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Table of Contents

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Introduction

This section describes how to migrate your HP Alpha system to CHARON-AXP. We will use a sample HP AlphaServer ES40 system running OpenVMS to demonstrate the migration procedure. The process is similar for all CHARON-AXP models.

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Creating CHARON Virtual Machine

As a first step it is required to create a CHARON Virtual Machine (VM) using the CHARON Virtual Machines Manager in the following way:

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Specify the HP Alpha model to be emulated and the name of the VM then press the "Create" button:


The VM will be created:

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Select the VM from the left pane and switch to the "VM Configuration" tab.

In order to reproduce the target HP Alpha configuration, press the "Edit Configuration file" button:

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(info) Alternatively it is possible to select the target CHARON VM and press the "Edit Configuration" button.

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Collecting information about the source HP Alpha system

The next step is to determine the exact configuration of the HP Alpha hardware in order to create the CHARON VM configuration file.

Turn on the source HP Alpha system. At the ">>>" prompt, issue the "show device" command:

>>>show device

sys0.0.0.0.0 SYS0 System ROOT Device
ewa0.0.0.1.1 EWA0 F8-D1-11-00-67-E6
pka0.0.0.2.1 PKA0 Q-Logic/ISP PCI SCSI HBA
pga0.0.0.3.1 PGA0 WWN 1000-0000-0248-C550
pqa0.0.0.15.0 PQA0 ALi 1553C Integrated IDE Controller
pqb0.0.1.15.0 PQB0 ALi 1553C Integrated IDE Controller
dqa0.0.0.15.0 DQA0 TSSTcorpCDDVDW SH-222BB
dka0.0.0.2.1 DKA0 DEC RZ28 (C)DEC
dka100.1.0.2.1 DKA100 DEC RZ22 (C)DEC
dka200.2.0.2.1 DKA200 DEC RZ23 (C)DEC
mka600.6.0.2.1 MKA600 Virtual SCSI Tape

>>>


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To get more detailed information, boot OpenVMS and issue the "show device /full" command:

$ show device /full

Disk

PFCAXP$DKA0:,

device

type

RZ28,

is

online,

mounted,

file-oriented

device,

shareable,

available

to

cluster,

error

logging

is

enabled.
...

Disk

PFCAXP$DKA100:,

device

type

RZ22,

is

online,

file-oriented

device,

shareable,

available

to

cluster,

error

logging

is

enabled.
...

Disk

PFCAXP$DKA200:,

device

type

RZ23,

is

online,

file-oriented

device,

shareable,

available

to

cluster,

error

logging

is

enabled.
...

Disk

PFCAXP$DQA0:,

device

type

TSSTcorpCDDVDW

SH-222BB,

is

online,

file-oriented

device,

shareable,

available

to

cluster,

error

logging

is

enabled.
...

Disk

$1$DGA0:

(PFCAXP),

device

type

RZ24,

is

online,

file-oriented

device,

shareable,

available

to

cluster,

error

logging

is

enabled.
...

Magtape

PFCAXP$MKA600:,

device

type

Virtual

SCSI

Tape,

is

online,

file-oriented

device,

available

to

cluster,

error

logging

is

enabled,

device

supports

fastskip

(per_io).
...

Terminal

OPA0:,

device

type

VT102,

is

online,

record-oriented

device,

carriage

control.
...

Device

EWA0:,

device

type

DE500,

is

online,

network

device,

device

is

a

template

only.
...

Device

FGA0:,

device

type

KGPSA

Fibre

Channel,

is

online,

shareable,

error

logging

is

enabled.
...

Device

PGA0:,

device

type

SCSI

FCP,

is

online,

error

logging

is

enabled.

...

Device

PKA0:,

device

type

Qlogic

ISP1020

SCSI

port,

is

online,

error

logging

is

enabled.
...

Device

$1$GGA32767:,

device

type

Generic

SCSI

device,

is

online,

shareable.

$


Info

If Tru64 UNIX V5 is running on the host system, it is recommended to use the following commands to get information on the host configuration:

CommandDescription
# /sbin/hwmgr view devices

Get detailed information about the host hardware configuration

# /sbin/hwmgr show scsi

Get specific information about the host SCSI controllers and attached disks

# /sbin/hwmgr view hierarchy

Get information about the host controllers

Please refer to the Tru64 UNIX User's Guide for more details.

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ControllerDevices on controllerDescription
KZPBA

-DKA0 (RZ28)
-DKA100 (RZ22)
-DKA200 (RZ23) 
-MKA600 (tape) 

SCSI disk/tape controller
KGPSA-CA-DGA0 (RZ24)FC disk controller
OPA0
System console

TSSTcorpCDDVDW SH-222BB

-DQA0IDE CD-ROM controller
EWA0
Network interface, MAC address: "F8-D1-11-00-67-E6"

...

>>>show mem

System Memory Resources on 5-FEB-2015 2018 09:29:16.42

Physical Memory Usage (pages): Total Free In Use Modified
Main Memory (512.00MB) 65536 56496 8610 430

...

>>>

...

To find out the exact types of controllers and other useful information refer to the source HP Alpha system documentation.

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Creation of the CHARON-AXP configuration file

Using the above information, the following parameters and values can be set in the configuration file:

#
# HP AlphaServer model: AlphaServer ES40 6/667
#

set session hw_model = AlphaServer_ES40
set ace cpu_architecture = EV67
set rom dsrdb[0] = 1820 system_name = "AlphaServer ES40 6/667"

...

