PH39057: UPGRADE OF THE ACCELERATOR ON Z TO MAINTENANCE LEVEL 7.5.6 MAY FAIL WITH MSGS FOUND IN THE HMC MESSAGES VIEW

APAR status

• Closed as documentation error.

Error description

• The upgrade of IBM Db2 Analytics Accelerator on Z may fail with
  messages such as
  "sfdisk: /dev/dasda: does not contain a recognized partition
   table"
  found in the Hardware Management Console (HMC) Operating
  System Messages view.
  
  The issue occurs when using thin-provisioned volumes: the
  initialization of the root volume will fail, so the accelerator
  software stack cannot be installed.
  
  The issue was introduced by incorporating the latest version of
  the Secure Service Container (SSC) in maintenance level 7.5.6.
  This SSC version contains a new version of a tool to format
  disks:
  - Before 7.5.6, this tool always performed a full formatting of
    the disk so that the complete size of the disk was allocated,
    even if the disks used were initially defined as 'thin-
    provisioned' (also known as Extent Space Efficient - ESE) by
    the storage system.
  - The new version of the tool as used in 7.5.6 changed the
    default formatting settings to support thin-provisioned
    disks but omitted additional commands so that the disks can
    afterwards be accessed by the accelerator. Subsequently the
    installation procedures fail.
  
  
  Additional keywords:
  TS006165977 TS006197277 TS006120514 SSC THIN-PROVISIONED VOLUME
  GH...everest/customer-cases/issues/220
  

Local fix

• To avoid the upgrade failure, only use fully-provisioned
  storage volumes for installation of maintenance level 7.5.6
  and subsequent use of the accelerator. This applies to all
  kind of devices (data, boot, and runtime).
  
  Until the issue will have been fixed by IBM, Extent Space
  Efficient (ESE) devices must not be used with Accelerator on Z.
  Instead, ESE or thin provisioning must be deactivated by the
  Storage Administrator for all disks to be used with the
  accelerator.
  

Problem summary

• Problem summary:
  The upgrade of IBM Db2 Analytics Accelerator 7.5 on Z to
  maintenance level 7.5.6 will fail if the boot disk used is a
  thin-provisioned (ESE) volume. Maintenance level 7.5.6 only
  supports fully-provisioned volumes (not ESE volumes) for the
  boot disk, the data pool, and the runtime pool.
  
  Users affected:
  Customers of IBM Db2 Analytics Accelerator 7.5 on Z trying to
  use ESE / thin-provisioned volumes when upgrading to maintenance
  level 7.5.6.
  

Problem conclusion

• The issue has been fixed with maintenance level 7.5.7. The fix
  introduces kind of toleration of thin-provisioned volumes by
  formatting them completely. This applies to volumes used for the
  boot disk, the data pool, and the runtime pool.
  
  Upgrade your accelerator maintenance level to 7.5.7 or higher.
  

Temporary fix

Comments

APAR Information

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Fix information

Applicable component levels