data volume results in configuration changes or CVM node reconfiguration issues (3582509)
      24.  
        After performing a CVM master switch on the secondary node, both rlinks detach (3642855)
      25.  
        The RVGPrimary agent may fail to bring the application service group online on the new Primary site because of a previous primary-elect operation not being run or not completing successfully (3761555, 2043831)
      26.  
        A snapshot volume created on the Secondary, containing a VxFS file system may not mount in read-write mode and performing a read-write mount of the VxFS file systems on the new Primary after a global clustering site failover may fail (1558257)
      27.  
        DCM plex becomes inaccessible and goes into DISABLED(SPARSE) state in case of node failure. (3931775)
      28.  
        Initial autosync operation takes a long time to complete for data volumes larger than 3TB (3966713)
    4. Cluster Server known issues
      1. Operational issues for VCS
        1.  
          CP server does not allow adding and removing HTTPS virtual IP or ports when it is running (3322154)
        2.  
          Some VCS components do not work on the systems where a firewall is configured to block TCP traffic (3545338)
      2. Issues related to the VCS engine
        1.  
          Extremely high CPU utilization may cause HAD to fail to heartbeat to GAB [1744854]
        2.  
          The hacf -cmdtocf command generates a broken main.cf file [1919951]
        3.  
          VCS fails to validate processor ID while performing CPU Binding [2441022]
        4.  
          Trigger does not get executed when there is more than one leading or trailing slash in the triggerpath [2368061]
        5.  
          Service group is not auto started on the node having incorrect value of EngineRestarted [2653688]
        6.  
          Group is not brought online if top level resource is disabled [2486476]
        7.  
          NFS resource goes offline unexpectedly and reports errors when restarted [2490331]
        8.  
          Parent group does not come online on a node where child group is online [2489053]
        9.  
          Cannot modify temp attribute when VCS is in LEAVING state [2407850]
        10.  
          Service group may fail to come online after a flush and a force flush operation [2616779]
        11.  
          Elevated TargetCount prevents the online of a service group with hagrp -online -sys command [2871892]
        12.  
          System sometimes displays error message with vcsencrypt or vcsdecrypt [2850899]
        13.  
          Auto failover does not happen in case of two successive primary and secondary cluster failures [2858187]
        14.  
          GCO clusters remain in INIT state [2848006]
        15.  
          The ha commands may fail for non-root user if cluster is secure [2847998]
        16.  
          Every ha command takes longer time to execute on secure FIPS mode clusters [2847997]
        17.  
          Running -delete -keys for any scalar attribute causes core dump [3065357]
        18.  
          InfoScale enters into admin_wait state when Cluster Statistics is enabled with load and capacity defined [3199210]
        19.  
          Agent reports incorrect state if VCS is not set to start automatically and utmp file is empty before VCS is started [3326504]
        20.  
          VCS crashes if feature tracking file is corrupt [3603291]
        21.  
          RemoteGroup agent and non-root users may fail to authenticate after a secure upgrade [3649457]
        22.  
          If you disable security before upgrading VCS to version 7.0.1 or later on secured clusters, the security certificates will not be upgraded to 2048 bit SHA2 [3812313]
        23.  
          Java console and CLI do not allow adding VCS user names starting with '_' character (3870470)
      3. Issues related to the bundled agents
        1.  
          VCS resources may time out if NFS server is down [2129617]
        2.  
          MultiNICB resource may show unexpected behavior with IPv6 protocol [2535952]
        3.  
          Bringing the LPAR resource offline may fail [2418615]
        4.  
          LPAR agent may not show the correct state of LPARs [2425990]
        5.  
          RemoteGroup agent does not failover in case of network cable pull [2588807]
        6.  
          CoordPoint agent remains in faulted state [2852872]
        7.  
          Prevention of Concurrency Violation (PCV) is not supported for applications running in a container [2536037]
        8.  
          VCS does not monitor applications inside an already existing WPAR [2494532]
        9.  
          Error messages for wrong HMC user and HMC name do not communicate the correct problem
        10.  
          LPAR agent may dump core when all configured VIOS are down [2850898]
        11.  
          NFS client reports I/O error because of network split brain [3257399]
        12.  
