This document describes the standards for configuring MPIO disks on a VIO Server to be shared out to client LPAR's. A single standard has been developed for use in standalone, High Availability, and Disaster Recovery environments. This MPIO naming standard provides the mechanism to assign enterprise wide unique names to all MPIO virtual disks and will eliminate naming conflicts in the event of a manual or automated failover.
Two distinct mechanisms are used for configuring the MPIO disks on the VIO server. This is because in addition to data storage, the client LPARS are booting from disks being shared by the VIO server. The disks being used for data storage will follow a configuration standard based on the "Resource Group" concept being used to define all other aspects of the client LPAR. However the boot disk configuration requires a different mechanism.
The remainder of this configuration standard discusses the mechanism for naming virtual disks on the VIO server using the "mkvdev" command. A representation of the "mkvdev" command may appear as follows:
mkvdev -dev HDISK -vadapter VHOST -vdev VIRTUALNAME
The purpose of this document is to provide a standard for defining the VIRTUALNAME as shown in the above representation.
The VIRTUALNAME for system boot disks shall include the following information:
The VIRTUALNAME for all other disks shall include the following information:
The "Disk Usage Identifier" is a single capital letter that shows how the disk will be used by the client LPAR such as for storage of the AIX operating system, paging, data storage volume group, etc.
Disk Usage Identifier
The "Resource Group Name" can be determined using the following defined standards document:
rgstand.shtml
The "Volume Group ID" can be determined using the following defined standards document:
vgstand.shtml
The MPIO disk number shall be a 3 digit number take from the hdisk as it appears on the VIO server. For example, the 3 digit disk number for "hdisk1" will be "001", for "hdisk11" the 3 digit disk number is "011", etc.
The MPIO virtual disk name for system boot disks shall consist of exactly 14 characters with the following structure:
Disk Usage + SystemName + hdisk number
1 char + 3 char + 3 char
|
Disk Usage Identifier |
System Name |
hdisk Name |
Virtual Disk Name |
|---|---|---|---|
| A (aix) | mdcapora01 | hdisk33 | Amdcapora01033 |
| A (aix) | ddcaaora03 | hdisk245 | Addcapora03245 |
| L (linux) | mdclpadm01 | hdisk175 | Lmdclpadm01175 |
The MPIO virtual disk name for all other disks shall also consist of exactly 14 characters with the following structure:
Disk Usage + ApplicationCode + Environment + Function + Company + Sequence ID + VG Sequence ID + hdisk number
1 char + 3 char + 1 char + 1 char + 2 char + 1 char + 2 char + 3 char
As an example, a resource group named "egaaptu0", may have multiple associated hdisks being provided from the VIO Server:
|
Disk Usage Identifier |
RG Name Component |
VG Sequence Identifier |
hdisk Number |
Virtual Disk Name |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| P | pagaptu1 | 21 | hdisk334 | Ppagaptu121334 |
| V | egaaptu1 | 22 | hdisk335 | Vegaaptu122335 |
| V | egaaptu1 | 22 | hdisk336 | Vegaaptu122336 |
| V | egaaptu1 | 22 | hdisk337 | Vegaaptu122337 |
| V | egaaptu1 | 22 | hdisk338 | Vegaaptu122338 |