Support Policies for RHEL High Availability Clusters - IBM z Systems z/VM Guests as Cluster Members

Updated -

Contents

Overview

Applicable Environments

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7, 8, 9 with the High Availability Add On
  • Using IBM z Systems z/VM guests as RHEL High Availability cluster members

Useful References and Guides

Introduction

This document offers Red Hat's policies around the conditions on which its technical support will be provided for RHEL High Availability clusters running on guest virtual machines of an IBM z Systems mainframe. Users of RHEL High Availability software components should adhere to these policies in order to be eligible to receive support from Red Hat with the appropriate product support subscriptions.

Policies

Supported releases: Red Hat supports use of IBM z Systems z/VM guests as RHEL High Availability cluster members under the following conditions:

  • RHEL 9: Supported by Red Hat
  • RHEL 8: Supported by Red Hat
  • RHEL 7: Supported by Red Hat in RHEL 7.4 and later - specifically using pacemaker-1.1.16-8.el7 or later and corosync-2.4.0-9.el7 or later. Earlier releases in RHEL 7 are not supported.
  • RHEL 6: Not supported by Red Hat.

This support is subject to the other conditions laid out here in this policy and in the overall Red Hat support policies for RHEL and RHEL High Availability.

Number of nodes: Red Hat supports RHEL High Availability clusters containing between 2 - 4 nodes running as IBM z Systems members.

Single Systems Image (SSI) cluster support: Red Hat supports RHEL High Availability clusters made up of members distributed throughout a SSI cluster. Nodes of the same RHEL cluster can reside on LPARs that are hosted by separate physical frames (CPCs, or CECs) within a SSI cluster.

No support for live migration: Red Hat can not provide support for concerns or behaviors arising from live migration of z/VM guests running as active RHEL High Availability cluster members. Nodes should be prevented from undergoing any sort of live migration while serving as an active member of the cluster.

Requirements for IBM z Systems LPAR serving RHEL High Availability members: Any RHEL High Availability cluster members must have the following conditions met by their LPAR:

  • Running z/VM V6.3 and newer
  • Should be configured with enough storage (memory) to back the storage allocated to the cluster.
  • Should have IBM Directory Maintenance (DirMaint) for z/VM installed.
  • If using fence_zvmip power fencing`: SMAPI (Systems Management Application Programming Interface) service installed, which must be accessible to the cluster nodes via TCP/IP.

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