The following considerations for database layouts apply if you are using Storage Foundation for Databases (SFDB) tools:

• All database files must be on VxFS file systems. These include all paths listed in the SYSIBMADM.DB_PATHS view.

• All the underlying volumes must be VxVM volumes.

• For third-mirror break-off snapshots (FlashSnap), and when creating snapshots of archived logs, the archive log location must be on VxFS on a separate VxVM volume.

• When performing vxsfadm operations, certain operations may fail, and when vxsfadm attempts to recover from this failure the recovery may also fail. Due to this, the configuration would be in an error state, and some of the application changes would not be reverted. In this scenario, you may need to revert the changes manually followed by an error recovery.

  For example, when creating a checkpoint for a DB2 database, the database is put into the write-suspend mode and then a checkpoint is created following which the database is removed from write-suspend. If the checkpoint creation fails, and the recovery operation is unsuccessful, then the database would remain in the write-suspend mode.