Previous Changes

Updated the content.

Removed the following:

All information regarding SANsymphony-V 9.x as this version is end of life (EOL). See: End of life notifications for DataCore Software products for more information.

Updated the following:

The minimum requirements have been amended (with footnotes) to allow for certain combinations of Service Pack + Technology Level that IBM now consider End of Service Pack Support.

Updated the following:

This document has been reviewed for SANsymphony 10.0 PSP8. No additional settings or configurations are required

Added the following:

Operating System Settings

Set the path health check interval (hcheck_interval). IBM’s own recommendation is that this should always be equal to or higher than the rw_timeout setting. See the Path Health Check Settings section from https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/aix/library/au-aix-mpio/index.html for more information.

Use the following chdev command to change both the hcheck_interval and rw_timeout value to appropriate values:

Where ‘hdiskX’ is the number of the DataCore virtual disk device as discovered on the AIX Host. A reboot will be required to make the settings permanent over any future reboots of the AIX Host.

Enable Fast I/O Failure for Fibre Channel (FC) devices

Use the following chdev command to enable Fast I/O Failure for Fibre Channel (FC) devices:

Where ‘fscsiX’ is the number of the AIX Host’s FC device.

Also see:

https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/en/ssw_aix_71/com.ibm.aix.performance/fast_io_failure.htm

Updated the following:

This document has been reviewed for SANsymphony 10.0 PSP7. No additional settings or configurations are required.

Removed the following:

Appendix B – Configuring Disk Pools

The information here has been removed as it is now superseded by the information in:

DataCore Server- Best Practice Guidelines. What was previously 'Appendix C' has now been moved to 'Appendix B'.

Added the following:

A note has been added regarding the qualification status of IBM PowerHA SystemMirror (formerly known as IBM PowerHA and HACMP).

Updated the following:

This document has been reviewed for SANsymphony 10.0 PSP 6 update 4. No additional settings or configurations are required.

Updated the following:

Automatic and Manual reclamation

These two sections have been re-written with more detailed explanations and technical notes.

AIX can set the Device Queue Depth to 1 for DataCorevDisks

The example showed how to set, using the chdev command, the queue_depth parameter for an hdisk to '16' and the footnote for the example merely stated that values larger than 32 should not be used, without any context. The footnote now reads: "'16' is the value that DataCore use when qualifying AIX. Larger values are possible but any that are greater than '32' are not supported by DataCore. Smaller values can also be used instead, if preferred. Refer to IBM's documentation for more information."

Updated the following:

This document has been reviewed for SANsymphony 10.0 PSP 5. No additional updates were required.

Added the following:

AIX compatibility lists

AIX Version 7.2

Added the following:

A new section: 'Known Issues'

The information added was previously documented in DataCore Support's FAQ 981.

SANsymphony -V 8.x and all versions of SANsymphony 9.x before 10.0 PSP4 Update 4 are now ‘End of Life’.

See End of Life Notifications for more information.

Added the following:

This section has been updated and new information added regarding the definitions of all ‘qualified’, ‘unqualified’ and ‘not supported…’ labels. A new section on AIX versions that are no longer in development has also been added at the end of this section.

Updated the following:

AIX 7.1 is now qualified with SANsymphony-V 10.x using non-ALUA settings.

ISCSI is still not considered qualified at this time; all qualified versions are with Fibre Channel only.

No new technical information has been added but this document now combines all of DataCore’s AIX-related information from older Technical Bulletins into a single document including:

Technical Bulletin 6: “AIX Hosts”

Technical Bulletin 8: “Formatting Host’s File Systems on Virtual Disks created from Disk Pools”

Technical Bulletin 11: “Disk Timeout Settings on Hosts”

Technical Bulletin 16: “Reclaiming Space in Disk Pools”

Added the following:

Which Distributions are qualified?

Added new tables to show which versions are explicitly qualified, unqualified and not supported with either SANsymphony-V 8.1 PSP1 Update 4, 9.x and 10.x, and if the configuration is with or without ALUA enabled Hosts.

Note that the minimum requirement for SANsymphony-V 8.x is now 8.1 PSP1 Update 4

Appendix A

This section gives more detail on the Preferred Server and Preferred Path settings with regard to how it may affect a Host.

Appendix B This section incorporates information regarding “Reclaiming Space in Disk Pools” (from Technical Bulletin 16) that is specific to AIX Hosts.

Updated the following:

Host Settings - Improved explanations to most of the required Host Settings and DataCore Server Settings generally.

Technical Bulletin 6: “AIX Hosts”

Initial publication of Technical Bulletin.

Added AIX 5.2 TL10