#
# Override default System Serial Number, set it to "SN01234567"
#

set rom system_serial_number = SN01234567

#
# Specify RAM size: 512 Mb
#

set ram size=512

#
# Map OPA0 console to "Putty" terminal emulator (included in CHARON-AXP kit)
#

load virtual_serial_line set COM1 alias = OPA0 port = 10003 application = "putty -load OPA0 -P 10003"

#
# Сonnect the emulator's DQA0 to the host's ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive.
#

set ide container="\\.\CdRom0"

#
# Load optional DE500BA PCI Ethernet Adapter (EWA0) and map it to the "Charon" host network interface
#

load DE500BA/dec21x4x EWA interface=EWA0
load packet_port/chnetwrk EWA0 interface="connection:Charon"

#
# Load DEC-KZPBA SCSI controller and map it to 3 disk containers and 1 tape container
#

load KZPBA PKA scsi_id = 7

set PKA container[0] = "C:\My disks\bootable.vdisk"
set PKA container[100] = "C:\My disks\RZ22.vdisk"
set PKA container[200] = "C:\My disks\RZ23.vdisk"

set PKA container[600] = "C:\My tapes\my_tape.vtape" 

#
# Load DEC-KGPSA-CA PCI FC adapter and map it to a disk container
#

load KGPSA FGA

set FGA container[0] = "C:\My disks\RZ24.vdisk"

...

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Making disk images

In our example, possible mappings the mapping of the KZPBA SCSI controller include disk and tape images. The tape images have not to be manually created whereas the disk images have to be created as described below.

Our example creates disk images of the original physical type. In reality, this step is the best opportunity in the migration to provision bigger larger disks to get extra storage space.

Create special directories for storing the disk and tape images. Created The created directories are referenced in the sample configuration file above.

...

Start the "MkDisk" utility by pressing the "Virtual Disk Tool" button in the "Host Information & Utilities" tab of the CHARON Virtual Machines Manager:

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The following dialog will appear:

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Select "Alpha AXP" in the "Select System" drop-down menu, "SCSI" in the "All Controllers" drop-down menu and "RZ24" (for example) in the "Select Disk Type" drop-down menu.

...

Press then the "Create Disk Image" button:

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The utility will ask you to specify the output file name. Select the "C:\My disks" directory created just before (that has been created earlier, or create it directly in the dialog) , and press the "Save" button:

...

Repeat this sequence for the disks "RZ28.vdisk", "RZ22.vdisk" and "RZ23.vdisk". Place them in the same folder. 

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Installation of HP Alpha operating system

The next step is to transfer the data from the source HP Alpha system to CHARON-AXP. The easiest way to do this is via backup over the network but for this operation a bootable network-enabled operating system on a CHARON-AXP disk image or physical disk is needed.

...

(warning) DKA300 will be the disk where all the source disks will be copied so its size needs to be big large enough to store all the disk backup images.

...

Run the CHARON VM and boot from the CDROM named "dqa0" ("migration.cfg" is the configuration file we use in this example):

CHARON-AXP/ES40 for Windows x64 (AlphaServer ES40 6/667), Version 4.810.1810020200
(C) 2009-2016 2019 STROMASYS SA.
All rights reserved.

P00>>>boot dqa0

Install HP Alpha/VMS including DECnet on "dka400". The DECnet address must belong to the same area as the source HP Alpha system.

...

newvms$ INIT DKA300: SCRATCH
newvms$ MOUNT/SYSTEM/NOASSIST DKA300: SCRATCH

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Making remote backups

Now we are ready to create the disk backups of the source HP Alpha system on the CHARON VM.

...

Login to the source HP Alpha system. Stop all the batch queues, kick off the users, stop all the applications and close the databases if there are. The commands listed in SYS$MANAGER:SYSHUTDWN.COM may be helpful.  The goal is to close as many files as possible. The system disk will have several files opened (pagefile, swapfile, etc.) but and this is a normal situation.

(info) The use of the "SHOW DEVICE /FILES" command would be of help to list opened files on a disk.

In this example, the CHARON VM system is node 1.400.

Issue the following commands from the source HP Alpha. Let's assume its prompt is "source$ ":

source$ BACKUP/IMAGE/IGNORE=INTERLOCK DKA0: 1.400"username password"::DKA300:[000000]DKA0.BCK/SAVE
source$ BACKUP/IMAGE/IGNORE=INTERLOCK DKA100: 1.400"username password"::DKA300:[000000]DKA100.BCK/SAVE
source$ BACKUP/IMAGE/IGNORE=INTERLOCK DKA200: 1.400"username password"::DKA300:[000000]DKA200.BCK/SAVE 

Once When the backup procedure completesoperation will be completed, the disk "DKA300" of the CHARON VM will contain 3 savesets: "DKA0.BCK", "DKA100.BCK" and "DKA200.BCK"

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BCK".

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Restore backups to CHARON-AXP disks

The savesets have now to be restored on their corresponding virtual disks. Login to the CHARON VM guest OS and issue this sequence of commands:

...

(info) The NIC can be disabled with a interface="(disabled)" statement in the CHARON VM configuration file.

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Alternative ways of data transfer

Some alternative methods of data transfer are also possible. For example:

  • Connect a SCSI tape drive to the CHARON-AXP host via a PCI card 
    • Map the tape drive in the CHARON VM configuration file

           a. Restore the source HP Alpha system backups from tape to disk images via OpenVMS running on the CHARON VM.
           b. Boot from standalone backups and restore the content to the CHARON VM virtual disks

    • Dump the source HP Alpha system backups to tape images with using the "mtd" utility and:
           a. Boot from the freshly installed OpenVMS system and restore the tape images to the CHARON VM virtual disks
           b. Boot from the standalone backups backup and restore the content to the CHARON VM virtual disks
  • Create a network cluster between the source HP Alpha system and the CHARON VM (it is possible to use the source system as a boot server); then perform simple backup backups from one disk to another:

    $ BACKUP/IMAGE/IGNORE=INTERLOCK REAL$DKA0: DKA0:


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