Physical volumes

A physical volume is a single physical disk or a logicalunit that is presented by a storage array.

The physical volume is partitioned to provide the AIX® operating system with a way of managing how data is mapped to the volume. The following figure shows a conventional use of physical partitions within a physical volume.

Figure 1. Physical partitions on a physical volume
Physical partitions on a physical volume

When planning shared physical volumes, ensure that:

  • The list of PVIDs for a volume group is identical on all cluster nodes that have access to the shared physical volume.
  • The setting for the concurrent attribute of the volume group is consistent across all related cluster nodes.

Physical volume encryption

start of changeStarting with PowerHA® SystemMirror® Version 7.2.8 and IBM® AIX 7.3 with Technology Level 1, you can encrypt the physical volume by using platform keystore (PKS) authentication method. During an I/O operation, data that is written to the physical volume is encrypted and data that is read from the physical volume is decrypted. For more information about encrypting physical volumes, see Encrypting physical volumes.end of change

start of change PowerHA SystemMirror Version 7.2.8, or later, supports the following type of authentication (key-protection) method to enable physical volume encryption.
platform keystore (PKS)
Starting with HMC Version 9.2.950 with system firmware level FW950, the PKS feature in PowerVM® creates an encrypted nonvolatile keystore. The PKS feature provides logical partitions with more capabilities to protect the sensitive information. The total partition size that is allocated for a logical partition (LPAR) for the PKS feature is in the range of 4 KB to 64 KB. Before you configure PKS as an authentication method in PowerHA SystemMirror, you must enable the Hardware Management Console (HMC) keystore.
end of change