Recently, I had to do a “Host-based” storage migration from old IBM storage to a new different-brand flash storage on AIX 7.2 server resides on Power 9 and Power 10 respectively.

As y’all know , it’s risky when you migrate disks between different-brand storages as you need a related-storage driver “ non-native” or third party tools to make it happen.

There are several ways to do that and it depends on how you mapped your disks from storage to servers ( vscsi or NPIV ).

From my last experience , here is some tips for host-based storage migration for “NPIV” mapped disks:

1- From SAN switch,
create a zone containing the server WWPN and new storage WWPN.

2- From new SAN storage,
add and define the host WWPN to the new storage.

3- Check your current system disks and VG’s.

4- Make sure to take a fresh system clone before proceed 😁.

5- Install the new storage driver to avoid seeing the disks multiple times. *some drivers needs a system reboot*

6- From new SAN storage ,
create new disks same as old disks and mapped it to the host . “ it’s perferred to create one-by-one VG disks “ .
🌟I like to start migration with data VG’s and then rootvg🌟

7- Discover the new disks :
# Cfgmgr
# Lspv or lsmpio -qa
* some storages have their own driver commands*

8- Migrate the current data VG’s from old storage disks to new storage disks by using LVM as shown on the following commands:
# Extendvg <vg_name> <hdisk_new>
# mirrorvg -S <vg_name> <hdisk_new>
# syncvg <vg_name>
# lsvg -l <vg_name> ; to make sure all LV’s are synced
# unmirrorvg <vg_name> <hdisk_old>
# reducevg <vg_name> <hdisk_old>
# rmdev -Rdl <hdisk_old>

From old storage side , Unmap old disks.

9- migrate rootvg from old storage disk to new storage by using LVM as shown on the following commands:
# Extendvg rootvg <hdisk_new>
# mirrorvg -S rootvg <hdisk_new>
# syncvg <vg_name>
# lsvg -l rootvg
# unmirrorvg rootvg <hdisk_old>
# migratepv <hdisk_old> <hdisk_new>
# bosboot -ad <hdisk_old>; to create boot image for new disk
# bootlist -m normal <hdisk_new>
# bootlist -m normal -o ; to see your booting order
# savebase
# reducevg rootvg <hdisk_old>
# rmdev -Rdl <hdisk_old>

From old storage side , Unmap old disks.

*reboot your system and make sure all filesystems are up and mounted*

10- Finally, make sure to take a new clone on new storage disk and delete the old one. 😁

Hopefully this article helps you to migrate your storages faster .