IBM AIX Continuous Availability Features - IBM Redbooks

operations) without affecting production on the running instance. Migration to later releases of
AIX will be supported when they are available.
The file systems /, /usr, /var, /opt, and /home, along with the boot logical volume, must exist
privately in each instance of BOS. The administrator has the ability to share or keep private
all other data in the rootvg. As a general rule, shared data should be limited to file systems
and logical volumes containing data not affected by an upgrade or modification of private
data.
When updating the non-running BOS instance, it is best to first update the running BOS
instance with the latest available version of multibos (which is in the bos.rte.bosinst fileset).
Additional details on the multibos utility are available in the man pages and in AIX 5L Version
5.3 Commands Reference, Volume 3, a-c, SC23-4890. This publication is also available
online at the following site:
http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/pseries/v5r3/topic/com.ibm.aix.cmds/doc/aixcmds3/a
ixcmds3.pdf
2.5.5 Network Installation Manager (NIM)
The Network Installation Manager (NIM) allows you to centralize installation administration for
multiple machines and schedule those installations to minimize disruptions and
inconvenience.
► Network Installation Management can be used for centralized installation and software
administration of your AIX systems.
► You can choose to install all networked machines at the same time, or stagger those
installations.
► Within NIM, you can remain at your console while installing AIX on remote machines. You
can even run typical installations unattended.
► You can install each machine with unique options, or install all machines with consistent
options.
► You can make a system backup to a NIM server by using the mksysb command, and use
that backup to install another machine (cloning), as follows:
smitty nim
For details and examples about how to use NIM to enhance your system availability, refer to
the IBM Redbooks publication NIM from A to Z in AIX 5L, SG24-7296.
2.5.6 Logical Volume Manager-related options
This section discusses Logical Volume Manager (LVM)-related options.
LVM RAID options
LVM supports three software level RAID options:
► RAID0 w/ LVM striping
► RAID1 - LVM mirroring 1:1 (two copies) or 1:1:1 (three copies)
► RAID10 (0+1) - LVM striping plus mirroring
For non-SAN based storage environments, it is quite common to utilize AIX LVM’s ability to
mirror data. This is especially true for the operating system disks (rootvg). By mirroring
rootvg, this allows AIX to continue operating in the event of a rootvg disk failure. This feature,
42 IBM AIX Continuous Availability Features