Veritas InfoScale™ 7.4.1 Virtualization Guide - AIX

Last Published:
Product(s): InfoScale & Storage Foundation (7.4.1)
Platform: AIX
  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 Veritas InfoScale products support for the AIX PowerVM environment
        1.  
          About IBM LPARs with N_Port ID Virtualization (NPIV)
      4.  
        About Veritas Extension for Oracle Disk Manager
      5.  
        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)
      3.  
        About IBM LPARs with virtual SCSI devices
      4. Using Storage Foundation in the logical partition (LPAR) with virtual SCSI devices
        1.  
          Using Storage Foundation with virtual SCSI devices
        2.  
          Setting up DMP for vSCSI devices in the logical partition (LPAR)
        3.  
          About disabling DMP for vSCSI devices in the logical partition (LPAR)
        4.  
          Preparing to install or upgrade Storage Foundation with DMP disabled for vSCSI devices in the logical partition (LPAR)
        5.  
          Disabling DMP multi-pathing for vSCSI devices in the logical partition (LPAR) after installation or upgrade
        6.  
          Adding and removing DMP support for vSCSI devices for an array
        7. How DMP handles I/O for vSCSI devices
          1.  
            Setting the vSCSI I/O policy
      5.  
        Using VCS with virtual SCSI devices
    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 IBM Workload Partitions

IBM Workload Partitions (WPARs) are implemented starting with AIX 6.1. Workload Partitions allow administrators to virtualize the AIX operating system, by partitioning an AIX operating system instance into multiple environments. Each environment within the AIX operating system instance is called a workload partition (WPAR). One WPAR can host applications and isolate the applications from applications executing in other WPARs. WPAR is a pure software solution and has no dependencies on hardware features.

The WPAR solution allows for fewer operating system images on your IBM System p partitioned server. Prior to WPARs, you had to create a new Logical Partition (LPAR) for each new "isolated" environment. Starting with AIX 6.1, you can instead use multiple WPARs within one LPAR, in many circumstances.

In an LPAR environment, each LPAR requires its own operating system image and a certain number of physical resources. While you can virtualize many of these resources, some physical resources must be allocated to the system for each LPAR. Furthermore, you need to install patches and technology upgrades to each LPAR. Each LPAR requires its own archiving strategy and DR strategy. It also takes some time to create an LPAR; you also need to do this outside of AIX, through a Hardware Management Console (HMC) or the Integrated Virtualization Manager (IVM).

In contrast, WPARs are much simpler to manage and can be created from the AIX command line or through SMIT. WPARs allow you to avoid the biggest disadvantage of LPARs: maintaining multiple images, and therefore possibly over-committing expensive hardware resources, such as CPU and RAM. While logical partitioning helps you consolidate and virtualize hardware within a single box, operating system virtualization through WPAR technology goes one step further and allows for an even more granular approach of resource management.

The WPAR solution shares operating system images and is clearly the most efficient use of CPU, RAM, and I/O resources. Rather than a replacement for LPARs, WPARs are a complement to them and allow one to further virtualize application workloads through operating system virtualization. WPARs allow for new applications to be deployed much more quickly.

WPARs have no real dependency on hardware and can even be used on POWER4 systems that do not support IBM's PowerVM (formerly known as APV). For AIX administrators, the huge advantage of WPARs is the flexibility of creating new environments without having to create and manage new AIX partitions.

On the other hand, it's important to understand the limitations of WPARs. For example, each LPAR is a single point of failure for all WPARs that are created within the LPAR. In the event of an LPAR problem (or a scheduled system outage), all underlying WPARs are also affected.

The following sections describe the types of WPARs:

  • System workload partition: the system WPAR is much closer to a complete version of AIX. The system WPAR has its own dedicated, completely writable file-systems along with its own inetd and cron. You can define remote access to the System workload partition.

  • Application workload partition: application WPARs are lightweight versions of virtualized OS environments. They are extremely limited and can only run application processes, not system daemons such as inetd or cron. You cannot even define remote access to this environment. These are only temporarily objects; they actually disintegrate when the final process of the application partition ends, and as such, are more geared to execute processes than entire applications.