Release Note for systems built with IBM Storage Virtualize


This is the release note for the 8.7.2 release and details the issues resolved in between 8.7.2.0 and 8.7.2.1. This document will be updated with additional information whenever a PTF is released.

This document was last updated on 6 January 2025.

  1. What's new in 8.7.2
  2. Known Issues and Restrictions
  3. Issues Resolved
    1. Security Issues Resolved
    2. APARs Resolved
  4. Useful Links

Note. Detailed build version numbers are included in the Concurrent Compatibility and Code Cross Reference in the Useful Links section.


1. What's new in 8.7.2

The following new features have been introduced in the 8.7.2.0 release:


2. Known Issues and Restrictions

Note: For clarity, the terms "node" and "canister" are used interchangeably.
Details Introduced

IBM SAN Volume Controller Systems with multiple I/O groups are not supported.

This restriction will be lifted in the next long-term support release.

8.7.1.0
The following restrictions were valid but have now been lifted

Policy-based replication and high availability were not supported on a FlashSystem 5045.

This restriction has now been lifted in 8.7.2.0 by SVAPAR-142939

8.7.1.0

Configurations using short distance partnerships using RDMA were not supported on 8.7.1.

This restriction has now been lifted in 8.7.2.0.

8.7.0.0

Systems with ROCE Adapters could not have a MTU greater than 1500 on 8.6.0.0 or later. The workaround was to reduce the MTU to 1500.

This restriction has now been lifted in 8.7.2.0.

8.6.0.0

3. Issues Resolved

This release contains all of the fixes included in the 8.7.1.0 release, plus the following additional fixes.

A release may contain fixes for security issues, fixes for APARs or both. Consult both tables below to understand the complete set of fixes included in the release.

3.1 Security Issues Resolved

Security issues are documented using a reference number provided by "Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures" (CVE).
CVE Identifier Link for additional Information Resolved in

