HP Auto Port Aggregation (APA) Release Notes HP-UX 11i v1, 11i v2, and 11i v3 (5900-2047, October 2011)

3 HP APA Overview for HP-UX 11i v3
This chapter provides information about the HP-UX 11i v3 (B.11.31.60) September 2011 release
of HP Auto Port Aggregation (APA) and LAN Monitor software.
This release of HP APA is a defect fix only release and does not have any new features.
Auto Port Aggregation
HP APA is a software product that creates link aggregates, often called "trunks," which provide a
logical grouping of two or more physical ports into a single "Fat-Pipe." Network traffic is load
balanced across all of the links in the aggregation, which allows you to build large bandwidth
logical links into the server that are highly available and completely transparent to the client and
server applications.
In addition, HP APA provides automatic link failure detection and recovery, and optional support
for load balancing of network traffic across all of the links in the aggregation.
HP APA supports HP Serviceguard.
For more information, see the HP Auto Port Aggregation (APA) Administrator's Guide. To locate
this document, go to the www.hp.com/go/hpux-networking-docs product page. On this page,
select HP-UX Auto Port Aggregation (APA) Software.
Failover Group
HP APA supports the creation of failover groups (link aggregates in LAN_MONITOR mode),
providing a failover capability for links. In the event of a link failure, LAN Monitor automatically
migrates traffic to an available, standby link (port or link aggregate) in the failover group.
Known Problems Fixed in This Version
Table 3 lists the known problems fixed in this release of HP APA B.11.31.60.
Table 3 Fixes in the HP APA B.11.31.60 Release
DescriptionDefect ID
When a LAN Monitor uses fixed MAC addresses, failback mechanism may not happen.QXCR1001112363
When upgrading the HP-UX Operating Environment (OE) to the HP-UX 11i v3 March
2011 Operating Environment Upgrade Release (OEUR) or later, the LAN PPA numbers
for interfaces might be modified from the 1xx range to 9xx range.
QXCR1001085525
Known Problems and Limitations
This section describes the known problems and limitations as known to HP at time of publication.
If workarounds are available, they are included.
Known Problems with Switches
• HP ProCurve Switches
When disabling Cisco's Fast Ether Channel protocol on the HP 9000 server, the HP ProCurve
switches block that particular port from further use.
Severity: Medium
14 HP APA Overview for HP-UX 11i v3