          WPAR-aware agents cannot run in a non-shared WPAR [3313698]
        13.  
          Mount resource does not support spaces in the MountPoint and BlockDevice attribute values [3335304]
        14.  
          Mount agent fails to online Mount resource due to OS issue [3508584]
        15.  
          SFCache Agent fails to enable caching if cache area is offline [3644424]
        16.  
          RemoteGroup agent may stop working on upgrading the remote cluster in secure mode [3648886]
      4. Issues related to the VCS database agents
        1.  
          VCS ASMDG resource status does not match the Oracle ASMDG resource status (3962416)
        2.  
          ASMDG agent does not go offline if the management DB is running on the same (3856460)
        3.  
          ASMDG on a particular does not go offline if its instances is being used by other database instances (3856450)
        4.  
          Sometimes ASMDG reports as offline instead of faulted (3856454)
        5.  
          The ASMInstAgent does not support having pfile/spfile for the ASM Instance on the ASM diskgroups
        6.  
          VCS agent for ASM: Health check monitoring is not supported for ASMInst agent
        7.  
          NOFAILOVER action specified for certain Oracle errors
        8.  
          IMF registration fails if sybase server name is given at the end of the configuration file [2365173]
        9.  
          Oracle agent fails to offline pluggable database (PDB) resource with PDB in backup mode [3592142]
        10.  
          Clean succeeds for PDB even as PDB staus is UNABLE to OFFLINE [3609351]
        11.  
          Second level monitoring fails if user and table names are identical [3594962]
        12.  
          Monitor entry point times out for Oracle PDB resources when CDB is moved to suspended state in Oracle 12.1.0.2 [3643582]
        13.  
          Oracle agent fails to come online and monitor Oracle instance if threaded_execution parameter is set to true (3644425)
      5. Issues related to the agent framework
        1.  
          The agent framework does not detect if service threads hang inside an entry point [1442255]
        2.  
          IMF related error messages while bringing a resource online and offline [2553917]
        3.  
          Delayed response to VCS commands observed on nodes with several resources and system has high CPU usage or high swap usage [3208239]
        4.  
          CFSMount agent may fail to heartbeat with VCS engine and logs an error message in the engine log on systems with high memory load [3060779]
        5.  
          Logs from the script executed other than the agent entry point goes into the engine logs [3547329]
        6.  
          VCS fails to process the hares -add command resource if the resource is deleted and subsequently added just after the VCS process or the agent's process starts (3813979)
      6. Cluster Server agents for Volume Replicator known issues
        1.  
          Stale entries observed in the sample main.cf file for RVGLogowner agent [2872047]
      7. Issues related to Intelligent Monitoring Framework (IMF)
        1.  
          Registration error while creating a Firedrill setup [2564350]
        2.  
          IMF does not provide notification for a registered disk group if it is imported using a different name (2730774)
        3.  
          Direct execution of linkamf displays syntax error [2858163]
        4.  
          Error messages displayed during reboot cycles [2847950]
        5.  
          Error message displayed when ProPCV prevents a process from coming ONLINE to prevent concurrency violation does not have I18N support [2848011]
        6.  
          AMF displays StartProgram name multiple times on the console without a VCS error code or logs [2872064]
        7.  
          VCS engine shows error for cancellation of reaper when Apache agent is disabled [3043533]
        8.  
          Terminating the imfd daemon orphans the vxnotify process [2728787]
        9.  
          Agent cannot become IMF-aware with agent directory and agent file configured [2858160]
        10.  
          ProPCV fails to prevent a script from running if it is run with relative path [3617014]
      8. Issues related to global clusters
        1.  
          The engine log file receives too many log messages on the secure site in global cluster environments [1919933]
        2.  
          Application group attempts to come online on primary site before fire drill service group goes offline on the secondary site (2107386)
      9. Issues related to the Cluster Manager (Java Console)
        1.  
          Some Cluster Manager features fail to work in a firewall setup [1392406]
      10. LLT known issues
        1.  
          After configuring LLT over UDP using IPV6, one of the configured link may show DOWN status for lltstat command [3916374]
      11. I/O fencing known issues
        1.  
          Online fencing migration from custom to SCSI3 mode might fail (4189051, 4189048)
        2.  
