PowerVM

We got a local customer, and we are migrating their systems from a POWER7 to a POWER9 system via LPM.
The first one went well, but we had to remove the vSCSI and tape HBA to complete the migration. We don't have the exact message because the person running the LPM process is from another team, but we suppose it was because of this?
"The logical partition must not be assigned a virtual SCSI optical or tape device"... from https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/live-partition-mobility
If that is the case... we were wondering... so, every system (and I suppose 99% of the IBM i systems out there are in this situation) with a tape resource attached to it has to be modified, from the profile and properties, by having that resource removed, and then readded once migrated?
We had read the article before the migration, but we thought we would fall under the other point:
"An IBM i logical partition cannot be moved if it has a varied on NPIV attached tape device"
Which would have covered us in that case because there is an exception as it says there... unless the secondary WWPN was not zoned and that is why it wouldn't let us migrate with the tape resource attached to the system? We do not know.
Anyone who could help us clarifying this? Thanks in advance

------------------------------
Gustavo Orlando de Santis
------------------------------

On Thu, Mar 31, 2022 at 08:55:24PM +0000, Gustavo Orlando de Santis via IBM Community wrote:
> We got a local customer, and we are migrating their systems from a POWER7 to a POWER9 system via LPM.
> The first one went well, but we had to remove the vSCSI and tape HBA to complete the migration. We don't have the exact message because the person running the LPM process is from another team, but we suppose it was because of this?
> "The logical partition must not be assigned a virtual SCSI optical or tape device"... from Live Partition Mobility <https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/live-partition-mobility>
> If that is the case... we were wondering... so, every system (and I suppose 99% of the IBM i systems out there are in this situation) with a tape resource attached to it has to be modified, from the profile and properties, by having that resource removed, and then readded once migrated?
> We had read the article before the migration, but we thought we would fall under the other point:
> "An IBM i logical partition cannot be moved if it has a varied on NPIV attached tape device"
> Which would have covered us in that case because there is an exception as it says there... unless the secondary WWPN was not zoned and that is why it wouldn't let us migrate with the tape resource attached to the system? We do not know.
> Anyone who could help us clarifying this? Thanks in advance

The specific rule you mentioned: "The logical partition must not be
assigned a virtual SCSI optical or tape device"

That means the LPAR cannot have a VSCSI optical OR a VSCSI tape. Yes
there was a local internal tape drive with limited VSCSI support in
prior models. Only that internal tape was supported for virtualization
via VSCSI.

If your tape is accessed purely through NPIV via virtual fiber channel
I'd expect it to work. VIO only has to move the NPIV adapter, it has
no idea what devices you use on the SAN.

You cannot LPM with local resources tied exclusively to any local PCI
card or physical hardware. You can generally LPM with virtual devices
you receive like virtual ethernet (by VLAN), NPIV (by SAN zoning and
switch support), and even VSCSI using raw SAN LUNs/hdisks as long as
those same LUNs are present on the destination system.

Don't forget that if you LPM to a newer processor model, the LPAR will
be running in compatibility mode for the old processor. You'd have to
update the profile and reboot with a supported software level to get
native speed for the new CPU.

Edited because the email importer completely cropped out my response.

Hello Gustavo and Russel,

You may want to take a look to this

Ensure both, the active and inactive WWPNs for each virtual Fibre Channel adapter configured on the mobile partition

There is some checking of the target ports with the inactive WWPN of the partition on the remote system.
​

Hope this helps, Sylvain.

------------------------------
Sylvain Delabarre
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: Thu March 31, 2022 05:10 PM
From: Russell Adams
Subject: LPM Question

On Thu, Mar 31, 2022 at 08:55:24PM +0000, Gustavo Orlando de Santis via IBM Community wrote:
> We got a local customer, and we are migrating their systems from a POWER7 to a POWER9 system via LPM.
> The first one went well, but we had to remove the vSCSI and tape HBA to complete the migration. We don't have the exact message because the person running the LPM process is from another team, but we suppose it was because of this?
> "The logical partition must not be assigned a virtual SCSI optical or tape device"... from Live Partition Mobility <https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/live-partition-mobility>
> If that is the case... we were wondering... so, every system (and I suppose 99% of the IBM i systems out there are in this situation) with a tape resource attached to it has to be modified, from the profile and properties, by having that resource removed, and then readded once migrated?
> We had read the article before the migration, but we thought we would fall under the other point:
> "An IBM i logical partition cannot be moved if it has a varied on NPIV attached tape device"
> Which would have covered us in that case because there is an exception as it says there... unless the secondary WWPN was not zoned and that is why it wouldn't let us migrate with the tape resource attached to the system? We do not know.
> Anyone who could help us clarifying this? Thanks in advance

The specific rule you mentioned: "The logical partition must not be
assigned a virtual SCSI optical or tape device"

That means the LPAR cannot have a VSCSI optical OR a VSCSI tape. Yes
there was a local internal tape drive with limited VSCSI support in
prior models. Only that internal tape was supported for virtualization
via VSCSI.

If your tape is accessed purely through NPIV via virtual fiber channel
I'd expect it to work. VIO only has to move the NPIV adapter, it has
no idea what devices you use on the SAN.

You cannot LPM with local resources tied exclusively to any local PCI
card or physical hardware. You can generally LPM with virtual devices
you receive like virtual ethernet (by VLAN), NPIV (by SAN zoning and
switch support), and even VSCSI using raw SAN LUNs/hdisks as long as
those same LUNs are present on the destination system.

