IBM Power Systems AIX

You can attach an NVMe host to an IBM® Power® Systems AIX® host by following specific requirements and instructions.

Attaching to IBM Power Systems AIX hosts

For interoperability information about attachments between the system and an IBM Power Systems AIX host, check the IBM support website: http://www.ibm.com/support

Note: The IBM Power Systems information applies to all AIX hosts that are listed on the interoperability support site.

Attachment requirements for IBM Power Systems hosts

Ensure that your system meets the requirements for attaching to a host that is running the AIX operating system.

Before you attach an IBM Power Systems host, ensure that you meet the following prerequisites:
  • You installed the correct operating systems and version levels on your host, including any updates and APARs (Authorized Program Analysis Reports) for the operating system.
  • You have the documentation for your host system and you have access to the Installing section in this product information.

    All system publications are available from the following website:

    IBM

    https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/aix

At the time of writing, the supported servers are POWER9 servers with minimum firmware version of 950.

AIX environments for IBM Power Systems hosts

Ensure that each IBM Power Systems host uses a supported operating system and level.

The following website provides current interoperability information about the supported operating system levels for IBM Power Systems hosts:

https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/aix

At the time of writing, the supported operating system is AIX 7.2 TL 5 from 2035_72V and above.

Drivers and firmware for IBM Power Systems hosts

Ensure that you use the correct host bus adapter device driver and firmware levels for yourIBM Power Systems AIX hosts.

For POWER9 hosts, the minimum firmware level is 950.

The following website provides current interoperability information about device driver and firmware levels:

https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/aix

Configuring the AIX operating system

You must configure the AIX operating system before you can use IBM Power Systems hosts with the system.

Before you configure the AIX host operating systems, the following tasks must be completed:
  • The system must be installed.
  • The appropriate host bus adapters must be installed.
After the prerequisite tasks are complete, use the following general steps to configure your AIX host system.
  1. Zone the host to the system nodes on the Fibre Channel (FC) SAN.
  2. Verify that the FC ports appear in AIX. Each FC port appears through the lsdev command with a name starts with fcs. 
    bash-4.4# lsdev | grep fcs
fcs0       Available 00-00       PCIe3 2-Port 32Gb FC Adapter (df1000e314101506)
fcs1       Available 00-01       PCIe3 2-Port 32Gb FC Adapter (df1000e314101506)
    Note: If fcs device is not found, you can run the cfgmgr command.
  3. Check for FC-NVMe device availability.
    Note: AIX creates children devices of the fcs device for each protocol that AIX supports.
    1. The FC-NVMe protocol appears through the lsdev command with a name starts with fcnvme. 
      bash-4.4# lsdev | grep fcnvme
fcnvme0    Available 00-00-02    FC-NVMe Protocol Device
fcnvme1    Available 00-01-02    FC-NVMe Protocol Device
    2. If the FC-NVMe device is not detected, you can enable it by using a smitty command for each port. 
      smitty -> Devices -> FC Adapter -> FC-NVMe Device -> Enable a FC-NVMe Protocol Device
  4. Find the host NVMe Qualified Name (NQN) from each FC-NVMe port. 
    bash-4.4# lsattr -El fcnvme0
attach     switch      How this adapter is connected  False
autoconfig available   Configuration State            True
host_nqn   nqn.2018-04.com.ibm:aix.fc.pn.0x100000109ba9d1c9.nn.0x0x200000109ba9d1c9   Host NQN (NVMe Qualified Name) True
  5. Create FC-NVMe host type in target.
    Note: In AIX, each port has its own NQN. You can configure two NQNs to add a host to the target. If you have more ports, you can work on the host cluster, where each pair is defined as host.
  6. Create a volume and map to the FC-NVMe host object.
  7. Run the cfgmgr command without any parameters.
  8. To check the FC-NVMe paths and disks, run the following command: 
    lsdev | grep -i nvme
    The NVMe Discovery Controller and the NVMe Dynamic Controller appear for each path. The following example shows the four paths between the host and the target for the NVMe Discovery Controllers and the NVMe IO dynamic Controllers:
    nvme0 Available 00-00-02 NVMe Discovery Controller
nvme1 Available 00-00-02 NVMe Discovery Controller
nvme2 Available 00-01-02 NVMe Discovery Controller
nvme3 Available 00-01-02 NVMe Discovery Controller
nvme4 Available 00-00-02 NVMe Dynamic Controller
nvme5 Available 00-00-02 NVMe Dynamic Controller
nvme6 Available 00-01-02 NVMe Dynamic Controller
nvme7 Available 00-01-02 NVMe Dynamic Controller
    The following example shows the mapped volumes as hdisk:
    hdisk1 Available 00-00-02 NVMe Flash Disk
hdisk2 Available 00-00-02 NVMe Flash Disk
hdisk3 Available 00-00-02 NVMe Flash Disk
hdisk4 Available 00-00-02 NVMe Flash Disk
hdisk5 Available 00-00-02 NVMe Flash Disk
hdisk6 Available 00-00-02 NVMe Flash Disk
hdisk7 Available 00-00-02 NVMe Flash Disk
hdisk8 Available 00-00-02 NVMe Flash Disk
hdisk9 Available 00-00-02 NVMe Flash Disk
hdisk10 Available 00-00-02 NVMe Flash Disk