Moving HP RISC Storage to Itanium

[Wayne Willess]

I am hoping someone can help me. I need to answer a question that has surfaced concerning moving HP RISC filesystems to an Itanium server. Our plan is to complete VG exports on a RISC (11.11) server and VG import them on an Itanium (11.23) server and copy the data to new filesystems on the Itanium server. Are there any issues related to this process? Any special configuration on the Itanium that needs to happen or are the filesystem fully compatible from RISC (11.11) to Itanium (11.23)?

[James R. Ferguson · Accepted solution]

Hi Wayne:

From an LVM perspective there is no imcompatability issues between 11.11 (which by default is PA-RISC) and 11.23 (which comes in both the PA-RISC and Itanium flavors.

As for JFS (Journaled File Systems), you merely need to make sure that if/when you upgrade the JFS layout version on 11.23 (optional), or that you newly create 11.23-centric JFS filesystems, that you make sure that your JFS software on 11.11 will support that version. Otherwise, you will not be able to mount your 11.23 filesystem back on 11.11.

Regards!

...JRF...

[Andres_13]

Hi Wayne,

A few months ago we faced same question and we decided to built the new filesystems natively in 11.23 and then restore data from backup.

Since that no problem has ocurred related to this so i widely recommend you do that way.

Regards!

[Wayne Willess]

Thanks for the quick replay. I am not concerned with moving the filesystems back to RISC. The project is to move/migrate from RISC to Itanium servers so there should be no need to move the filesystems back.

The question came from a test run we completed. We moved a development Oracle DB from a RISC server to Itanium by completing a VG export/import then copying to new file systems created on 11.23, The DBA then upgraded the DB from Oracle 9i to 10g. Within three days after the upgrade the DB reported corruption. The DBA is questioning the disks and the way the move was completed. I do not believe it was at the OS level but thought I would ask the question. I am also looking at the disk subsystemâ s configuration and checking for errors.

[James R. Ferguson]

HI (again) Wayne:

> The DBA is questioning the disks and the way the move was completed.

So exactly how (with what utility under what circumstances) did the DBA (or whomever) copy the data? Was there absolute assurance that tables and indices were not updated during the copy? Were tables and indices out-of-sync because the database was inuse during the copy?

If properly done, there is no incompatability between 11.11 and 11.23 insofar as LVM and JFS filesystems are concerned.

Regards!

...JRF...

[Wayne Willess]

The database was down during the entire process.
My colleague reminded me that the data was not copied. The DB upgrade was complete from the original disks and filesystems.

[Andres_13]

Are you sure that your oracle's enigne is intented to be ised in a Itanium based server? in other words, i think before you import the database into the Itanium sever you should install the engine first and then do an import in order to prevent any error. Also oracle recomends that you relink all binaries after a major update of the OS.

I think you should consider make a cold install of the oracle's engine instead of just relink the database.

Hope this help.

[Wayne Willess]

Thanks Andres. We did install the Oracle engine first and then completed an migration of the data.