3.2 APARs Resolved

Show details for all APARs
APAR Affected Products Severity Description Resolved in Feature Tags
SVAPAR-150198 All Critical Multiple node warmstarts (causing loss of access to data) may occur on 8.7.1 and 8.7.2 software, when deleting a volume that is in a volume group, and previously received a persistent reservation request. (show details)
Symptom Loss of Access to Data
Environment Systems where volumes in a volume group received persistent reservation requests from hosts, while running pre-8.7.1 software.
Trigger Deletion of a volume that is in a volume group
Workaround Do not delete any volumes that are inside volume groups prior to upgrading to the fix for this APAR.
8.7.2.1 Policy-based High availability, Policy-based Replication, Snapshots
SVAPAR-150433 All Critical In certain policy-based 3-site replication configurations, a loss of connectivity between HA systems may cause I/O timeouts and loss of access to data. (show details)
Symptom Loss of Access to Data
Environment Policy-based 3-site replication, where HA was added to an existing asynchronous replication configuration. If asynchronous replication was added to an existing HA configuration, the system is not exposed.
Trigger Loss of connectivity between HA systems.
Workaround None
8.7.2.1 Policy-based High availability, Policy-based Replication
SVAPAR-150764 All Critical At 8.7.2.0, loss of access to vVols may occur after node failover if the host rebind operation fails. (show details)
Symptom Loss of Access to Data
Environment Systems using vVols with 8.7.2.0
Trigger Node failover
Workaround None
8.7.2.1 vVols
SVAPAR-150663 All High Importance Some FCM3 drives may go offline on upgrade to 8.7.2.0. (show details)
Symptom Loss of Redundancy
Environment Systems with FCM3 product ID 101406B2 or 101406B3
Trigger Upgrade to 8.7.2.0
Workaround No Value
8.7.2.1 Drives
SVAPAR-140892 FS7300, FS9200 Suggested Excessive numbers of informational battery reconditioning events may be logged. (show details)
Symptom Error in Error Log
Environment System running > v8.6.0.1
Trigger Upgrading to > 8.6.0.1
Workaround None
8.7.2.1 Reliability Availability Serviceability
SVAPAR-151101 All Suggested Unable to create new volumes in a volume group with a Policy-based High Availability replication policy using the GUI. The error returned is "The selected volume group is a recovery copy and no new volumes can be created in the group." (show details)
Symptom Configuration
Environment Systems using Policy-based High Availability where the High Availability volume group was created on software version 8.7.0 or lower and then the system was upgraded to 8.7.1 or higher.
Trigger Creating new volumes in a volume group with a Policy-based High Availability replication policy using the GUI.
Workaround The CLI can be used to create and map new volumes.
8.7.2.1 Policy-based High availability
SVAPAR-131228 All Critical A RAID array temporarily goes offline due to delays in fetching the encryption key when a node starts up. (show details)
Symptom Offline Volumes
Environment Systems using encryption configured to use encryption key servers
Trigger Start up of a node
Workaround Reduce the number of configured key servers to two.
8.7.2.0 Distributed RAID, Encryption, RAID
SVAPAR-140079 All Critical The internal scheduler is blocked after requesting more flashcopy bitmap memory. This will cause the creation of new snapshots and removal of expired snapshots to fail. (show details)
Symptom None
Environment Systems running code level 8.6.1.x, 8.6.2.x, 8.6.3.x and 8.7.0.0 and using Safeguarded Copy or volume group snapshots.
Trigger When addsnapshot needs to increase IO group memory for the flashcopy feature.
Workaround A manual 'rmsnapshot' command on an expired snapshot will unblock the scheduler. However it should be noted that if the system has been in this state for a long time, unblocking the scheduler may trigger SVAPAR-140080.
8.7.2.0 FlashCopy, Safeguarded Copy & Safeguarded Snapshots
SVAPAR-140781 All Critical Successful login attempts to the configuration node via SSH are not communicated to the remote syslog server. Service assistant and GUI logins are correctly reported. (show details)
Symptom Configuration
Environment Systems with syslog configured
Trigger Configuration node SSH login
Workaround NA
8.7.2.0 Security
SVAPAR-141098 All Critical High peak latency causing access loss after recovering from SVAPAR-140079 and SVAPAR-140080. (show details)
Symptom Loss of Access to Data
Environment Any system was exposed to SVAPAR-140079 and SVAPAR-140080 and a recovery procedure was performed.
Trigger Background deletion of a large number of expired snapshots.
Workaround After recovery from SVAPAR-140079 and SVAPAR-140080, wait for all expired snapshots to be deleted before starting host IO.
8.7.2.0 FlashCopy, Safeguarded Copy & Safeguarded Snapshots
SVAPAR-141920 All Critical Under specific scenarios, adding a snapshot to a volume group could trigger a cluster recovery causing brief loss of access to data. (show details)
Symptom Loss of Access to Data
Environment Systems running volume group snapshots
Trigger Starting a new snapshot for a volume group using the '-pool' parameter. Additionally, the volumes in the volume group need to have a vdisk copy ID equal to 1.
Workaround Avoid using the '-pool' parameter when taking the snapshot, or add a new vdisk copy with '-autodelete' parameter to the volumes in the volume group that have a vdisk copy ID equal to 1.
8.7.2.0 FlashCopy
SVAPAR-142287 All Critical Loss of access to data when running certain snapshot commands at the exact time that a Volume Group Snapshots is stopping (show details)
Symptom Loss of Access to Data
Environment Volume Group Snapshots
Trigger Volume group snapshots being stopped
Workaround None.
8.7.2.0 Snapshots
SVAPAR-143997 All Critical A single node warmstart may occur when the upper cache reaches 100% full while the partner node in the I/O group is offline (show details)
Symptom Loss of Access to Data
Environment None
Trigger Partner node is offline
Workaround None
8.7.2.0 Reliability Availability Serviceability
SVAPAR-144389 SVC Critical In an SVC stretched cluster, adding a second vdisk copy to a PBR-enabled volume using the GUI does not automatically add a copy to the change volume. This can cause subsequent vdisk migration requests to fail. (show details)
Symptom Configuration
Environment SVC stretched cluster with PBR
Trigger Adding a vdisk copy to a PBR-enabled volume in an SVC stretched cluster
Workaround Manually add the copy to the change volume with the CLI command "addvdiskcopy -mdiskgrp <mdiskgrp_id> <change_volume_vdisk_id>". The -rsize parameter is not needed to make the change volume thin-privisioned, as this is implicit for PBR change volumes.
8.7.2.0 Policy-based Replication
