0516-1368 error with snapshotvg

Resolving The Problem

Can we extend the snapshot volume group we have?.

For example if we have a snapshotvg named migvg can we add a new disk to this VG to do any task on it for example to extend the filesystem.

# lsvg migvg
VOLUME GROUP: migvg VG IDENTIFIER: 00f825c000004c000000015a84571f66
VG STATE: active PP SIZE: 128 megabyte(s)
VG PERMISSION: read/write TOTAL PPs: 479 (61312 megabytes)
MAX LVs: 256 FREE PPs: 318 (40704 megabytes)
LVs: 3 USED PPs: 161 (20608 megabytes)
OPEN LVs: 2 QUORUM: 1 (Disabled)
TOTAL PVs: 1 VG DESCRIPTORS: 2
STALE PVs: 0 STALE PPs: 0
ACTIVE PVs: 1 AUTO ON: yes
MAX PPs per VG: 32512
MAX PPs per PV: 1016 MAX PVs: 32
LTG size (Dynamic): 256 kilobyte(s) AUTO SYNC: no
HOT SPARE: no BB POLICY: relocatable
SNAPSHOT VG: yes PRIMARY VG: newvg
PV RESTRICTION: none INFINITE RETRY: no
DISK BLOCK SIZE: 512 CRITICAL VG: no
FS SYNC OPTION: no


You can export this volume group and import it again, but can I extend the VG to do a mirror on it?
Answer: No, if you try to do so you will face the following error :

# extendvg migvg hdisk2
0516-1368 extendvg: This command is not allowed on a snapshot volume group.
0516-792 extendvg: Unable to extend volume group.

This because it is Snapshotvg, But can we convert the snapshotvg back to a normal VG?.

Answer: No, because the type of the VG is written on the VGDA and there is no options on the chvg command doing that and convert it again to Normal VG.

Scenario why we can face this error?.

Migrating data from place to place is one of the most important tasks, for example migrating data from old power server like P6 to new Power Server P8. One way to do that by creating a mirror from the volume group and then split the VG , then move the splitted VG to the new target server and try to import the volume and start working on it.
Here if we forget to use splitvg without -i , the produced VG is snapshot VG and when send this snapshot VG to the target server you face such errors.
The only solution then , is to send the snapshotvg back to original server and run joinvg to Joins a snapshot volume group back into its original volume group. Then we can run #slpitvg -i to generate a normal VG that we can move to a new server and for more info. on how to do that?.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=isg3T1010934