Veritas Volume Manager 4.1 Release Notes (5900-0590, March 2010)

1 Veritas Volume Manager 4.1 Release Notes
This document provides information on Veritas Volume Manager 4.1 (VxVM 4.1) on HP-UX 11i
Version 3.
The following topics are discussed:
• “Product Description”
• “New Features in This Release”
• “Features not Supported”
• “Product Licensing”
• “VEA Issues”
• “Coexistence with HP Logical Volume Manager (LVM)”
• “Limitations of VxVM 4.1 on HP-UX 11i Version 3”
• “HP Recommended Method For Dump/Swap Device Configuration”
• “System Requirement”
• “Compatibility With Previous Versions of VxVM”
• “Known Problems And Workaround”
Product Description
Veritas Volume Manager is a storage management tool that removes the physical limitations of
disk storage so that you can configure, share, manage, and optimize storage I/O performance
online, without interrupting data availability. VxVM also provides easy-to-use, online storage
management tools to reduce planned and unplanned downtime.
New Features in This Release
The following new features are supported in this release:
• Modifications to the vxinstall command
The vxinstall command can now be used to configure disk groups post installation.
VxVM does not need a rootdg configured to work. You must use the vxdiskadm command
or the Veritas Enterprise Administrator (VEA) to configure disk groups.
• Default Disk Group Behavior in VxVM
In all previous versions of VxVM, a disk group with the name rootdg (root disk group)
was required for VxVM to function and the rootdg disk group had to contain at least one
disk. This is no longer required. However, you can create a system-wide disk group to be
used as a default by VxVM commands with vxdctl defaultdg <diskgroup> command.
For operations that require a disk group, the system-wide default disk group will be used
if the VxVM command is not specified with the -g option. The main benefit of creating a
default disk group is that the VxVM commands default to the default disk group and you
will not need to use the -g option. To verify the default disk group after it has been created,
enter the command:
# vxdg defaultdg
• Dynamic LUN Expansion
VxVM 4.1 supports dynamic LUN expansion and online disk resize.
Dynamic LUN capability allows you to resize the device while preserving the existing data.
In all previous releases of VxVM, any change in the size of a disk after it has been initialized,
resulted in data loss. However, with Dynamic LUN you can resize disks without any data
loss.
Product Description 7