Start a Conversation

Unsolved

This post is more than 5 years old

1041

April 3rd, 2008 05:00

Migrate DB2 on AIX server to new DMX

Without getting into too many details - we are in the position of wanting to migrate a relatively large (1.9TB) AIX server running DB2 to a DMX-4 with larger LUN sizes. Since we are switching to a larger LUN size and use striped meta devices an SRDF migration is out of the question so we are stuck with doing a host migration.

We are being told that using a tape backup/recovery method we are looking at a 12 hour outage (the backup goes over a 1Gb network link which is the obvious bottleneck) which is not going to be acceptable. Asked the question why we could not migrate disk-to-disk and the answer we received was that we were not sure if that was supported.

This needs to be a question to IBM (which it will be) but before I pushed this point was looking to see if anyone knew of any reason why a process such as this (which I am sure would beat the 12 hour estimate) would not work:

1) Create new VG/filesystems and mount them.
2) Shutdown the database(s)
3) Copy every filesystem to the new filesystem using dump/tar/cpio or some other AIX copy utility of choice.
4) Unmount/export the old VGs.
5) Unmount/export the new VGs.
6) Import the new VGs and mount the new filesystems as the "old" names.

Restart the database with no changes required. Am I missing something?

I am aware this is what OpenMigrator does - that may be an option though when we first discussed this a few months back that software was dismissed.

9 Legend

 • 

20.4K Posts

April 3rd, 2008 05:00

no clustering involved ?

2 Intern

 • 

385 Posts

April 3rd, 2008 05:00

Because of the size of the VGs and the new LUN size this was ruled out as an option. This is how we have migrated most of the other UNIX (HP-UX/AIX) servers that are part of this migration.

So ... good suggestion but does not apply for this particular case unfortunately.

The real gist of my question is does DB2 do something odd with its files that would render a cold copy useless? I can't find anything to make me believe that is the case - but for some reason the SA and DBA are being cautious...

9 Legend

 • 

20.4K Posts

April 3rd, 2008 05:00

how about mirroring within LVM ..i have done this on HPUX ..should be able to do it on AIX as well. Extend VG with new volumes from DMX4 ..mirror logical volumes and then reduce out the old volumes ?

2 Intern

 • 

385 Posts

April 3rd, 2008 05:00

No clustering involved - this is pretty straightforward.

There is SRDF/A involved, but we realize it will be "out-of-sync" for a short time while we flip some things around. That outage can extend 12+ hours - it is the downtime that is being balked at.

9 Legend

 • 

20.4K Posts

April 3rd, 2008 05:00

sorry ..don't have experience with DB2 ..but migrating Oracle (no ASM) by either lvm mirroring or straight "cp -r" never presented any problems. The host is the same, DB version is the same ...just had to verify data file permissions were intact after migration. Sorry ..not a big help there :(

9 Legend

 • 

20.4K Posts

April 3rd, 2008 06:00

or suspend SRDF during migration.

2 Intern

 • 

2.8K Posts

April 3rd, 2008 06:00

The general procedure looks good to me ..
Since new devices have different size I think you have brand new R2 devices for your remote replica. Please leave the new pairs in ACP_DISK and set a QOS of 6 if you don't want to slow down your copy/tar/cpio/whateveryouwant ...

2 Intern

 • 

2.8K Posts

April 3rd, 2008 06:00

Dynamox I don't think there are special recipes for DB2 .. :D .. It's still an AIX machine .. it have LVM .. Oracle or DB2 is almost the same (given that you check perm and ownership of files that usually drive everybody crazy) :D

2 Intern

 • 

1.3K Posts

April 3rd, 2008 10:00

so what is the limitation you are talking about the AIX. LVM mirror does not look at the size of the disk. Once the space is available in the VG(added by new disks) all the LVs can be mirrored to the new disks.

Also we can avoid specyfing the new disk list while mirroring if a dummy lv is created which could consume all the free space in the VG(only with old disk).

2 Intern

 • 

385 Posts

April 4th, 2008 05:00

We will have SRDF/A suspended and part of the plan involves activating/synching the new SRDF relationship after the data move.

The limitation involves being able to add these large LUNs into the volume groups - nothing to do with the LVM mirroring or movement of PVs within the VG. I do not know the exact parameter/setting which is causing the conflict.

Really looking to see if anyone has experience with moving DB2 data around. I think the scenario I layed-out should work, but for some reason this is not being well received. I think it is simply being comfortable with the database method which unfortunately triples the migration time...

2 Intern

 • 

2.8K Posts

April 4th, 2008 05:00

In HPUX the parameter is called "Max PE per PV" .. I suspect there is somethink similar even if AIX have PPs instead of PEs ;-)

2 Intern

 • 

385 Posts

April 4th, 2008 05:00

We will have a pre-migration pristine copy at both our R1 and R2 location - that is not the problem. The back-out is not the issue in this case - it is simply the timing/process for the data migration.

I am trying to figure-out how to improve the actual data migration process with unfortunately limited knowledge of the database environment.

Timing wise we are talking about a process which is being estimated at 10+ hours which should only take 2-3 hours if we move data one time instead of the process of build data base, dump data, reload data which drags out the process...

9 Legend

 • 

20.4K Posts

April 4th, 2008 05:00

i am not sure how far away your R2 box is ..but if they are so concerned ..maybe you can setup some clones for them and clone it before the upgrade ..so you have a fast way to roll back should the migration go south and they want to be assured they have their pre-migration pristine copy?

9 Legend

 • 

20.4K Posts

April 4th, 2008 06:00

maybe they are striping in LVM ..can't mirror then.

2 Intern

 • 

2.8K Posts

April 4th, 2008 15:00

Yes you are right .. in HPUX world a striped lvol can't be also mirrored .. I don't really know if AIX have the same "features" ;-)
No Events found!

Top