Veritas InfoScale™ 7.3.1 Virtualization Guide - AIX

Last Published:
Product(s): InfoScale & Storage Foundation (7.3.1)
  1. Section I. Overview
    1. Storage Foundation and High Availability Solutions in AIX PowerVM virtual environments
      1.  
        Overview of the Veritas InfoScale Products Virtualization Guide
      2.  
        About the AIX PowerVM virtualization technology
      3.  
        About the Veritas InfoScale components
      4. About Veritas InfoScale products support for the AIX PowerVM environment
        1.  
          About IBM LPARs with N_Port ID Virtualization (NPIV)
      5.  
        About Veritas Extension for Oracle Disk Manager
      6.  
        Virtualization use cases addressed by Veritas InfoScale products
  2. Section II. Implementation
    1. Setting up Storage Foundation and High Availability Solutions in AIX PowerVM virtual environments
      1. Supported configurations for Virtual I/O servers (VIOS) on AIX
        1.  
          Dynamic Multi-Pathing in the logical partition (LPAR)
        2.  
          Dynamic Multi-Pathing in the Virtual I/O server (VIOS)
        3.  
          Veritas InfoScale products in the logical partition (LPAR)
        4.  
          Storage Foundation Cluster File System High Availability in the logical partition (LPAR)
        5.  
          Dynamic Multi-Pathing in the Virtual I/O server (VIOS) and logical partition (LPAR)
        6.  
          Dynamic Multi-Pathing in the Virtual I/O server (VIOS) and Veritas InfoScale products in the logical partition (LPAR)
        7.  
          Cluster Server in the logical partition (LPAR)
        8.  
          Cluster Server in the management LPAR
        9.  
          Cluster Server in a cluster across logical partitions (LPARs) and physical machines
      2.  
        Support for N_Port ID Virtualization (NPIV) in IBM Virtual I/O Server (VIOS) environments
      3.  
        About setting up logical partitions (LPARs) with Veritas InfoScale products
      4.  
        Configuring IBM PowerVM LPAR guest for disaster recovery
      5. Installing and configuring Storage Foundation and High Availability (SFHA) Solutions in the logical partition (LPAR)
        1.  
          Impact of over-provisioning on Storage Foundation and High Availability
        2. About SmartIO in the AIX virtualized environment
          1.  
            Performing LPM in the SmartIO environment
      6.  
        Installing and configuring storage solutions in the Virtual I/O server (VIOS)
      7. Installing and configuring Cluster Server for logical partition and application availability
        1.  
          How Cluster Server (VCS) manages logical partitions (LPARs)
      8.  
        Enabling Veritas Extension for ODM file access from WPAR with VxFS
  3. Section III. Use cases for AIX PowerVM virtual environments
    1. Application to spindle visibility
      1.  
        About application to spindle visibility using
      2.  
        About discovering LPAR and VIO in Veritas InfoScale Operations Manager
      3.  
        About LPAR storage correlation supported in Veritas InfoScale Operations Manager
      4.  
        Prerequisites for LPAR storage correlation support in Veritas InfoScale Operations Manager
    2. Simplified storage management in VIOS
      1.  
        About simplified management
      2.  
        About Dynamic Multi-Pathing in a Virtual I/O server
      3.  
        About the Volume Manager (VxVM) component in a Virtual I/O server
      4. Configuring Dynamic Multi-Pathing (DMP) on Virtual I/O server
        1.  
          Migrating from other multi-pathing solutions to DMP on Virtual I/O server
        2.  
          Migrating from MPIO to DMP on a Virtual I/O server for a dual-VIOS configuration
        3.  
          Migrating from PowerPath to DMP on a Virtual I/O server for a dual-VIOS configuration
      5. Configuring Dynamic Multi-Pathing (DMP) pseudo devices as virtual SCSI devices
        1.  
          Exporting Dynamic Multi-Pathing (DMP) devices as virtual SCSI disks
        2.  
          Exporting a Logical Volume as a virtual SCSI disk
        3.  
          Exporting a file as a virtual SCSI disk
      6. Extended attributes in VIO client for a virtual SCSI disk
        1.  
