LVM and Veritas Volume Manager

[roadrunner_1]

I have a question about the rootability of Veritas Volume Manager v3.5 for HP-UX 11i. We are migrating all our servers from 11.00(LVM filesystems) to 11i(VxVM)

Can both VxVM and LVM co-exist in the following scenarios...

Scenario - I
vg00 - LVM
vg01 - LVM
vg02 - VxVM (after converting from LVM vg02)
vg03 - VxVM (after converting from LVM vg03)

Scenario - II
vg00 - VxVM (after converting LVM)
vg01 - LVM
vg02 - VxVM (after converting from LVM vg02)
vg03 - VxVM (after converting from LVM vg03)

If yes, what would be the pros and cons for the above scenarios??

Also, would ignite make_recovery commands work for VxVM filesystems

[Sunil Sharma_1]

Hi,

1. VxVm and LVM can co-exist in system.
2. Scenarion 1 and 2 both are fisiable.
3. make_recovery commands will work as usual.

Regards
Sunil

[Kevin Wright]

Yep, you won't have a problem with those configurations.

[Steven E. Protter]

This script will work.

Just add entries for the various volume groups.

See attachment.

SEP

[Alzhy]

11i since DEC2002 supported rootability. And yes, you can have both LVM and VxVM co-exist nicely on your systems. I think Ignite recoveries will still work nicely as well.

My personal preference though is to have LVM manage my system disks and VxVM for the rest - since most "recipes" out there for fixing system problems assume LVM is in play on the system disks. If you're using LUNs/disks provided by a SAN or HardWare based array -- then you won't even need to purchase the advanced license of VxVM -- just the base will do.

If you decide to use VxVM for your boot systems (rootability) - the advantage you;ll get is you will get Mirroring for free (of course if you're using HPUX Enterprise OE, MirrorDisk for LVM is already there as well).

BTW, may I ask your rationale for going with VxVM?

[Stuart Abramson_2]

Why are you migrating to VxVM? I'm curious.

[Alzhy]

In my experience, my rationale for moving to VxVM is:

1.\ I have a large SAN + large Servers
2.\ VxVM is alread in use in other Unices (and Linux)
3.\ I am(will be)using large Oracle/Sybase instances and using the Editions from Veritas.
4.\ More flexibility in managing the LUNs.
5.\ OjFS (a.k.a VxFS) is a Veritas Product -- why not use a VM that is a Veritas product as well?

[Trond Haugen]

The short answer is yes LVM and VXVM can coexist as long as they are in different volume groups.

[RolandH]

You have heard the answer a lot of times.
YES - NO Problem!!
Additional to Nelson post to the ignite problem. I agree that ignite has no Problem with recovery LVM/VxVM (newest version).But I recommend you do a ignite tape before you migrate (I'm sure that was your plan) and the deinstall Ignite from that system. Delete all directories belonging to ignite (/var/opt/ignite/,/etc/opt/ignite;/opt/ignite). After migration install a new ignite and create a new recovery tape.

Why this?
As I remember me Ignite creates a file at time it is installed on the system, where it stores what kind of volume mgmt. is used for root disks. If you now makes a new recovery tape after migration and you must use this tape (with old ignite) You will wonder that you have LVM again on your root disks.
So I definetly recomend you to do a reinstall after migration to be save.

HTH
Roland

BTW: One reason for VxVM is not such a low lmitation in maxvgs as in LVM (max 256). On ERP systems with connect to large storage that is very important, isn't it?