LVM out?

[Rajshree Shinde]

Is it true that the LVM is going out after
11i?

[Nick Wickens]

Apparently HP are planning to move to Veritas Volume manager which is the industry standard now (apparently ?).

With current release of HP-UX 11i LVM and VxVM are available side by side although VxVM can't be used for root volumes under PA_RISC.

However at 11i release 1.5 for Itanium based systems the boot disk MUST be VxVM (although data disks can still be LVM or VxVM).

So I would guess that LVM will slowly be phased out along with PA_RISC.

[harry d brown jr]

That would totally suck! I have sun servers without veri-TOSS because the license for veri-TOSS is more expensive than the server and application software!

The same goes for veri-TOSS's backup software.

I didn't know I needed a Tiffany's line of credit to purchase veri-TOSS's software.


live free or die
harry

[MANOJ SRIVASTAVA]

Yes 11.20 will only support Vxvm as the root disk .

Manoj Srivastava

[Jeff Schussele]

Harry,

As far as I know the cost of Veritas will be included in the OS. It's a base or "lite" version, but will handle RAID (mirroring & striping), have dynamic multi-pathing as well as a GUI.

Jeff

[Nick Wickens]

Base VxVM is included with standard 11i but if you get the Mission Critical release (ie inclusive of Service Guard etc) you should get the advanced VxVM options.

[Pete Randall]

According to the VERITAS Volume Manager 3.1 Migration Guide, the base version does not do mirroring, that requires an additional license (B9116AA).

FWIW,
Pete

[Jeff Schussele]

Pete,

Yes you're correct...you need to purchase Mirror UX separately to get mirroring if you buy the Base OE...OR...step up to Enterprise OE to get it along w/On-Line JFS, etc.

And Nick...isn't it silly that you don't get the Adv Veritas w/the Enterprise OE? Is it available as a separate purch? Would be rather wasteful if you had to go Mission_Critical & buy all the other prods (MC/SG, ECM, etc.) if you only wanted the Adv Veritas.

Rgds,
Jeff

[Pete Randall]

This may be outdated but my ordering guide says "The full VERITAS Volume Manager, which includes disk mirroring and Dynamic Multipathing is not included in any of the Operating Environments. It must be purchased separately by using HP product number B9116AA.

Sound like you can get it separately.

Pete

[Nick Wickens]

The advanced VxVM is listed as its own product ref so I guess you can probably buy it seperatly. When I enquired about this from our account manager she managed to confirm that we had all the licenced "bits" needed for Mission Critical but we had to pay about ??300 to uplift our "media" to this level.

[Jeff Schussele]

It appears you guys could be right - see the following 11i product brochure
- specifically pg 6

http://www.hp.com/products1/unix/operating/infolibrary/general/hpux11i_brochure.pdf

Note how they talk about the features of the Adv version & then quickly state that the "lite, base" version is included. Also at bottom of pg 5 they talk of Mirror-UX *AND* the "apparent" Adv Veritas in the same bullet as *though* they are analagous. But it's obvious now that Adv DOES NOT come w/the Enterprise OE as Mirror-UX does.

Also see this datasheet

http://www.hp.com/products1/unix/operating/infolibrary/general/hpux11i_datasheet.pdf

Now it clearly states on pg 1
"Key examples of HP's technological innovation with HP-UX 11i include:" then goes on to finally list "Veritas Volume manager for HP-UX". And the components chart on pg 2 clearly shows the "base" product. So which product is referenced on pg1? Base or Advanced?
And finally on pg 3 of this doc - in the "features and benefits" section - you'll note that they don't mention Veritas AT ALL. Although they do specifically mention On-Line JFS as well as Mirror-UX.

It is, almost deliberately - I think, confusing...to say the least.

What's included in the "base" Veritas....just striping? Does it have a GUI, or what?
And the Adv doesn't seem to be "included" w/any OE.

Harry may have had it right.....

Rgds,
Jeff

[Duncan Edmonstone]

I wouldn't be so sure about VxVM being the automatic replacement for LVM any more...

With the acquisition of Compaq, HP now owns a whole other set of volume management and file system tools. We *know* they are at least going to look at the cluster file system (they've said so in their roadmaps) - but hang on Veritas sell a clustered file system which is closely integrated with VxFS and VxVM - which way are HP going here now?

HP aren't about to be put over a barrel by Veritas... you have to assume they've learnt their lesson - HP apparently got badly stung by Veritas over using VxFS (which is why OnLine JFS is so expensive - they have to try and recoup the costs) - I would not expect the adoption of VxVM in the core OS to significantly affect software costs for the user.

Think about this as well...replacing LVM with VxVM could also spell the end for ServiceGuard (you can imagine the Veritas salesman 'why use MCSG when you can just use VCS on your HPs, Suns, Windows systems etc?')

However if we do end up with VxVM don't be too negative about it - a lot of Admins fears/concerns of VxVM stem from experiences on Solaris where you have to say that integration with the core OS is nothing short of atrocious... there's a good reason for this - Veritas and Sun never shared source code - HP and Veritas have - so we can expect much better OS integration.

Just my thoughts...

Duncan

[Bill Hassell]

I think the decision to phase out LVM is on hold based in part on customer reaction. As many of you may have discovered, VxVM has a vey extensive set of options and configurations, some of which will have a much higher overhead. If you think simple is better, make sure you let HP know. A good opportunity is coming up in September at HP World (hpworld.com).