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  • 1.  My BP and I need some clarification re IBM i Systems attached to FlashSystem or SVC must be converted to use FlashSystem NPIV before upgrading to 8.7 or higher

    Posted 02/17/25 09:14 AM

    My BP and I need some clarification regarding "IBM i Systems attached to FlashSystem or SVC must be converted to use FlashSystem NPIV before upgrading to 8.7 or higher" at https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/7159521

    Current our FS7300 is at 8.6.0.5.  We're thinking about going to 8.7.  But the link above has us confused as to what is to be done.

    Our FS7300 supports two P10's.  The P10's are hosting that SAN disk via VIOS 7200-05-07-2346 to lpars of IBM i 7.5 TR5 and AIX 7.3 7300-02-01-2346



    ------------------------------
    Robert Berendt IBMChampion
    Business Systems Analyst, Lead
    Dekko
    Fort Wayne
    ------------------------------


  • 2.  RE: My BP and I need some clarification re IBM i Systems attached to FlashSystem or SVC must be converted to use FlashSystem NPIV before upgrading to 8.7 or higher

    Posted 02/17/25 09:30 AM

    Hi Robert,

    the usage of NPIV became mandatory starting with code version 8.6.1 and newer.

    Before upgrading to version 8.7.x you have to to a migration of your current attachment / SAN zoning to the NPIV WWPNs of your FlashSystem 7300.

    Therefor you have to enable the "transition" mode which allows the Host-IO either to the physical port WWPN as well as the NPIV WWPNs (one for SCSI one for NVMe).

    Depending on how you provide the disk space to the configured LPARs (vSCSI and/or NPIV) you have to adapt the configured zoning for the VIOS and/or the LPARs, to allow the FC initiator ports to communicate with the FlashSystem NPIV WWPNs.

    After the modification is done for all attached hosts, you can switch the NPIV mode to "enabled".

    Now you are safe to proceed with the update to 8.7.x

    Regards, Uwe



    ------------------------------
    Uwe Schreiber
    System Engineer / Solution Architect
    SVA System Vertrieb Alexander
    Wiesbaden
    ------------------------------



  • 3.  RE: My BP and I need some clarification re IBM i Systems attached to FlashSystem or SVC must be converted to use FlashSystem NPIV before upgrading to 8.7 or higher

    Posted 02/18/25 05:48 AM
    Edited by Evelyn Perez 02/18/25 05:48 AM

    Hello!

    Can you specify what is confusing from the support page linked?

    There are 2 paths that are described - 

    Path 1 - if you use switches you follow the instructions under For IBM i systems that are attached using a Fibre Channel SAN
    Path 2 -  if you are direct attaching the host to your storage, you follow the instructions under For IBM i systems that are Directly Attached using a Fibre Channel cable without any switches.

    Can you please clarify what is unclear as these seem a logical ordering of steps.



    ------------------------------
    Evelyn Perez
    IBM Senior Technical Staff Member
    IBM Storage Virtualize Software Architect for SVC and FlashSystem
    ------------------------------



  • 4.  RE: My BP and I need some clarification re IBM i Systems attached to FlashSystem or SVC must be converted to use FlashSystem NPIV before upgrading to 8.7 or higher

    Posted 02/18/25 09:51 AM

    Parts of this are outside of my comfort zone.  So I thought I'd pull in the BP.

    The asset from the BP realized this is outside of his comfort zone so he finally pulled in a storage engineer to assist.

    I'm giving that tea some time to brew.



    ------------------------------
    Robert Berendt IBMChampion
    Business Systems Analyst, Lead
    Dekko
    Fort Wayne
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 5.  RE: My BP and I need some clarification re IBM i Systems attached to FlashSystem or SVC must be converted to use FlashSystem NPIV before upgrading to 8.7 or higher

    Posted 02/18/25 10:09 AM

    Hi Robert,

    The instructions here are meant to provide clear guidance, so if there's something specific that is unclear my team and I are happy to help with it.

    Here are some surrounding reference documentation you/your BP may find helpful:
    https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/flashsystem-7x00/8.6.0?topic=c-configuring-n-port-id-virtualization

    https://barrywhytestorage.blog/2020/02/25/introducing-spectrum-virtualize-7-7-0-part1/

    https://www.insidestoragenetworking.com/2022/07/spectrum-virtualize-npiv-and-host.html


    additionally there is a dedicated Chapter in the Best Practices Redbook for NPIV with VIOS and for IBMi generally.  It is more complex for Direct attach due to the behaviour of the device drivers, but for Switch attach, we've been doing this since 2017/2018 in anger.

    I hope this helps!



    ------------------------------
    Evelyn Perez
    IBM Senior Technical Staff Member
    IBM Storage Virtualize Software Architect for SVC and FlashSystem
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 6.  RE: My BP and I need some clarification re IBM i Systems attached to FlashSystem or SVC must be converted to use FlashSystem NPIV before upgrading to 8.7 or higher

    Posted 02/18/25 10:44 AM

    Thank you.



    ------------------------------
    Robert Berendt IBMChampion
    Business Systems Analyst, Lead
    Dekko
    Fort Wayne
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 7.  RE: My BP and I need some clarification re IBM i Systems attached to FlashSystem or SVC must be converted to use FlashSystem NPIV before upgrading to 8.7 or higher

    Posted 02/19/25 06:28 AM

    Just for info , we have just enabled npiv on a system directly attached to a couple of Vmware hosts. We went from npiv disabled to transitional and saw

    that the wwpns of the hosts got automatically connected to the virtual wwpns of the storage ( the old connection to the phisycal wwpn still persists ).

    After that we went from transitional to enabled and everithing worked with no interruptions. The old connection to the phisycal wwpn now apeears as "bloked"



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    Pino Mariotto
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 8.  RE: My BP and I need some clarification re IBM i Systems attached to FlashSystem or SVC must be converted to use FlashSystem NPIV before upgrading to 8.7 or higher

    Posted 02/18/25 10:15 AM

    Robert,

    If you are using VIOS and SAN switch to share the storage, it is highly unlikely you would be using the PHY WWPNs. 
    Here is how you can check:
    On the FS7300 go to "Settings", "Fibre Channel Ports"
    Display the details of one of the ports
    "Host Count" column indicated something is connected to that WWPN
    If the "Virtualized" column indicated is YES, then it is using NPIV. If NO, then it is using PHY WWPN 




    ------------------------------
    Steve Pavlichek
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 9.  RE: My BP and I need some clarification re IBM i Systems attached to FlashSystem or SVC must be converted to use FlashSystem NPIV before upgrading to 8.7 or higher

    Posted 02/18/25 10:43 AM

    We are definitely using a SAN switch



    ------------------------------
    Robert Berendt IBMChampion
    Business Systems Analyst, Lead
    Dekko
    Fort Wayne
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


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