Migrating from HP-UX 11i v1 Virtual Partitions to a Mixed HP-UX Version Environment

ManualsBrandsHP ManualsSoftwareHP-UX Virtual Partitions (vPars) Software

Migrating from HP-UX 11i v1 Virtual Partitions to a Mixed

HP-UX Version Environment

A Technical White Paper

Introduction...................................................................................................................................2

Migration Process Overview.............................................................................................................2

Migration Restrictions...................................................................................................................2

Migration Strategies....................................................................................................................2

Migration Decisions.....................................................................................................................3

Pre-Upgrade Preparation Steps......................................................................................................5

Preparing the nPartition from a Hardware and Firmware Perspective................................................5

Performing Basic Preparations....................................................................................................5

Cold Migration Steps...................................................................................................................5

Preparing Virtual Partitions that are Staying on HP-UX 11i v1..........................................................5

Cold Migrating the Remaining Virtual Partitions............................................................................6

Update to HP-UX 11i v1 / 11i v2 Mixed Virtual Partitions Steps..........................................................7

Adjusting Root File Systems .......................................................................................................8

Updating Virtual Partitions being Upgraded.................................................................................9

Preparing Virtual Partitions being Left on HP-UX 11i v1 ..................................................................9

Completing the Update to HP-UX 11i v1/11i v2...........................................................................9

Upgrade to HP-UX 11i v1/11i v2/11i v3 Virtual Partitions Steps ...................................................... 10

Preparing Virtual Partitions being Left on HP-UX 11i v1 or 11i v2...................................................12

Completing the Update to HP-UX 11i v1/v2/v3..........................................................................12

Final Preparations for Production Mode.........................................................................................12

Conclusion..................................................................................................................................12

References...................................................................................................................................13

Summary of content (13 pages)

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Migrating from HP-UX 11i v1 Virtual Partitions to a Mixed HP-UX Version Environment A Technical White Paper Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 2 Migration Process Overview............................................................................................................. 2 Migration Restrictions................................................................................................
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Introduction Virtual Partitions (vPars) is a software solution available on HP 9000 and HP Integrity cell-based servers running HP-UX 11i. It allows a system administrator to “carve up” a single nPartition (hardware partition) into multiple independent entities, each owning processors, memory, and I/O resources. This is accomplished through a software layer called the vPars monitor which resides between the operating system kernel and the firmware.
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As stated above, the update strategy means less downtime for those virtual partitions that are not moving forward, but involves more steps for those virtual partitions that are being upgraded. It is even possible that an “update” approach will actually start by re-installing HP-UX 11i v1. A cold migration strategy requires that the entire nPartition be booted back into nPars mode for the duration of at least one Ignite-UX session.
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Figure 1.
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Pre-Upgrade Preparation Steps Preparing the nPartition from a Hardware and Firmware Perspective Any migration should begin both by referring to the documents HP-UX 11i v3 Read Before Installing or Updating, and HP-UX 11i v3 Installation and Update Guide, as well as by downloading the tool MSCheck from http://software.hp.com. The documents specify the hardware and firmware requirements for HP-UX 11i v3, and the tool implements many of the necessary checks.
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Note: There will be an error message during the iCAP software configuration phase, but this can be ignored until later. After all that has been done, and you are ready to shut down the virtual partitions, set all virtual partitions to “manual boot” (vparmodify -B manual -p {vPar}), and swinstall the vPars A.03.05 software to all of the virtual partitions staying on HP-UX 11i v1. Critical: Failure to do this will result in unbootable virtual partitions once the new vPars monitor is booted.
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• New software layout • Disks are shown by default in the new I/O scheme • Refer to the Installation and Update Guide • • Users of newer HP Integrity systems (upgrading from HP-UX 11i v2) must watch out for hyperthreading on. Hyper-threading is set at the nPartition level and is defaulted to “on” for HP-UX 11i v3, but is not supported by HP-UX 11i v2.
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Figure 3. Updating to a Mixed HP-UX 11i v1/11i v2 Configuration Adjusting Root File Systems Space requirements in file systems such as /opt and /usr increased in HP-UX 11i v2 and again in HPUX 11i v3. If you plan to use an update strategy (less downtime for those virtual partitions that are not moving forward) and the file systems are too small, you can use “vparboot –I” on those virtual partitions moving forward and create new HP-UX 11i v1 boot disks.
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counterproductive, it has the advantage that the entire installation of HP-UX 11i v1 and subsequent load of HP-UX 11i v2 filesets can be done without stopping the HP-UX 11i v1 (production) virtual partitions. The most efficient way to do this would be to create a recovery image and to do the install from that, taking care to override the filesystem sizes. The most recent size recommendations may be found at http://docs.hp.com in the Installation and Update Guide.
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Upgrade to HP-UX 11i v1/11i v2/11i v3 Virtual Partitions Steps As with the updates to a mixed HP-UX 11i v1/11i v2 environment, this consists of a set of parallel calls to update-ux and swinstall. These steps are applicable regardless whether or not it is desired to keep one or more virtual partitions at HP-UX 11i v2. All of the root disks should have been verified as having large enough file systems to support HP-UX 11i v3 in previous steps.
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Figure 4. Updating to a mixed HP-UX 11i v1/11i v2/11i v3 configuration Updating Virtual Partitions being Upgraded As with the HP-UX 11i v1/11i v2 update, each of the virtual partitions targeted for further update can now be updated via the standard process. You must install another new version of update-ux from the target depot, and proceed. The virtual partitions will load all of the HP-UX 11i v3 software and then stop.
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Preparing Virtual Partitions being Left on HP-UX 11i v1 or 11i v2 At this point, all of the HP-UX 11i v1 virtual partitions should be running vPars A.03.05 or later. All of the HP-UX 11i v2 virtual partitions should be running vPars A.04.05 or later. All that is required of these virtual partitions is that they be halted gracefully once the virtual partitions being upgraded have been halted (and it is convenient).
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References 1. See http://docs.hp.com/en/oshpux11iv3.html#Release%20Notes for the HP-UX 11i Version 3 Release Notes. 2. See http://docs.hp.com/en/oshpux11iv3.html#System%20Firmware for minimum required firmware versions. 3. See http://docs.hp.com/en/oshpux11iv3.html#Ignite-UX for the Ignite-UX Administration Guide. 4. See http://docs.hp.com/en/oshpux11iv3.