          Configuration prerequisites for providing extended attributes on VIO client for virtual SCSI disk
        2.  
          Displaying extended attributes of virtual SCSI disks
      7.  
        Virtual IO client adapter settings for Dynamic Multi-Pathing (DMP) in dual-VIOS configurations
      8.  
        Using DMP to provide multi-pathing for the root volume group (rootvg)
      9.  
        Boot device management on NPIV presented devices
    3. Virtual machine (logical partition) availability
      1.  
        About virtual machine (logical partition) availability
      2.  
        VCS in the management LPAR
      3. Setting up management LPAR
        1.  
          Configuring password-less SSH communication between VCS nodes and HMC
      4. Setting up managed LPARs
        1.  
          Creating an LPAR profile
        2.  
          Bundled agents for managing the LPAR
        3.  
          Configuring VCS service groups to manage the LPAR
      5.  
        Managing logical partition (LPAR) failure scenarios
    4. Simplified management and high availability for IBM Workload Partitions
      1.  
        About IBM Workload Partitions
      2.  
        About using IBM Workload Partitions (WPARs) with Veritas InfoScale products
      3. Implementing Storage Foundation support for WPARs
        1.  
          Using a VxFS file system within a single system WPAR
        2.  
          WPAR with root (/) partition as VxFS
        3.  
          Using VxFS as a shared file system
      4. How Cluster Server (VCS) works with Workload Patitions (WPARs)
        1.  
          About the ContainerInfo attribute
        2.  
          About the ContainerOpts attribute
        3.  
          About the WPAR agent
      5. Configuring VCS in WPARs
        1. Prerequisites for configuring VCS in WPARs
          1.  
            About using custom agents in WPARs
        2.  
          Deciding on the WPAR root location
        3.  
          Creating a WPAR root on local disk
        4.  
          Creating WPAR root on shared storage using NFS
        5. Installing the application
          1. Configuring the service group for the application
            1.  
              Modifying the service group configuration
            2.  
              About configuring failovers
        6.  
          Verifying the WPAR configuration
        7.  
          Maintenance tasks
        8.  
          Troubleshooting information
      6.  
        Configuring AIX WPARs for disaster recovery using VCS
    5. High availability and live migration
      1.  
        About Live Partition Mobility (LPM)
      2.  
        About the partition migration process and simplified management
      3.  
        About Storage Foundation and High Availability (SFHA) Solutions support for Live Partition Mobility
      4.  
        Providing high availability with live migration in a Cluster Server environment
      5.  
        Providing logical partition (LPAR) failover with live migration
      6. Limitations and unsupported LPAR features
        1.  
          Live partition mobility of management LPARs
        2.  
          Live partition mobility of managed LPARs
    6. Multi-tier business service support
      1.  
        About Virtual Business Services
      2.  
        Sample virtual business service configuration
    7. Server consolidation
      1.  
        About server consolidation
      2. About IBM Virtual Ethernet
        1.  
          Shared Ethernet Adapter (SEA)
    8. Physical to virtual migration (P2V)
      1.  
        About migration from Physical to VIO environment
      2.  
        Migrating from Physical to VIO environment
  4. Section IV. Reference
    1. Appendix A. How to isolate system problems
      1.  
        About VxFS trace events
      2.  
        Tracing file read-write event
      3.  
        Tracing Inode cache event
      4.  
        Tracing Low Memory event
    2. Appendix B. Provisioning data LUNs
      1.  
        Provisioning data LUNs in a mixed VxVM and LVM environment
    3. Appendix C. Where to find more information
      1.  
        Veritas InfoScale documentation
      2.  
        Additional documentation for AIX virtualization
      3.  
        Service and support
      4.  
        About Veritas Services and Operations Readiness Tools (SORT)

