Hi all,

This isn't exactly the same issue as this thread was dealing with before
but it seems appropriate.

I have a customer who was in serious need of some hardware and hardware
setup redesign.  Essentially, they had 30 gb of disk all in the system
volume set and wanted to add 20 gb more and go to multiple volume sets.

This thread previously addressed how to completely exchange all disks.
This post will illustrate how to add new disks and completely redesign the
volume sets.

What follows is a checklist which can be used to do this:

1. Perform two full system backups and verify each. _____
2. Create a new sysgen tape. _____
3. Check the new sysgen tape with CHECKSLT. _____
4. Copy @[log in to unmask] to a separate tape and verify. _____
5. Verify all disk drives configured and working properly. _____
6. Create a BULDACCT job for each new volume set with just the accounts
destined for that volume set. _____
7. Verify that a current full BULDACCT exists on tape. _____
8. Shut down the system. _____
9. Restart the system. _____
10. From the ISL prompt, INSTALL. _____
11. In VOLUTIL, scratch all drives except for ldev 1. _____
12. In VOLUTIL, do "NEWVOL volset:member#  ldev# 100 100" for each volume
in the system volume set (other than ldev 1). _____
13. In VOLUTIL, do "NEWSET volset member# ldev# 100 100" for the master
volume for each new set. __
14. In VOLUTIL, do "NEWVOL volset:member# ldev# 100 100" for each volume in
each new
set. _____
15. Restore SYS account files with ;KEEP;SHOW;OLDDATE options. _____
16. Stream all BULDACCT jobs to create accounts structure. _____
17. Restore all files with ;KEEP;SHOW;OLDDATE options. _____
18. Spot-verify applications.
19. Once everything appears OK, run a BULDACCT. _____
20. Perform a full system backup. _____


Our project was a bit more involved in the we were also installing a DLT
backup using Orbit software, as well as installing the new 4.3 gb
half-height drives into a Jamaica enclosure at a 5.0 pp2 level.

Everything worked except step 15 where we were going to restore from a
separate tape with @[log in to unmask]  We had neglected to verify that tape and found
that we had a bad tape.  The reason we did this separate tape is for
additional comfort-factor since we were relying on a third-party backup
product.  Call me paranoid but I like the feeling of knowing I can get at
least the operating system back up without third-party intervention.  As it
turned out, I had to rely on the Orbit tapes anyway!  The moral of this
story is "Be sure to verify all tapes you will restore from!".

A couple of rules of thumb we followed:

1.  Don't mix unlike-size drives on a single volume set.  This is mostly an
operational consideration.  We wanted to avoid having the small volumes in
the set fill up first with plenty of space left on the larger volumes.

2.  Put the more critical user accounts on the faster, newer disk drives.
In our case
we had a mix of 1.3, 2.0, 4.0 and 4.3 disks so we had to pay attention to
this.

3.  Set up the volume sets in a business-logical manner.  In other words,
put accounts
in a volume set with other, related accounts, if possible.  In our case,
this was simple since this customer is essentially a service bureau for
many clients.  We were
able to clearly isolate the volume sets along client boundaries.

4.  Since we were completely redesigning the disk environment and doing an
INSTALL, be sure to have at least two verified backups.  With the exception
of the problem already mentioned, this worked well.

5.  Don't be afraid to have a volume set made up of drives configured on
multiple controller paths.  In our case, we had three single-ended I/O
controller cards.  On a few of the sets, we had drives from each.

Hope this helps...


Bill Lancaster