Inherited VIO server an LPARs Post: 302498186

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Operating Systems AIX Inherited VIO server an LPARs Post 302498186 by ross.mather on Sunday 20th of February 2011 07:39:09 AM

02-20-2011

Registered User

One or two VIO is largely a matter of what the Availability requirements of the server are. In general a Production environment should have dual VIO servers. In this config howeer I expect that the issue will be around the use of the Disk Adapters.

Each disk adapter can belong to exactly one LPAR (incl a VIO), so the existing arrangement probably only has one disk adapter - hence one VIO.

If you are buying a new CEC (or is it an I/O drawer? ) you will add at least one more Disk Adapter so you could go to twin VIO. That said its still recommended to mirror the rootvg even in that environment so now 4 disks would be taken up with VIO operating systems.

Even so you'd still be left with the headache of multiple LVs being allocated to each LPAR from each VIO server and the inevitable number of resyncs you'd need after a failure or reboot of a VIO.

The best solution in these kind of environments is to use a Fibre Channel SAN storage array that can then have LUNs connected to each LPAR via one or both VIO servers (depending how you implement it). In that way its the additional pathing that is redundant not the additional disk copy.

If you are going to stick with one VIO and all those new disks - try and get a RAID card so you can create a single RAID array with all the disks, that at least would ease the management of it as the RAID array will take care of keeping the 2 copies of data on separate disks. That said - the I/O performance of this environment will be very poor.

Quote:

I'm afraid there has been no training

This is criminal, drop me a PM and I may be able to point you in the right direction in the UK to close that skills gap.

cheers
Ross

ross.mather

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LEARN ABOUT SUNOS

raidctl

raidctl(1M)						  System Administration Commands					       raidctl(1M)

NAME

       raidctl - RAID hardware utility

SYNOPSIS

       raidctl -c disk1 disk2

       raidctl -d disk1

       raidctl [-f] -F filename controller...

       raidctl -l [controller...]

DESCRIPTION

       The  raidctl  utility  creates, deletes, or displays RAID volumes of the LSI1030 HW Raid controllers that include RAID support. The utility
       also updates firmware/fcode/BIOS for both RAID and non-RAID controllers.

       The raidctl utility requires privileges that are controlled by the underlying file-system permissions. Only privileged users can manipulate
       the RAID system configuration. If a non-privileged user attempts to create or delete a RAID volume, the command fails with EPERM.

       Without options, raidctl displays the current RAID configuration on all exisiting controllers.

OPTIONS

       The following options are supported:

       -c disk1 disk2 (for on board)

	   Create  a  mirror using disk1 and disk2. Replace the contents of disk2 with the contents of disk1. Specify disk1 and disk2 in canonical
	   form, for example, c0t0d0.

	   When you create a a RAID volume, the RAID volume assumes the identity of the first target in the disk pair (disk1). The  second  target
	   (disk2) disappears from the system. Therefore, the RAID volume appears as one disk.

	   To  have  a successful RAID creation, there must not already be a RAID configuration present on the specified controller. Additionally,
	   the secondary disk must not be mounted, as it has all its data erased and replaced with the primary disk's data.

       -d disk1 (for on board)

	   Delete the RAID volume specified as disk1.

	   Specify disk1 in canonical form, for example, c0t0d0.

       -f (for HBA)

	   Force an update. Do not prompt.

       -F filename controller (for HBA)

	   Update the firmware running on the specified controller (controller).

       -l [controller ...] (for on board)

	   List the system's RAID configuration. If controller is specified, list RAID configurations for controller.

	   Output from the -l lists the following information:

	   RAID Volume	   Displays logical RAID volume name.

	   RAID Status	   Displays RAID status as either RESYNCING (disks are syncing), DEGRADED RAID is operating with  reduced  functionality),
			   OK (operating optimally), or FAILED (non-functional).

	   RAID Disk	   Displays RAID disk name.

	   Disk Status	   Displays disk status as either OK or FAILED.

EXAMPLES

       Example 1: Creating the RAID Configuration

       The following command creates the RAID configuration:

       # raidctl -c c0t0d0 c0t1d0
       RAID Volume 'c0t0d0' created

       Example 2: Displaying the RAID Configuration

       The following command displays the RAID configuration:

       # raidctl
       RAID	 RAID	   RAID      Disk
       Volume	 Status    Disk      Status
       ----------------------------------------
       c0t0d0	 RESYNCING c0t0d0    OK
			   c0t1d0    OK

       Example 3: Deleting the RAID Configuration

       The following command deletes the RAID configuration:

       # raidctl -d c0t0d0
       RAID Volume 'c0t0d0' deleted

       Example 4: Updating Flash Images on the Controller

       The following command updates flash images on the controller:

       # raidctl -F lsi1030.fw 0
       Update flash image on controller 0? (y/N): y
       Flash updated successfully

EXIT STATUS

       The following exit values are returned:

       0	Successful completion.

       1	Invalid command line input.

       2	Request operation failed.

ATTRIBUTES

       See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:

       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |      ATTRIBUTE TYPE	     |	    ATTRIBUTE VALUE	   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |Availability		     |SUNWcsu			   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+

SEE ALSO

       attributes(5)

       System Administration Guide: Basic Administration

SunOS 5.10							    17 Aug 2004 						       raidctl(1M)