Power Systems for AIX III: Advanced Administration and Problem Determination

This course provides advanced AIX system administrator skills with a focus on availability and problem determination. It provides detailed knowledge of the ODM database where AIX maintains so much configuration information. It shows how to monitor for and deal with AIX problems. There is special focus on dealing with Logical Volume Manager problems, including procedures for replacing disks. Several techniques for minimizing the system maintenance window are covered. It also covers how to migrate AIX Workload Partitions to another system with minimal disruption. While the course includes some AIX 6.1 enhancements, most of the material is applicable to prior releases of AIX.

Training Paths that reference this course are:

AIX Users and System Administration

This is an advanced course for AIX system administrators, system support, and contract support individuals with at least six months of experience in AIX.

You should have basic AIX System Administration skills. These skills include: Use of the Hardware Management Console (HMC) to activate a logical partition to run AIX and to access the AIX system console Install an AIX operating system from an already configured NIM server Implementation of AIX backup and recovery Manage additional software and base operating system updates Familiarity with management tools such as SMIT Understand how to manage file systems, logical volumes, and volume groups Mastery of the UNIX user interface, which include use of the vi editor, command execution, input and output redirection, and the use of utilities such as grep These skills can be developed through experience or by formal training. The recommended training course to obtain these prerequisite skills is: Power Systems for AIX II: AIX Implementation and Administration (AN12G) and their prerequisites If the student has AIX system administration skills, but is not familiar with the LPAR environment, those skills can be obtained by attending the following course: Power Systems for AIX I: LPAR Configuration and Planning (AN11G)

1. Day 1
1. Welcome
2. Unit 1: Advanced AIX administration overview Exercise 1: Problem diagnostic information Unit 2: The Object Data Manager
3. Exercise 2: The Object Data Manager
4. (optional) Exercise 2: Object Data Manager, Part 3 Unit 3: Error monitoring
2. Day 2
1. Exercise 3: Error monitoring
2. Unit 4: Network Installation Manager basics
3. Exercise 4: Basic Network Installation Manager configuration Unit 5: System initialization: Accessing a boot image Exercise 5: System initialization: Accessing a boot image
3. Day 3
1. Unit 6: System initialization: rc.boot and inittab
2. Exercise 6: System initialization: rc.boot and inittab Unit 7: LVM metadata and related problems Exercise 7: LVM metadata and related problems
3. (optional) Exercise 7: LVM metadata and related problems, Part 6 Unit 8: Disk management procedures, Topic 1
4. Exercise 8: Disk management procedures, Part 1
4. Day 4
1. Unit 8: Disk management procedures, Topic 2
2. Exercise 8: Disk management procedures, Parts 2 and 3 Unit 9: Install and cloning techniques, Topic 1
3. Exercise 9: Install and cloning techniques, Part 1 Unit 9: Install and cloning techniques, Topic 2 Exercise 9: Install and cloning techniques, Part 2 Unit 10: Advanced backup techniques, Topic 1 Exercise 10: Advanced backup techniques, Part 1
5. (Optional) Exercise 10: Advanced backup techniques, Part 2 Unit 10: Advanced backup techniques, Topic 2
1. Exercise 10: Advanced backup techniques, Parts 3 and 4
6. Day 5
1. Unit 10: Advanced backup techniques, Topic 3
2. Unit 11: Diagnostics
3. Exercise 11: Diagnostics
4. Unit 12: The AIX system dump facility Exercise 12: The AIX system dump facility
5. Wrap up / Evaluations