I was at a meeting with other storage admin’s where they talked about never using NPIV with AIX servers because AIX can’t handle it if the N-Port changes due to a N-Port failover in AG mode. I’ve never seen that. In testing our AIX boxes handled the failover without any problems. Part of the reason may be because I’ve enabled Dynamic Tracking and Fast I/O Failover on these fibre adapters. Dynamic Tracking allows for N-Port ID changes, and Fast I/O Failover makes the failure of a Fibre adapter happen faster, which can be good if you are using a multi-path driver. It’s a simple change, but requires either a reboot or bringing down the adapter for the changes. Here’s the command to make the changes in the ODM, which will be applied the next time you reboot:
chdev -l fscsi1 -a dyntrk='yes' -a fc_err_recov='fast_fail' '-P'The other, and better, option is to build F-Port trunks to front your AG switch, which preserves the PID in case of a ISL failure, but that requires a trunking license on your switches.