Live Partition Mobility

Live Partition Mobility: Live Partition Mobility, a component of the PowerVM Enterprise Edition hardware feature, provides the ability to move AIX, IBM i, and logical partitions from one Manage system to another. The mobility process transfers the system environment that includes the processor state, memory, attached virtual devices, and connected users.

In addition to the partition definition and resource configuration, active migration involves the transfer of active run-time state. This state includes the: . Partition’s memory . Hardware page table (HPT) . Processor state . Virtual adapter state . Non-volatile RAM (NVRAM) . Time of day (ToD) . Partition configuration . State of each resource The mover service partitions on the source and destination, under the control of the HMC, move this state between the two systems

Preparation: After you have enabled the mover service partitions, you must prepare the source and destination systems for migration, below are the steps

1. Synchronize the time-of-day clocks on the mover service partition using an external time reference, such as the network time protocol (NTP). This step is optional; it increases the accuracy of time measurement during migration. The step is not required by the migration mechanisms. Even if this step is omitted, the migration process correctly adjusts the partition time. Time never goes backward on the mobile partition during a migration.

2. Prepare the partition for migration: a. Use dynamic reconfiguration on the HMC to remove all dedicated I/O, such as PCI slots, GX slots, virtual optical devices, and Integrated Virtual Ethernet from the mobile partition. b. Remove the partition from a partition workload group.

3. Prepare the destination Virtual I/O Server. a. Configure the shared Ethernet adapter as necessary to bridge VLANs. b. Configure the SAN such that requisite storage devices are available.

4. Initiate the partition migration by selecting the following items, with either the graphical user interface (GUI) or command-line interface (CLI) on the HMC. – The partition to migrate – The destination system Optionally, the mover service partition on the source and destination systems. If there is only one active mover service partition on the source or the destination server, the mover service partition selection is automatic. If there are multiple active MSPs on one or both, you can either specify which ones to use, or let the HMC choose for you.

5. Validation phase: After the source and destination mover service partitions have been identified, the HMC performs a pre-check to ensure that the migration is valid, that no high-level blocking problems exist, and that the environment satisfies the prerequisites for a migration operation. After the pre-check, the HMC prevents any configuration changes to the partition that might invalidate the migration and then proceeds to perform a detailed capability, compatibility, migrate-ability, and readiness check on the source and destination systems. All configuration checks are performed during each validation to provide a complete list of potential problems

Requirement: Minimum requirement for LPM are as below Hardware: Power6 PowerVM Enterprise Edition HMC: Version 7 release 3.4 or Version 7 release 710 for Power7 VIOS: 1.5.1.1 or 2.12.11Fp22.1 for Power7 LPAR: AIX 5.3 TL07 or AIX 5.3 TL09 SP07 / AIX 6.1 TL02 SP08 for Power7 Virtual Ethernet (SEA) Virtual SAN (NPIV or vSCSI) Hardware resources (CPU, Memory) on destination server must be equal to migrating server

My Client’s Resources Availability Hardware: Power7 (P) PowerVM Enterprise Edition (P) HMC: V7R760SP02 (P) VIOS: 2.2.2.1 (P) LPAR: AIX7.1 TL01 SP06 (P) Virtual Ethernet (SEA) (P) Virtual Disk (SAN - NPIV) (P)

(P)=Pass

Validation: System Properties support Partition Mobility Inactive and Active Partition Mobility Capable = True

Under Servers select the Desired Manage system. Click on the Manage Systems Properties  Migration.

Mover Service Partitions: VIO Servers with MSP enabled in properties. Check atleast one VIOS on Source and Destination Server. SOURCE: (MMD) vio21  Properties  General

DESTINATION: (MMC) vio11  properties  General

Give the WWN’s of targeted server (used for LPM) to Storage team.

Select the server  Properties  Virtual Adapters

Virtual Fibre Adapter (connected to VIO1)

Virtual Fibre Adapter (connected to VIO2)

We will use the one at the bottom (highlighted in blue, ending with 0031 and 0033) for LPM.

Note: The WWPN’s will not change even after migration to destination Manage System on the LPAR. (i.e., we will continue to see the same set of WWPN on LPAR as before). But post migration, the change is seen at the storage size on fabrics and consoles, wherein the old WWPNs get degraded and newly added WWPN are active.

Procedure: Three are three things in LPM 1. Validate  Check the status and eligibility of System 2. Migrate  Does the actual migration after validation 3. Recover  LPAR can be recovered, if it fails or stop due to some issue.

Select the targeted LPAR, goto operations  Mobility  Validate

One can click the Migrate button, as shown below; this process will do the migration directly.

Note: Selection of source and destination VIOS and other options are not visible in this migration.

Or a user customize the migration as shown below Again select the LPAR  Operations  Mobility  Migrate

Right click Next button and follow the steps

Enter the destination profile name

Now click next and select the option ‘Remote Migration’, then enter Remote HMC and User info as shown below.

At this point it will perform validation

You have an option for selecting the VIOS for source and destination

VLAN Configuration

Virtual Storage Adapter selection

Shared Processor Pools selection

Wait Time, we keep the default which is 5minutes

Lastly, summary

Click Finish and the actual migration starts.

You will see the same two screen shots (of Partition Migration Status), when it is 100% done click the close button and the migration is completed.

Trouble shooting:

During the migration if targeted LPAR encounter problems such as shortage of CPU and/or Memory, uneven or no SAN mapping then the LPAR will hang at LED 2005, We try recover (if this doesn’t work); we try force recover and lastly stop.

1. Do migration "Recovery" From HMC, select source frame -> mobile lpar -> operations -> mobility -> recovery. If that fails: 2. Force recovery, this can be done via HMC cli: # migrlpar -o r -m --id --force 3. If force recovery fails, then try to "stop" it: # migrlpar -o s -m --id

The will be the name of destination Manage system.

Other noticed errors: If you see this error

From HMC CLI type in the below command, make sure you use your UID ssyed@HMC2:~> mkauthkeys -g --ip hmc2 -u ssyed Enter the password for user ssyed on the remote host hmc2:

To clear this error, Go to client’s Configuration  Manage Profile  Edit  Setting Uncheck ‘Enable redundant error path reporting’ see below.

Click OK, save profile, and reactivate the LPAR for change to be affective.

Note: The reserve_lock should be set to no_reserve for all SAN disks. If you use MPIO, by default the reserve_lock is no_reserve.