About the Veritas InfoScale components

Veritas InfoScale products is a set of components that provide storage administration and management in a heterogeneous storage environment.

This section can help you determine which product you need.

Table: Veritas InfoScale components comparisons shows the benefits of each product and its components.

Table: Veritas InfoScale components comparisons

Component

Components

Benefits

Cluster Server (VCS) connects multiple, independent systems into a management framework for increased availability. Each system, or node, runs its own operating system and cooperates at the software level to form a cluster. VCS links commodity hardware with intelligent software to provide application failover and control. When a node or a monitored application fails, other nodes can take predefined actions to take over and bring up services elsewhere in the cluster.

VCS

  • Minimizes downtime

  • Facilitates the consolidation and the failover of servers

  • Effectively manages a wide range of applications in heterogeneous environments

  • Provides data integrity protection through I/O fencing

  • Provides High Availability of applications

Dynamic Multi-Pathing (DMP) provides multi-pathing functionality for the storage devices configured on the system. The product creates DMP metadevices (also known as DMP nodes) to represent all the device paths to the same physical LUN.

DMP

  • Extends DMP metadevices to support OS native logical volume managers (LVM)

  • Provides improved storage I/O performance with load balancing

  • Provides storage path failure protection and fast failover

  • Centralizes storage path management regardless of operating system or storage hardware

Veritas Replicator enables cost-effective replication of data over IP networks for disaster recovery, giving organizations an extremely flexible, storage hardware independent alternative to traditional array-based replication architectures.

VVR

Volume Replicator (VVR)

  • Provides block-based continuous replication

  • Provides effective bandwidth management

  • Supports cross-platform replication, and replication in a Portable Data Container (PDC) environment

Storage Foundation (SF) is a storage management offering that consists of Veritas Volume Manager (VxVM), Veritas File System (VxFS), and DMP.

Veritas Volume Manager is a storage management subsystem that enables you to manage physical disks and logical unit numbers (LUNs) as logical devices called volumes.

Veritas File System is an extent-based, intent logging file system.

DMP, VxVM, VxFS

  • Increased storage utilization across heterogeneous environments

  • Deduplication and compression

  • Automated storage tiering

  • Centralized storage management

  • Easy OS and storage migration with minimum downtime

  • All benefits of DMP

Veritas InfoScale products include all the functionalities of SF plus the high availability of VCS.

DMP, VxVM, VxFS, VCS

  • All benefits of DMP

  • All benefits of SF

  • All benefits of VCS

Storage Foundation Cluster File System High Availability (SFCFSHA) extends Storage Foundation to support shared data in a storage area network (SAN) environment. Multiple servers can concurrently access shared storage and files transparently to applications. With the Flexible Storage Sharing (FSS) feature, you can use local or commodity storage for Cluster Volume Manager (CVM) or Cluster File System (CFS).

CVM extends VxVM to support shared disk groups. CFS extends VxFS to support parallel clusters.

DMP, VxVM, VxFS, VCS, CVM, SFCFSHA

  • All benefits of DMP

  • All benefits of SF

  • All benefits of VCS

  • Increased automation and intelligent management of availability and performance across shared storage

Storage Foundation for Oracle RAC (SFRAC) is an integrated suite of storage management and high-availability software. The software is engineered to improve performance, availability, and manageability of Real Application Cluster (RAC) environments.

DMP, VxVM, VxFS, VCS, CVM, SFCFSHA, plus support for Oracle RAC

  • All benefits of DMP

  • All benefits of SF

  • All benefits of VCS

  • All benefits of SFCFSHA

  • Support for Oracle RAC that simplifies database management while fully integrating with the Oracle clustering solution

Veritas InfoScale Operations Manager provides a centralized management console for Veritas InfoScale products. You can use Veritas InfoScale Operations Manager to monitor, visualize, and manage storage resources and generate reports.

N/A

  • Centralized, standardized way to manage the various features in the Veritas InfoScale products

  • Visual interface for managing individual hosts and their storage

  • Visibility into all instances of Veritas InfoScale products that are running in the datacenter, across multiple operating systems

Cluster Server (VCS) agents provide high availability for specific resources and applications. Each agent manages resources of a particular type. Typically, agents start, stop, and monitor resources and report state changes.

In addition to the agents that are provided in this release, other agents are available through an independent Veritas InfoScale offering called the High Availability Agent Pack. The agent pack includes the currently shipping agents and is re-released quarterly to add the new agents that are now under development.

You can download the latest agents from the Services Operations Readiness (SORT) website at:

https://sort.veritas.com/agents

VCS

All benefits of VCS