Announcement Banner
UNSOLVED

AGnett

updated

17 years ago

A

AGnett

2 Posts

0

1112

July 22nd, 2009 14:00

Swapping SAN drives using PowerPath

Hi all, first time in.

I've been given the task of changing SAN drives to consolidate wasted space. Forgive me if I don't have all the details (I can get them) but the previous admin is no longer employed. We are running RHE4 with Oracle Database. Could someone point me in the right direction? I'm sure of the basics:

Stop the Powerpath service
Prep the new smaller drives
Swap drives
Verify mapping
Migrate data
Restart Powerpath service

If I am way off, feel free to correct me. I learn fast.
  • dynamox

    11 Legend

    •

    20419 Posts

    •

    87439 Points

    642

    0

    Posted July 22nd, 2009 18:00

    welcome AGnett,


    are these ASM devices or you are using regular LVM ? How are you planning on migrating the data (cpio , rsync ... ? ). What type of array is it on ?
  • AGnett

    2 Posts

    642

    0

    Posted July 22nd, 2009 19:00

    LVM
    RAID 5
    Migation (not sure)
  • dynamox

    11 Legend

    •

    20419 Posts

    •

    87439 Points

    642

    0

    Posted July 23rd, 2009 05:00

    i've never tried this on Linux but seems like "lvconvert" could do the job. A simpler solution would be present new smaller devices, build new volume group/logical volume. Shutdown Oracle, cpio data files from old logical volume to new logical volume. Unmount old and new logical volumes and remount new logical volumes under the old mount point names. Also don't forget to fix /etc/fstab to point to new volume group/ logical volumes.
  • soncao01

    12 Posts

    642

    0

    Posted September 4th, 2009 16:00

  • SKT2

    2 Intern

    •

    1340 Posts

    642

    0

    Posted September 20th, 2009 00:00

    Pvmove is a valid strategy, but remember to MAKE SURE YOUR BACKUPS ARE GOOD before starting a pvmove-style migration. If something unexpected happens while pvmove is running (like power going out, or someone tripping over the storage cables) it is possible that your VG will fail to come back up... in which case re-creating the VG from scratch and restoring the data from backups will very probably be the quickest way to get the system back to normal.

    Of course, having a pvmove running will eat a big slice of your disk I/O capacity, so you will want to do that at a time when your system is otherwise as idle as possible.

    pvmove is design to modify physical volumes collection under the existing logical volume. If you google this command, you will find enough evidence that even without power outage and system failure, the procedure is NOT production ready.

    So its up to you to chose.I wont take a chance in PROD