Veritas InfoScale™ 7.4.1 Virtualization Guide - AIX
- Section I. Overview
- Storage Foundation and High Availability Solutions in AIX PowerVM virtual environments
- Section II. Implementation
- Setting up Storage Foundation and High Availability Solutions in AIX PowerVM virtual environments
- Supported configurations for Virtual I/O servers (VIOS) on AIX
- Installing and configuring Storage Foundation and High Availability (SFHA) Solutions in the logical partition (LPAR)
- Installing and configuring Cluster Server for logical partition and application availability
- Supported configurations for Virtual I/O servers (VIOS) on AIX
- Setting up Storage Foundation and High Availability Solutions in AIX PowerVM virtual environments
- Section III. Use cases for AIX PowerVM virtual environments
- Application to spindle visibility
- Simplified storage management in VIOS
- Configuring Dynamic Multi-Pathing (DMP) on Virtual I/O server
- Configuring Dynamic Multi-Pathing (DMP) pseudo devices as virtual SCSI devices
- Extended attributes in VIO client for a virtual SCSI disk
- Virtual machine (logical partition) availability
- Simplified management and high availability for IBM Workload Partitions
- Implementing Storage Foundation support for WPARs
- How Cluster Server (VCS) works with Workload Patitions (WPARs)
- Configuring VCS in WPARs
- High availability and live migration
- Limitations and unsupported LPAR features
- Multi-tier business service support
- Server consolidation
- About IBM Virtual Ethernet
- Using Storage Foundation in the logical partition (LPAR) with virtual SCSI devices
- How DMP handles I/O for vSCSI devices
- Physical to virtual migration (P2V)
- Section IV. Reference
Boot device management on NPIV presented devices
N_Port ID Virtualization(NPIV) is a Fibre Channel industry standard technology that provides the capability to assign a physical Fibre Channel adapter multiple unique world wide port names (WWPNs). NPIV enables the Virtual I/O Server (VIOS) to provision entire dedicated logical ports to client LPAR's rather than individual LUNs. A physical Fibre Channel HBA in VIOS can be shared across multiple guest operating systems in a virtual environment.
Dynamic Multi-Pathing (DMP) supports the NPIV presented devices for the rootvg, within the requirements outlined in the vendor support matrix.
Requirements for boot device management on NPIV-presented devices:
Any Power 6, Power 7, or Power 8 based computer
SAN Switch & FC Adapters should be NPIV capable.
At least one 8 GB PCI Express Dual Port FC Adapter in VIOS.
VIOC Minimum OS-level:
AIX 7.2 TL2
VIO Server Version 2.1 with Fix Pack 20.1 or later
HMC 7.3.4
All the LUNs presented through NPIV for a client LPAR have the characteristics of a dedicated HBA. Therefore the procedure for using DMP on rootvg devices from NPIV presented devices is similar to using DMP on rootvg devices from physical HBA. Use of DMP on rootvg is supported through vxdmproot native command.
To use DMP on rootvg for boot device management
- For using DMP on rootvg:
See Using DMP to provide multi-pathing for the root volume group (rootvg).
The behavior of data volumes presented through NPIV devices is similar to those presented through physical HBA. All SCSI device inquiry operations work and SCSI-3 persistent reservation functionality is also supported, enabling the use of SCSI-3 I/O Fencing if the underlying storage supports.
To use NPIV for data volumes
- No special handling is required for data volumes.
A hybrid solution is supported where the AIX rootvg is placed on vSCSI devices presented through a VIO pair with application data volumes presented through NPIV. This solution is often chosen to facilitate NPIV troubleshooting as well as presenting a consistent NIM installation profile.