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  • 1.  Support VIOs boot-on-SAN sharing HBA used for NPIV

    Posted Thu June 17, 2021 05:24 AM

    Hello,

    I'm trying to find some information regarding the support of VIOs of SAN boot using the same adapters as the one used

    for NPIV serving VFC clients. I'm unsuccessful so far.

    Does anyone have some link to share ? Thanks !



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    Sylvain Delabarre
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  • 2.  RE: Support VIOs boot-on-SAN sharing HBA used for NPIV

    Posted Fri June 18, 2021 03:01 AM

    Hi, Sylvain

    This is fully supported.

    To the best of my knowledge, it has been supported from the very start.

    I will also mention that it is a typical configuration.

    Unfortunately, I cannot find a link that state this.

     /Lars


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    Lars Johannesson
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    Original Message


  • 3.  RE: Support VIOs boot-on-SAN sharing HBA used for NPIV

    Posted Fri June 18, 2021 03:53 AM
    Hi Sylvain,

    As Lars has mentioned this is perfectly possible.

    I've just recently configured 2 x dual VIOS (3.1.2.21) with boot-from-SAN (these use the WWPNs prefixed "50" in the switch zoning) and then defined multiple LPARs with virtual fibre (these use WWPNs prefixed with "c0" in the zoning).  All's working well for me.

    Regards, Steve

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    Steve Munday
    AIX, IBM i, HMC, PowerVM
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    Original Message


  • 4.  RE: Support VIOs boot-on-SAN sharing HBA used for NPIV

    Posted Fri June 18, 2021 04:14 AM

    Thanks to @Lars Johannesson and @Steve Munday for you answers.

    I know it works fine. I was just looking for something more formal. It seems like in this case, we can consider it is not unsupported.​​



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    Sylvain Delabarre
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    Original Message


  • 5.  RE: Support VIOs boot-on-SAN sharing HBA used for NPIV

    Posted Fri June 18, 2021 04:24 AM
    Hi Sylvain,

    It's fully supported, it's a "normal" configuration if you only use SAN volumes.

    This might be of some help.
    AIX for System Administrators (aix4admins.blogspot.com)

    Regards, Steve

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    Steve Munday
    AIX, IBM i, HMC, PowerVM
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    Original Message


  • 6.  RE: Support VIOs boot-on-SAN sharing HBA used for NPIV

    Posted Fri June 18, 2021 09:36 AM
    Hi Sylvain ,

    This is definitely supported.  I've had the setup that you describe for many years.  I'll see if I can find a doc for you? 

    -Norman

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    Norman Owens
    Open Systems Architect
    Mohawk Industries
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    Original Message


  • 7.  RE: Support VIOs boot-on-SAN sharing HBA used for NPIV

    Posted Mon June 21, 2021 02:18 AM
    It works, it is supported (as, IBM Support will support it) and is the normal way to do it. We have used this setup for 12+ years as we ditched all internal disks and storage options on the POWER servers around that time - and it is a waste of PCI slots or HBA ports to dedicate ports to VIOS disks.

    It can be a consideration for hybrid NPIV/SSP setups where pure bandwidth/IOPS scaling is needed, but that is a normal I/O design consideration.

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    Morten Torstensen
    TietoEVRY
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    Original Message