Mounting a FC LUN on the AIX platform

[steven_jenner]

Hi,

I have a server running AIX 6.1 which already has a number of FC LUNs attached that are presented via an IBM DS5100 SAN. The IBM SAN is at capacity so the plan is to present a new LUN via our NetApp FAS3270 (running DOT 8.1.4) to provide an additional 300 GB to the database partition (all other partitions would stay on the IBM SAN), copying the data from the original IBM partition to the new NetApp one.

The AIX server has the following IBM specific multipathing driver on the server:

# lslpp -l|grep sddpcm

devices.sddpcm.61.rte      2.6.3.1  COMMITTED  IBM SDD PCM for AIX V61

devices.sddpcm.61.rte      2.6.3.1  COMMITTED  IBM SDD PCM for AIX V61

I have also had confirmation from my AIX support team who confirm that native multipathing is not working for Netapps LUNs (see below)

# lslpp -l|grep mpio

devices.common.IBM.mpio.rte

devices.fcp.disk.ibm.mpio.rte

devices.common.IBM.mpio.rte

This raises for me three questions:

1. Are there any issues with attaching both the IBM and NetApp FC LUNs in the above way?
2. Would installing the NetApp AIX host utilities onto the server provide the multipathing required to mount the NetApp LUN successfully?
3. Are the AIX host utilities compatible with the existing IBM MPIO software?

Thanks in advance,

Steve.

[steven_jenner]

Afternoon,

No response to the above but I have received a response from IBM regarding attaching the NetApp LUN (after installing AIX host utilities) confirming it is supported but they also made the following comment:

The rules are that you are allowed MPIO and one other path control module (in this case SDDPCM) via a pair of FC channel adapters.

I am not aware of why the above would cause any issues but would appreciate any comments that either confirm or refute the statement. Does anyone out there have both IBM and NetApp LUNs attached to the same AIX host?

Regards,

Steve.