Planning for migrating from PowerHA SystemMirror 6.1 to PowerHA SystemMirror 7.1.3 or PowerHA SystemMirror 7.2.0
Before you start the migration process, you must plan and prepare your environment for the migration.
Software requirements
It is recommended that before you start the migration process, that you update your environment to PowerHA® SystemMirror® 6.1 with Service Pack 15.
The following website lists the versions of PowerHA SystemMirror and the versions of the AIX® operating system that are supported for the migration process: PowerHA SystemMirror for AIX Reference Information
For the migration process to complete successfully, you must apply a few IFIX bundles to PowerHA SystemMirror and to the AIX operating system. These IFIX bundles include migration fixes and a set of fixes for the migration assistant tool called clmigcheck. The clmigcheck tool is updated with more verification checks on your environment. If the clmigcheck tool finds problems with your environment, the migration process fails and displays messages on why the failure occurred and how to fix the problem. The IFIX bundles also adds the -V option to the clmigcheck tool. You can use the -V option to walk through the migration process without doing the migration on your environment. In other words, you can use the -V option to complete a practice migration. The -V option also provides you with a list of issues that you might need to fix before you start the migration process.
- The CAA and RSCT packages must be installed before you migrate to a newer version of PowerHA SystemMirror. You must reboot your system after you install the CAA and RSCT packages. Therefore, it is recommended that you install both the CAA and RSCT packages at the same time and then reboot the system by using the shutdown -r command.
- Review the readme file instructions that are included in the PowerHA SystemMirror package. If the package includes a fix to the cluster manager, you must stop cluster services before you install this package. To avoid any downtime, you can install the package immediately after you migrate to the latest version of PowerHA SystemMirror.
Migration and cluster environment checks
Review the following information before you start the migration process:- Verify that the network, storage, and other components do not have any issues. You can plan for migration only when you have a stable PowerHA SystemMirror 6.1 cluster. To check the status of the cluster, run the clstat command.
- Create a backup of the cluster configuration by using the PowerHA SystemMirror snapshot function.
- Verify that each cluster node has a valid PowerHA SystemMirror license. If you have questions about your PowerHA SystemMirror license, contact your IBM support representative.
- Verify that you have the correct system privileges (root user) to install the software requirements as part of the migration process.
Invalid configurations for migration
- Configurations with FDDI, ATM, X.25, and token ring, cannot be migrated and must be removed from the configuration.
- Configurations with heartbeat via aliasing cannot be migrated and must be removed from the configuration.
- Configurations with non-IP networks, such as RS 232, TMSCSI, TMSSA, and disk heartbeat cannot be configured in PowerHA SystemMirror Version 7.1, or later. A non-IP network configuration cannot be migrated. If you attempt to migrate a non-IP network configuration, it is removed during the migration processes.
- Logical Volume Manager (LVM) split-site configurations with disks that are assigned to each site in an PowerHA SystemMirror 6.1 cluster cannot be migrated. To achieve a similar configuration in PowerHA SystemMirror 7.1.3, or later, you can use SMIT and C-SPOC to configure mirror pools that belong to a volume group for LVM split-site mirroring.