HP-UX Logical Volume Manager and MirrorDisk/UX Release Notes HP-UX 11i v3 (April 2011 web release)

Logical Volume Manager and MirrorDisk/UX Release Notes
About this document
This document provides information about the Logical Volume Manager (LVM) and MirrorDisk/UX
products in the April 2011 web release of HP-UX 11i v3.
LVM and MirrorDisk/UX overview
Logical Volume Manager (bundle BaseLVM) is the HP-UX default Volume Manager. It provides user
with flexibility in configuring and managing mass storage resources. In HP-UX 11i v3, the LVM
kernel and commands are bundled with the core HP-UX product.
MirrorDisk/UX (bundle B2491BA) is an optionally purchased HP-UX product to enable LVM
mirroring functionality.
Overview of changes
The initial HP-UX 11i v3 release of LVM and MirrorDisk/UX was integrated with the new mass
storage stack, delivering significant performance, scalability, availability, and usability
enhancements. LVM was enhanced to support larger logical volumes, temporary quiescing of
volume groups, and striping with mirroring. Volume group availability was improved: resizing a
LUN and modifying volume group characteristics no longer required the volume group to be
recreated, and replacing a disk could be done online.
The April 2011 web release of LVM and MirrorDisk/UX provides an enhancement to deal with
VxVM GPT formatted disks. This release also provides defect fixes as described in “Known problems
fixed in this version” (page 4).
The LVM April 2011 web release can be downloaded from the LVM software download page:
http://www.hp.com/go/fsvm.
New and changed features in this release
New features
The following LVM feature is new with the April 2011 web release of HP-UX 11i v3:
Handling VxVM GPT Formatted Disks
Starting with the VxVM 5.1 SP1 release, VxVM uses GPT (GUID Partition Table) when configuring
disks that are larger than 1 TB in size with Cross-platform Data Sharing (CDS) format. An LVM
enhancement (QXCR1001097943) is added for this in the LVM April 2011 web release to detect
such GPT formatted disks when configuring these disks in LVM using pvcreate and
vgcfgrestore commands.
For example, with this enhancement, when a VxVM GPT disk is supplied for the LVM pvcreate
command, it reports the following error:
$ pvcreate /dev/rdisk/disk35
pvcreate: Could not perform LVM operation on VxVM disk “/dev/rdisk/disk35”
This enhancement will help customers avoid using VxVM GPT formatted disk in LVM by mistake.
However, customers can also enforce the pvcreate operation with the pvcreate -f option.
Known problems fixed in this version
The following table lists the known LVM and MirrorDisk/UX problems fixed in the April 2011 web
release of HP-UX 11i v3.
4 Logical Volume Manager and MirrorDisk/UX Release Notes