AIX SAN Management I: Administration

Unit 1: AIX in a SAN Environment

• Describe IBM SAN product offerings
• Discuss basic aspects of SAN interaction with Power systems
• Describe course lab environment
• Use AIX commands to identify system resources

Unit 2: AIX Device Management

• Discuss VIO server architecture as it relates to Fibre Channel
• Describe how to configure virtual Fibre Channel adapters
• Utilize VIO server commands to identify Fibre Channel resources
• Differentiate between physical and virtual Fibre Channel resources

Unit 3: SAN Boot

• Interpret AIX boot strategies using SAN
• Identify resources required to complete a SAN boot
• Configure a SAN attached hdisk as a boot device

Unit 4: Storage Server Design Concepts

• Define storage server architecture models
  • Active/Passive
  • Active/Active
• Discuss common terminology used with storage servers
• Identify storage manager functions

Unit 5: SAN Fabric Concepts and Operations

• Summarize SAN fabric design elements
• Describe SAN addressing
• Discuss virtual FC resources

Unit 6: Fibre Channel Switching Configuration

• Describe basic FC switch configuration elements
• Navigate switch environment
• Define zoning process

Unit 7: Virtual I/O Server

• Discuss VIO server architecture as it relates to Fibre Channel
• Describe how to configure virtual Fibre Channel adapters
• Utilize VIO server commands to identify Fibre Channel resources
• Differentiate between physical and virtual Fibre Channel resources

Unit 8: SAN Performance Monitoring Considerations

• Identify the I/O layers where queuing is handled
• View and change a FC disk and FC disk adapter's tuning attributes
• Monitor and tune the queue depth of disks and disk adapters
• Identify the filemon reports that display I/O activity
• Test I/O throughput using:
  • The time and dd commands
  • The ndisk program (part of the nstress package)

Unit 9: SAN Problem Determination

• Describe the FC problem determination process
• Identify the FC path selection algorithms
• Use the iostat -m command to display path priorities
• List the attributes that are used for FC health checking
• Define the FC reservation policies that can be used
• Explain the purpose of fast I/O failure and dynamic tracking