Subject: Configuring SAN Boot for Virtual AIX Clients Using MPIO

Audience: All

Date: November 9, 2007

The attached PDF, Configuring MPIO for the Virtual Client, describes how to set up Multi-Path I/O boot disks for AIX clients of the virtual I/O server. There some considerations for booting off the SAN.

The "pro's" include:

1. IBM supported configuration
2. Flexibility

The "con's" include:

1. If the SAN fails
   • Can not capture an AIX dump file (Consider putting dump space on an internal disk)
   • Lose the ability to diagnose the failure from the server side.
2. Updating MPIO on the AIX client may be disruptive (depends on MPIO vendor/version)
3. "Momentary SAN stalls" can cause mysterious AIX behavior (especially using HACMP)
4. AIX paging can impact other SAN clients

For a more detailed discussion of the pro/con's, see Steve Pittman's Wiki

http://www-941.ibm.com/collaboration/wiki/display/WikiPtype/AIXV53SANBoot

For more information, see the following IBM Redbooks.

Advanced Power Virtualization http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg247940.html?Open (Chapter 4.4 )
APV Best Practices: http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg247349.html?Open (Chapter 2 )