Don't forget that if you LPM to a newer processor model, the LPAR will
be running in compatibility mode for the old processor. You'd have to
update the profile and reboot with a supported software level to get
native speed for the new CPU.

Edited because the email importer completely cropped out my response.

If you're moving an inactive partition, the VIOS may ignore the target devices,  but if it's an active partition, it will verify that the alternate WWNs can reach the same LUNs.

------------------------------
José Pina Coelho
IT Specialist at Kyndryl
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: Thu March 31, 2022 05:10 PM
From: Russell Adams
Subject: LPM Question

On Thu, Mar 31, 2022 at 08:55:24PM +0000, Gustavo Orlando de Santis via IBM Community wrote:
> We got a local customer, and we are migrating their systems from a POWER7 to a POWER9 system via LPM.
> The first one went well, but we had to remove the vSCSI and tape HBA to complete the migration. We don't have the exact message because the person running the LPM process is from another team, but we suppose it was because of this?
> "The logical partition must not be assigned a virtual SCSI optical or tape device"... from Live Partition Mobility <https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/live-partition-mobility>
> If that is the case... we were wondering... so, every system (and I suppose 99% of the IBM i systems out there are in this situation) with a tape resource attached to it has to be modified, from the profile and properties, by having that resource removed, and then readded once migrated?
> We had read the article before the migration, but we thought we would fall under the other point:
> "An IBM i logical partition cannot be moved if it has a varied on NPIV attached tape device"
> Which would have covered us in that case because there is an exception as it says there... unless the secondary WWPN was not zoned and that is why it wouldn't let us migrate with the tape resource attached to the system? We do not know.
> Anyone who could help us clarifying this? Thanks in advance

The specific rule you mentioned: "The logical partition must not be
assigned a virtual SCSI optical or tape device"

That means the LPAR cannot have a VSCSI optical OR a VSCSI tape. Yes
there was a local internal tape drive with limited VSCSI support in
prior models. Only that internal tape was supported for virtualization
via VSCSI.

If your tape is accessed purely through NPIV via virtual fiber channel
I'd expect it to work. VIO only has to move the NPIV adapter, it has
no idea what devices you use on the SAN.

You cannot LPM with local resources tied exclusively to any local PCI
card or physical hardware. You can generally LPM with virtual devices
you receive like virtual ethernet (by VLAN), NPIV (by SAN zoning and
switch support), and even VSCSI using raw SAN LUNs/hdisks as long as
those same LUNs are present on the destination system.

Don't forget that if you LPM to a newer processor model, the LPAR will
be running in compatibility mode for the old processor. You'd have to
update the profile and reboot with a supported software level to get
native speed for the new CPU.

Edited because the email importer completely cropped out my response.

Thank you very much @Russell Adams @Sylvain Delabarre and @José Pina Coelho for all your inputs.
​​​​​​​​​​​

------------------------------
Gustavo Orlando de Santis
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: Fri April 01, 2022 04:34 AM
From: José Pina Coelho
Subject: LPM Question

If you're moving an inactive partition, the VIOS may ignore the target devices,  but if it's an active partition, it will verify that the alternate WWNs can reach the same LUNs.

------------------------------
José Pina Coelho
IT Specialist at Kyndryl

Original Message:
Sent: Thu March 31, 2022 05:10 PM
From: Russell Adams
Subject: LPM Question

On Thu, Mar 31, 2022 at 08:55:24PM +0000, Gustavo Orlando de Santis via IBM Community wrote:
> We got a local customer, and we are migrating their systems from a POWER7 to a POWER9 system via LPM.
> The first one went well, but we had to remove the vSCSI and tape HBA to complete the migration. We don't have the exact message because the person running the LPM process is from another team, but we suppose it was because of this?
> "The logical partition must not be assigned a virtual SCSI optical or tape device"... from Live Partition Mobility <https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/live-partition-mobility>
> If that is the case... we were wondering... so, every system (and I suppose 99% of the IBM i systems out there are in this situation) with a tape resource attached to it has to be modified, from the profile and properties, by having that resource removed, and then readded once migrated?
> We had read the article before the migration, but we thought we would fall under the other point:
> "An IBM i logical partition cannot be moved if it has a varied on NPIV attached tape device"
> Which would have covered us in that case because there is an exception as it says there... unless the secondary WWPN was not zoned and that is why it wouldn't let us migrate with the tape resource attached to the system? We do not know.
> Anyone who could help us clarifying this? Thanks in advance

The specific rule you mentioned: "The logical partition must not be
assigned a virtual SCSI optical or tape device"

That means the LPAR cannot have a VSCSI optical OR a VSCSI tape. Yes
there was a local internal tape drive with limited VSCSI support in
prior models. Only that internal tape was supported for virtualization
via VSCSI.

If your tape is accessed purely through NPIV via virtual fiber channel
I'd expect it to work. VIO only has to move the NPIV adapter, it has
no idea what devices you use on the SAN.

You cannot LPM with local resources tied exclusively to any local PCI
card or physical hardware. You can generally LPM with virtual devices
you receive like virtual ethernet (by VLAN), NPIV (by SAN zoning and
switch support), and even VSCSI using raw SAN LUNs/hdisks as long as
those same LUNs are present on the destination system.

Don't forget that if you LPM to a newer processor model, the LPAR will
be running in compatibility mode for the old processor. You'd have to
update the profile and reboot with a supported software level to get
native speed for the new CPU.

Edited because the email importer completely cropped out my response.