SMIT Help Information

Note: The information contained in this article is structured as help information for the System Management Interface Tool (SMIT) and is not intended for general reading.

san_rep_group

Indicates the name of the SAN Replication group that includes the SAN Replication device. The attribute is valid only if san_rep_device is set to yes or detected and the device is a member of a group.

synch_mode

Determines the behavior of a Path Control Module (PCM) that relates to synching a suspended SAN replcation device. The attribute is only valid if san_rep_device is set to yes. A successful synchronize operation of a suspended SAN replication device copies the latest data from the source to destination and resumes data mirroring for the device. The synchronize operation fails, if the following conditions are true:

If the path from the source to destination does not exist.
The destination or source is in an invalid or failed state.
The destination has a newer copy of data than the source.

This attribute does not prevent the synchronize operation outside of the AIX partition. The following are the values of this attribute:

application: PCM issues a synchronize operation to the SAN replication device, if requested by the software that manages the SAN replication device.
pcm: PCM might issue a synchronize operation to the SAN replication device, if the device recovers from the event that moved the device to a suspended state.

swap_policy field

Determines the behavior of a PCM related to swap or failover operation of a SAN replication device. This attribute is only valid if san_rep_device is set to "yes". A successful swap operation allows read or write access to a LUN in a SAN Replication device, that was previously a destination (or secondary) LUN for the replication. A swap operation might be necessary to maintain access to media on a SAN Replication device, when access is lost to the source (primary) LUN. A successful swap operation does not guarantee that a SAN Replication device is not moved to a suspended state where it no longer synchronize data with destination LUNs. The swap operation might fail if there is no access to one of the destination (secondary) LUNs, or the destination LUN is in an invalid or failed state. This attribute does not prevent the swap operation from being performed outside of this AIX partition. The following are the values of this attribute:

application: The PCM issues a swap (failover) operation of a SAN replication device only if requested by the software managing the SAN Replication device. If a swap is required to maintain media access and the swap operation is not performed by the time swap_delay expires, the read or write I/O to the device fails.
pcm: The PCM issues a swap (failover) operation of a SAN replication device if requested by the software managing the SAN Replication device. If a swap is required to maintain media access and is not performed by the time swap_delay has expired, the PCM attempts to issue a swap operation to maintain media access to the device.

san_rep_dev

This attribute indicates whether the disk is a SAN replication device. The following are the values of this attribute:

No: Indicates that the disk is not a PPRC disk.
Supported: Indicates that the device is not configured in AIX operating system as a SAN replication device. Also, it indicates that the device meets the requirements to be configured as a SAN replication device, but is not currently setup as a SAN replication device on the Storage Subsystem.
Detected: Indicates that the device is not configured in AIX operating system as a SAN replication device. AIX has detected that the device meets the requirements to be configured as a SAN replication device, and is currently setup as a SAN replication device on the Storage Subsystem.
Yes: Indicates that the device is a PPRC disk.

swap_delay field

When a swap operation is necessary to maintain media access to a SAN replication device, the PCM checks the swap delay value. The swap delay is amount of time in seconds the PCM waits before performing the action determined by the swap_policy attribute. This attribute is only valid if san_rep_device is set to "yes". This value does not prevent the application that manages the SAN replication device from either initiating a swap or failing a device before the swap delay expires. If the swap delay is set to "0", no delay is taken and PCM takes the immediate action based on the attribute value of the swap_policy. There might be an additional delay before the PCM is notified, or detects that a swap operation is necessary to maintain media access to the device.

san_rep_cfg field

Determines how a synchronous PPRC (Peer-to-Peer Remote Copy) device is defined and configured in AIX operating system.

none [Default]: Configures LUNs in a synchronous PPRC device as separate logical disk instances (hdisk#).
new: Defines and configures the synchronous PPRC device as a single logical instance (hdisk#). The device is defined and configured only when there are no existing disk instances that match one or more of the LUNs in the PPRC device.
new_and_existing: Defines and configures the synchronous PPRC device as a single logical instance (hdisk#). If a logical disk instance does not exist representing the PPRC device, a new disk instance is defined.
migrate_disk: Defines and configures the synchronous PPRC device as a single hdisk instance, and uses the selected logical disk instance (hdisk#) for the device. The operation is only supported on devices which have san_rep_device set to either supported or detected. If the targeted device has san_rep_device set to supported, the operation works only if SAN Replication is set up on the storage since the last time disk was configured. This operation is supported on disks that are opened and in use by AIX operating systems, if the device is not used as a repository disk within a cluster.
revert_disk: Configures an existing synchronous PPRC device logical disk instance (hdisk#) as non-PPRC device hdisk instance. This operation is only supported on devices which have san_rep_device set to yes. The logical device name and special file of the targeted disk instance remains unchanged. The primary LUN (source LUN) for SAN replication device is used for the reverted hdisk instance. If the primary (source) LUN is not found or is unknown to the host, the secondary (destination) LUN is used for the reverted hdisk instance. This operation is supported on disks that are opened and in use by AIX operating systems, if the device is not used as a repository disk within a cluster.