Npiv

n VIO server:
root@vios1: / # lsdev -Cc adapter
fcs0      Available 01-00 8Gb PCI Express Dual Port FC Adapter (df1000f114108a03)
fcs1      Available 01-01 8Gb PCI Express Dual Port FC Adapter(df1000f114108a03)
vfchost0  Available       Virtual FC Server Adapter
vfchost1  Available       Virtual FC Server Adapter
vfchost2  Available       Virtual FC Server Adapter
vfchost3 Available       Virtual FC Server Adapter
vfchost4  Available       Virtual FC Server Adapter

on VIO client:
root@aix21: /root # lsdev -Cc adapter
fcs0 Available C6-T1 Virtual Fibre Channel Client Adapter
fcs1Available C7-T1 Virtual Fibre Channel Client Adapter

Two unique WWPNs (world-wide port names) starting with the letter "c" are generated by the HMC for the VFC client adapter. The pair is criticaland both must be zoned if Live Partition Migration is planned to be used. The virtual I/O client partition uses one WWPN to log into the SAN at any given time. The other WWPN is used when the clientlogical partition is moved to another managed system using PowerVM Live Partition Mobility.

lscfg -vpl fcsX will show only the first WWPN
fcstat fcsX will show only the active WWPN

Both of themare showing only 1 WWPN but fcstat will show always the active WWPN which is in use (which will change after an LPM), however lscfg will show as a static value the 1st WWPN assigned to the HBA only.One VFC client adapter per physical port per client partition and maximum 64 active VFC client adapter per physical port. There is always one-to-one relationship between the virtual Fibre Channelclient adapter and the virtual Fibre Channel server adapter.

The difference between traditional redundancy with SCSI adapters and the NPIV technology using virtual Fibre Channel adapters is that theredundancy occurs on the client, because only the client recognizes the disk. The Virtual I/O Server is essentially just a pass-through managing the data transfer through the POWER hypervisor....