AIX Sanboot from EMC Symmetrix with NPIV

UNIX AIX
1

Hi All..

On to a new implementation with AIX 7.1 san boot from EMC disks (Using NPIV). Anyone played with this recently?

Wondering if we need PowerPath on the AIX clients or has native MPIO matured to replace it. Thoughts?

Thanks

Mr B

2

currently IBM still recommends to use vscsi SAN for boot disks (with native AIX mpio for root) and EMC SAN with EMC powerpath using NPIV. Works perfectly fine on AIX 5.3, 6.1 + 7.1 and p5/p6/p7 hardware

3

Thanks for the Response Zxmaus.

So a mixture of vscsi and npiv. Does EMC has any recomendations? We had a complete SAN boot environment over NetApp (using NPIV + Dotpaths + MPIO) and it works fine with p6 + aix 6.1. So bad if we can't achieve the same with EMC.

Balaji

4

I have done Power 7 with AIX 6.1 SAN booting using EMC and Powerpath on numerous occasions and works fine. What issue you having?

5

pwright - how are you planning to ever upgrade the powerpath software when you boot from it ?

6

You can call a command 'pprootdev fix' which basically take the root disks out of controll of powerpath and allows you to use bosboot command which is required for the upgrade:

Server name:# lspv
hdisk0 none None
hdisk1 none None
hdisk2 none None
hdisk3 none None
hdisk4 none None
hdiskpower0 00c9899e41bb43a2 pagingvg active
hdisk8 none None
hdiskpower2 00c9899e41bb40f8 appvg active
hdiskpower3 00c9899e41bc1c90 nimvg active
hdisk6 none None
hdisk7 none None
hdiskpower1 00c9899e081b0d91 rootvg active
hdisk9 none None
hdisk10 none None
Server name:# pprootdev fix

bosboot: Boot image is 49340 512 byte blocks.
You may now run bosboot.
PowerPath boot remains enabled for the next system boot.
Server name :# lspv
hdisk0 none None
hdisk1 none None
hdisk2 00c9899e081b0d91 rootvg active
hdisk3 none None
hdisk4 none None
hdiskpower0 00c9899e41bb43a2 pagingvg active
hdisk8 00c9899e081b0d91 rootvg active
hdiskpower2 00c9899e41bb40f8 appvg active
hdiskpower3 00c9899e41bc1c90 nimvg active
hdisk6 none None
hdisk7 none None
hdiskpower1 none None
hdisk9 none None
hdisk10 none None

2 Likes
7

pwright..thanks for the response.

We are about to do a new new project with AIX 7.1 on power7 (SAN boot with NPIV/PowerPath). Was wondering if anyone has already did that already.

Also is it still required just to have single path to LUN when installing AIX?