VIOS iSCSI vs. Fibre Channel with NPIV

I just converted an LPAR from using Virtual SCSI under VIOS to a Fibre
Channel with NPIV. Steps were simple:

1) Add virtual Fibre channel adapter in VIOS and on the target

2) Configure VIOS to use one of the Fibre adapters (not one with an
NPIV attached tape)

3) Verify zoning on the Fibre switch

4) Create the volumes on the V3700 and add them to the new host

5) Add the newly arrived drives (except the first one) to the partition

6) End allocation to the iSCSI drives

7) Drain the iSCSI drives and remove them from the partition in SST.

8) Drop the partition and boot into DST

9) Copy the old iSCSI load source to the Fibre attached drive (new load
source now on V3700)

10) End the partition

11) Change the partition profile to use the new Fibre adapter as the load
source

12) Remove the iSCSI mappings from the partition

13) Boot the partition.

14) Done.

It was too easy. Total down time was about an hour to copy the load source
and reboot. Outside of pure copy data time, 90 minutes.



Now the partition seems to be about 50% faster. This system is amazing.



V7R1 with TR8 installed

VIOS at 2.2.1.4 (which is old)

HMC at 7.7.7.0.3



--

Jim Oberholtzer

Chief Technical Architect

Agile Technology Architects