          Fencing port b is visible for few seconds even if cluster nodes have not registered with CP server (2415619)
        3.  
          The cpsadm command fails if LLT is not configured on the application cluster (2583685)
        4.  
          The vxfenswap utility does not detect failure of coordination points validation due to an RSH limitation (2531561)
        5.  
          The vxfenswap utility deletes comment lines from the /etc/vxfemode file, if you run the utility with hacli option (3318449)
        6.  
          The vxfentsthdw utility may not run on systems installed with partial SFHA stack [3333914]
        7.  
          When a client node goes down, for reasons such as node panic, I/O fencing does not come up on that client node after node restart (3341322)
        8.  
          The vxfenconfig -l command output does not list Coordinator disks that are removed using the vxdmpadm exclude dmpnodename=<dmp_disk/node> command [3644431]
        9.  
          The CoordPoint agent faults after you detach or reattach one or more coordination disks from a storage array (3317123)
    5. Storage Foundation and High Availability known issues
      1.  
        Cache area is lost after a disk failure (3158482)
      2.  
        In an IPv6 environment, db2icrt and db2idrop commands return a segmentation fault error during instance creation and instance removal (1602444)
      3.  
        Not all the objects are visible in the VIOM GUI (1821803)
      4.  
        An error message is received when you perform off-host clone for RAC and the off-host node is not part of the CVM cluster (1834860)
      5.  
        A volume's placement class tags are not visible in the Arctera Enterprise Administrator GUI when creating a dynamic storage tiering placement policy (1880081)
      6.  
        Upgrading operating system Technology Levels along with Storage Foundation using an alternate disk fails (2162945)
      7.  
        Vxdisk list failed to show NVMe 4k devices (4112816)
    6. Storage Foundation Cluster File System High Availability known issues
      1.  
        After an SFCFSHA upgrade is completed, the installer may fail to stop the veki module (4001089)
      2.  
        Transaction hangs when multiple plex-attach or add-mirror operations are triggered on the same volume (3969500)
      3.  
        In an FSS environment, creation of mirrored volumes may fail for SSD media [3932494]
      4.  
        Mount command may fail to mount the file system (3913246)
      5.  
        After the local node restarts or panics, the FSS service group cannot be online successfully on the local node and the remote node when the local node is up again (3865289)
      6.  
        In the FSS environment, if DG goes to the dgdisable state and deep volume monitoring is disabled, successive node joins fail with error 'Slave failed to create remote disk: retry to add a node failed' (3874730)
      7.  
        DG creation fails with error "V-5-1-585 Disk group punedatadg: cannot create: SCSI-3 PR operation failed" on the VSCSI disks (3875044)
      8.  
        CVMVOLDg agent is not going into the FAULTED state. [3771283]
      9.  
        CFS commands might hang when run by non-root (3038283)
      10.  
        Inode access and modification times are not getting updated on the primary node when a file owned by the primary node is accessed from a secondary node (2170318)
      11.  
        The fsappadm subfilemove command moves all extents of a file (3258678)
      12.  
        Certain I/O errors during clone deletion may lead to system panic. (3331273)
      13.  
        Panic due to null pointer de-reference in vx_bmap_lookup() (3038285)
      14.  
        In a CFS cluster, that has multi-volume file system of a small size, the fsadm operation may hang (3348520)
      15.  
        Importing Linux FS to AIX/Solaris/HP with fscdsconv -i option fails (4113627)
    7. Storage Foundation for Oracle RAC known issues
      1. Oracle RAC known issues
        1.  
          Oracle Grid Infrastructure installation may fail with internal driver error
        2.  
          During installation or system startup, Oracle Grid Infrastructure may fail to start
        3.  
          Node fails to join the cluster after installation or upgrade to specific operating system versions
      2. Storage Foundation Oracle RAC issues
        1.  
          Oracle database or grid installation using the product installer fails (4004808)
        2.  
          ASM configuration fails if OCR and voting disk volumes are configured on VxFS or CFS for Oracle 19c during the grid installation (4003844)
        3.  
          CSSD configuration fails if OCR and voting disk volumes are located on Oracle ASM (3914497)
        4.  
          ASM disk groups configured with normal or high redundancy are dismounted if the CVM master panics due to network failure in FSS environment or if CVM I/O shipping is enabled (3600155)
        5.  
