Subject: VIO Server Restrictions for Client LVs

Audience: All

Date: November 1, 2005

The Virtual I/O server enables disk, ethernet and optical device sharing among it's Power5 client partitions. Although the VIO server runs under AIX, you can get in trouble using AIX commands to configure client resources. Rather, you should use "padmin" commands.

This is especially true when creating client virtual disks on the VIO server. Here are the restrictions for client virtual disks (LV's) on the VIO server that normally would be supported under AIX

• Client virtual disks (LV's) can not be mirrored on the VIO server**.
• Client virtual disks (LV's) can not be striped, or span multiple physical disks.**
• Should disable bad block relocation
• Must be less than 1 TB in size

** This does not apply to hardware mirroring or striping, such as SCSI Raid5 or SAN storage

For more information, see the "Advanced Power Virtualization" Redbook pages 104 and 229
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redpieces/abstracts/sg247940.html?Open