PowerHA Supported Hardware

This document contains information about the POWER systems, IBM storage, adapters, and AIX levels currently supported by versions of HACMP 5.4.1 through PowerHA 7.1. This is a compilation of the official support flashes.

Historically, newer versions of PowerHA have inherited device support from previous versions, unless specific support was removed by the product. Over time this has not been common to remove support for very old hardware. Technically, if it was supported in the past, and the hardware can run a version of AIX that is supported by the current version of PowerHA, then it is supported.

Since PowerHA 7.1 is not supported on any AIX level before 6.1.6, if the hardware is not supported on 6.1.6, then by definition PowerHA 7.1 would not support it either. Also, if the hardware has not made any statement of support for AIX 7.1, though the table may show PowerHA supports it, it is not valid until such support is stated. It is my intention to make it as complete as possible at the time of writing; however it only focuses on hardware support from the last five year or so. This consists mainly of POWER5 and above.

All POWER5 and above systems are supported on AIX 7.1 and HACMP 5.4.1 and above. The specific HACMP/PowerHA requirements for AIX 7.1 support and are listed below:

• HACMP 5.4.1 SP10

• PowerHA 5.5 SP7

• PowerHA 6.1 SP3

• PowerHA 7.1

Full software support details are always in the official support flash. The support flashes are usually available for five years and can be found via the link below. However, in the following tables the devices are linked to the official corresponding support flash.

http://www-03.ibm.com/support/techdocs/atsmastr.nsf/WebAllDocs2/?Search&Query=[HTMLDocumentName=WM_Flash]+AND+[CurrentAuthor=Shawn%20Bodily]+AND+[Var_OpSys=1013]&Start=1&Count=100&SearchOrder=4&DateSearch=1&AdvPage=AdvSearch&SearchMax=10000

POWER Systems

POWER5

POWER6

Blade support does include support for both IVM and IVE on both POWER6 and POWER7 blades. The following cards are supported in the P6 and P7 blades:

8240 Emulex 8Gb FC Expansion Card (CIOv)

8241 QLogic 4Gb FC Expansion Card (CIOv)

8242 QLogic 8Gb Fibre Channel Expansion Card (CIOv)

8243 Broadcom 2-port Gb Ethernet Expansion Card (CIOv)

8246 SAS Connectivity Card (CIOv)

8251 Emulex 4Gb FC Expansion Card (CFFv)

8252 QLogic combo Ethernet and 4 Gb Fibre Channel Expansion Card (CFFh)

8271 QLogic Ethernet/8Gb FC Expansion Card (CFFh)

8291 Broadcom 4-port 1 Gigabit Ethernet Expansion Card (CFFh/PCI-E)

IBM Storage

It is common to use multipathing drivers with storage. If utilizing MPIO, SDD, and/or SDDPCM on any PowerHA controlled storage, it is a requirement to use enhanced concurrent volume groups (ECVGs). This requirement also applies to vSCSI and NPIV devices.

Fiber Channel

DS Units

DS5100 and DS5300 Notes:

· These storage units support MPIO only.

· Testing was performed with DS5100/5300 Microcode levels 7.30.21 and 7.36.08

· This support includes using SDDPCM, with the caveat that SDDPCM support requires the use of enhanced concurrent volume groups.

DS4700 and DS4800 Notes:

· This support announcement is for the addition of MPIO support. These units have been supported since 2005 using RDAC.

· Testing was performed with DS4700/4800 Microcode levels 7.10.23 and 7.15.07

· This support includes using SDDPCM, with the caveat that SDDPCM support requires the use of enhanced concurrent volume groups.

Using MPIO with PowerHA always requires the use of enhanced concurrent vgs. Also, in general, support for DS units require switch attachment. Otherwise if direct attaching, ONLY cluster nodes must be connected to them, AND the use of ECVGs is required.

XIV

PowerHA requires XIV microcode level 10.0.1 or later.

San Volume Controller (SVC)