          PrivNIC and MultiPrivNIC agents not supported with Oracle RAC 11.2.0.2 and later versions
        6.  
          CSSD agent forcibly stops Oracle Clusterware if Oracle Clusterware fails to respond (3352269)
        7.  
          Intelligent Monitoring Framework (IMF) entry point may fail when IMF detects resource state transition from online to offline for CSSD resource type (3287719)
        8.  
          Node fails to join the SF Oracle RAC cluster if the file system containing Oracle Clusterware is not mounted (2611055)
        9.  
          The vxconfigd daemon fails to start after machine reboot (3566713)
        10.  
          Health check monitoring fails with policy-managed databases (3609349)
        11.  
          CVMVolDg agent may fail to deport CVM disk group
        12.  
          Volume Manager cannot identify Oracle Automatic Storage Management (ASM) disks (2771637)
        13.  
          vxdisk resize from slave nodes fails with "Command is not supported for command shipping" error (3140314)
        14.  
          CVM requires the T10 vendor provided ID to be unique (3191807)
        15.  
          FSS Disk group creation with 510 exported disks from master fails with Transaction locks timed out error (3311250)
        16.  
          Change in naming scheme is not reflected on nodes in an FSS environment (3589272)
    8. Storage Foundation for Databases (SFDB) tools known issues
      1.  
        dbed_update command fails on AIX (4188927, 4189214)
      2.  
        Filesnap clone operation fails for PDB when OMF is enabled (4001463)
      3.  
        Sometimes SFDB may report the following error message: SFDB remote or privileged command error (2869262)
      4.  
        SFDB commands do not work in IPV6 environment (2619958)
      5.  
        The database clone operation using the vxsfadm -o clone(1M) command fails (3313715)
      6.  
        In an off-host scenario, a clone operation may fail with an error message (3313572)
      7.  
        When you attempt to move all the extents of a table, the dbdst_obj_move(1M) command fails with an error (3260289)
      8.  
        Attempt to use SmartTier commands fails (2332973)
      9.  
        Attempt to use certain names for tiers results in error (2581390)
      10.  
        Clone operation failure might leave clone database in unexpected state (2512664)
      11.  
        Clone command fails if PFILE entries have their values spread across multiple lines (2844247)
      12.  
        Clone fails with error "ORA-01513: invalid current time returned by operating system" with Oracle 11.2.0.3 (2804452)
      13.  
        Data population fails after datafile corruption, rollback, and restore of offline checkpoint (2869259)
      14.  
        Flashsnap clone fails under some unusual archivelog configuration on RAC (2846399)
      15.  
        Database Storage Checkpoints created by using dbed_ckptcreate may not be visible after upgrading to 9.0 (2626248)
      16.  
        Cloning of a container database may fail after a reverse resync commit operation is performed (3509778)
      17.  
        If one of the PDBs is in the read-write restricted state, then cloning of a CDB fails (3516634)
      18.  
        Cloning of a CDB fails for point-in-time copies when one of the PDBs is in the read-only mode (3513432)
      19.  
        If a CDB has a tablespace in the read-only mode, then the cloning fails (3512370)
      20.  
        SFDB commands fail when an SFDB installation with authentication configured is upgraded to InfoScale 9.0 (3644030)
      21.  
        Benign message displayed upon execution of vxsfadm -a oracle -s filesnap -o destroyclone (3901533)

Virtualizing shared storage using VIO servers and client partitions

In an Advanced POWER™ Virtualization (APV) environment, AIX uses the VIO Server to monitor and manage the I/O paths for the virtualized client partitions. At a very high level, the VIO server provides a partition's access to storage that is external to the physical computer. The VIO server encapsulates the physical hardware into virtual adapters called virtual SCSI adapters (server adapter). On the client side, you can create virtual adapters (client adapters) that map to the server adapter and enable a partition to connect to external storage.

The VIO server provides similar mechanisms to share limited networking resources across partitions. Refer to the manual that came with your system to help set up partitions, and to configure and use the various components such as VIO server and HMC, which are integral parts of IBM's APV environment.

The minimum patch level for using VIO servers with VCS is: version 2.1.3.10-FP-23 and later.