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Live Partition Mobility

 

Contents

1. Building Guidelines
2. How to Perform a Live Partition Migration

1. Related Information

 

1. Building Guildelines

  Only use virtual resources

• virtual ethernet
• virtual fibre channel (NPIV)
• virtual SCSI allowed, but not LVs as backing device

 

  Disable "Redundant error path reporting"

• When creating the LPAR profile remove the tick at "Redundant error path reporting":

  [X] Enable connection monitoring
  [ ] Automatically start with managed system
  [ ] Enable redundant error path reporting
  

 

  Check Driver and Disk Attributes

• Some vendor specific disk drivers are known not to work with LPM!
• Set reserve_policy to "no_reserve":
  Example:
  # lspv | awk '/hdisk/ {print "chdev -l "$1" -a reserve_policy=no_reserve"}' | sh -x

 

2. How to Perform a Live Partition Migration

  Check Prerequisites

• SAN zoning
• free CPU and memory resources on target system
• also check the building guidelines above

  Define "Mover Service Partition"

• On both, source and target system one Virtual I/O Server has to be defined as "Mover Service Partition"
  Check/set this in the "General" tab of the Partiton Properties of the VIO servers:

  VIOS 1:  
  [X] Mover Service Partition
  
  VIOS2:
  [ ] Mover Service Partition
  

  Start the Migration

    The LPM task has to be initiated from the target system. It can be done via the HMC GUI or via the HMC commandline.

    a) using the wizard on the HMC GUI

• select LPAR you want to move
• select Operations -> Mobility -> Migrate
• the migration wizard starts:
  • Migration Information -> Next
  • Profile Name -> Next
  • Remote HMC -> Next if the target system is accessible from the same HMC
  • Destination -> select target system -> Next
  • Mover Service Partition -> Next
  • VLAN Configuration -> Next
  • Shared Processor Pools -> Next
  • Wait Time -> Next
  • Summary -> Finish
  Note: Using this method a validation will be automatically performed before the migration actually starts.

    b) using the HMC commandline

• hscroot@hmc> migrlpar -o v -m <Source System> -t <Dest System> -p <LPAR> -i "source_msp_name=<Source VIOS>,dest_msp_name=<Dest VIOS> -w 3 -d 5 -v -u hscroot"
  -- <Source System> is the managed system the LPAR currently resides on
  -- <Dest System> is the managed system the LPAR is to be moved to
  -- <LPAR> is the name of the LPAR on the HMC
  -- <Source VIOS> is the name of the Mover Service Partiton (VIOS 1) on the source system
  -- <Dest VIOS> is the name of the Mover Service Partiton (VIOS 1) on the destination system
  
• Example:
  hscroot@hmc> migrlpar -o m -m pserver1 -t pserver2 -p mylpar1 -i "source_msp_name=pserver1vios1,dest_msp_name=pserver2vios1 -w 3 -d 5 -v -u hscroot"
  
• Tip: You can validate the migration first using the "-o v" option instead of "-o m":
  hscroot@hmc> migrlpar -o v -m pserver1 -t pserver2 -p mylpar1 -i "source_msp_name=pserver1vios1,dest_msp_name=pserver2vios1 -w 3 -d 5 -v -u hscroot"

 

A. Related Information

• Live Partition Mobility on HMC-managed systems
• Redbook: IBM PowerVM Live Partition Mobility
• Basic understanding and troubleshooting of LPM