Mirroring in
AIX is pretty straightforward if you understand the logical volume management it has built in.
If you "lsvg -l rootvg" you will see each logical volume in the volume group. These mostly coincide with filesystems, but are sometimes used as raw areas of storage (eg hd5 the boot lv). Note the LP and PP columns.
Each logical volume is made up of a number of logical partitions (LPs).
Each logical partition is matched with a single physical partition (1 LP = 1 PP).
When a logical volume is mirrored one more PP is related to a single LP (1 LP = 2 PP).
So mirroring is done by increasing the number of PP's related to the LP's making up a logical volume.
Command used to make copies (aka mirror a logical volume):
mklvcopy
Of course smit can help out here, although I prefer a more controlled manual approach.
smitty mirrorvg
If you are planning on mirroring rootvg there are several gotcha's to keep in mind.
- Consider two non-mirrored primary and secondary dump areas (sysdumpdev) on separate disks
- Consider mirroring paging hd6 (there are pros/cons here not sure which is best) as it will impact performance, but will improve availability.
A quick google for "mirror rootvg
aix" will get you several hits for a procedure to.