SVAPAR-147646 FS5000, FS5100, FS5200, FS7200, FS7300, FS9100, FS9200, FS9500, SVC Critical Node goes offline when a non-fatal PCIe error on the fibre channel adapter is encountered. It's possible for this to occur on both nodes simultaneously. (show details)
Symptom Loss of Access to Data
Environment Systems with fibre channel adapters.
Trigger None
Workaround None
8.7.2.0 Fibre Channel
SVAPAR-147870 All Critical Occasionally, deleting a thin-clone volume that is deduplicated may result in a single node warmstart and a 1340 event, causing a pool to temporarily go offline. (show details)
Symptom Loss of Access to Data
Environment Data reduction pools, deduplication and volume group snapshots using thinclones.
Trigger Deletion of a thin-clone volume that is deduplicated
Workaround None
8.7.2.0 Data Reduction Pools, Deduplication, Snapshots
SVAPAR-148049 SVC Critical A config node may warmstart during the failback process of the online_spare node to the spare node after executing 'swapnode -failback' command, resulting in a loss of access. (show details)
Symptom Loss of Access to Data
Environment Any system with hot spare node configured.
Trigger Running swapnode -failback command
Workaround None
8.7.2.0 Hot Spare Node
HU02293 All High Importance MDisk Groups can go offline due to overall timeout if the backend storage is configured incorrectly after a hot spare node comes online (show details)
Symptom Offline Volumes
Environment Environments with hot spare nodes and also have backend storage that is configured incorrectly
Trigger Hot spare node coming online
Workaround Correctly map the MDisks to the spare nodes
8.7.2.0 Hot Spare Node
HU02493 SVC High Importance On certain controllers that have more then 511 LUNS configured, then mdisks may go offline (show details)
Symptom Offline Volumes
Environment Any system that has more than 511 LUNS
Trigger More then 511 LUNS
Workaround This problem can be resolved by reducing the LUN count to 511 or below on any effected controller.
8.7.2.0 Backend Storage
SVAPAR-131999 All High Importance Single node warmstart when an NVMe host disconnects from the storage (show details)
Symptom Single Node Warmstart
Environment Systems using NVMe hosts
Trigger None
Workaround None
8.7.2.0 NVMe
SVAPAR-134589 FS9500 High Importance Improved error recovery for failed NVMe drives on FlashSystem 9500. (show details)
Symptom Loss of Redundancy
Environment None
Trigger NVMe drive failure
Workaround None
8.7.2.0 Drives
SVAPAR-136677 All High Importance An unresponsive DNS server may cause a single node warmstart and the email process to get stuck. (show details)
Symptom Single Node Warmstart
Environment DNS and mail server configured
Trigger None
Workaround Reboot the nodes one at a time.
8.7.2.0 System Monitoring
SVAPAR-137361 All High Importance A battery may incorrectly enter a failed state, if input power is removed within a small timing window (show details)
Symptom Loss of Redundancy
Environment None
Trigger Removal of input power at the same time a battery power test is in progress
Workaround Unplug the battery from the node canister and leave it unplugged for at least 10 minutes. Then re-install the battery into the canister.
8.7.2.0 Reliability Availability Serviceability
SVAPAR-137512 All High Importance A single-node warmstart may occur during a shrink operation on a thin-provisioned volume. This is caused by a timing window in the cache component. (show details)
Symptom Single Node Warmstart
Environment Systems at 8.7.0.0 with thin-provisioned volumes
Trigger Shrinking of thin-provisioned volume (possibly because of a FlashCopy mapping being started).
Workaround None
8.7.2.0 Cache
SVAPAR-138832 All High Importance Nodes using IP replication with compression may experience multiple node warmstarts due to a timing window in error recovery. (show details)
Symptom Multiple Node Warmstarts
Environment Systems using IP replication with compression
Trigger No Value
Workaround No Value
8.7.2.0 IP Replication
SVAPAR-139247 All High Importance Very heavy write workload to a thin-provisioned volume may cause a single-node warmstart, due to a low-probability deadlock condition. (show details)
Symptom Single Node Warmstart
Environment Systems on 8.7.0 with thin-provisioned volumes
Trigger Heavy write workload to a thin-provisioned volume
Workaround None
8.7.2.0 Thin Provisioning
SVAPAR-139260 All High Importance Heavy write workloads to thin-provisioned volumes may result in poor performance on thin-provisioned volumes, due to a lack of destage resource. (show details)
Symptom Performance
Environment Systems using thin-provisioned volumes in standard pools
Trigger Heavy write workloads
Workaround None
8.7.2.0 Thin Provisioning
SVAPAR-144000 All High Importance A high number of abort commands from an NVMe host in a short time may cause a Fibre Channel port on the storage to go offline, leading to degraded hosts. (show details)
Symptom Loss of Redundancy
Environment Systems configured with NVMe Hosts.
Trigger ABTSs(Abort Sequence) floods causing driver resource starvation
Workaround None
8.7.2.0 Hosts
SVAPAR-144036 FS5100, FS5200, FS7200, FS7300, FS9100, FS9200, FS9500 High Importance Replacement of an industry standard NVMe drive may fail until both nodes are warmstarted. (show details)
Symptom Loss of Redundancy
Environment Systems using industry standard NVMe drives.
Trigger Replacing a failed industry standard NVMe drive.
Workaround Warmstart both nodes one at a time.
8.7.2.0 Reliability Availability Serviceability
SVAPAR-144068 All High Importance If a volume group snapshot is created at the same time as an existing snapshot is deleting, all nodes may warmstart, causing a loss of access to data. This can only happen if there is insufficient FlashCopy bitmap space for the new snapshot. (show details)
Symptom Loss of Access to Data
Environment Systems using volume group snapshots
Trigger Creating a new volume group snapshot while another is deleting.
Workaround Increase the FlashCopy bitmap space using chiogrp, so that there is sufficient space for the new snapshot.
8.7.2.0 Snapshots
SVAPAR-144069 All High Importance On a system with SAS drives, if a node canister is replaced while an unsupported drive is in the enclosure, all nodes may warmstart simultaneously, causing a loss of access to data. (show details)
Symptom Multiple Node Warmstarts
Environment SAS systems with an unsupported drive
Trigger Node canister replacement
Workaround Remove the unsupported drive from the enclosure to stabilise the system
8.7.2.0 Drives
SVAPAR-144070 All High Importance After changing the system name, the iSCSI IQNs may still contain the old system name. (show details)
Symptom Configuration
Environment Systems using iSCSI
Trigger Changing the system name
Workaround None
8.7.2.0 iSCSI
SVAPAR-144272 All High Importance IO processing unnecessarily stalled for several seconds following a node coming online (show details)
Symptom Performance
Environment Systems with a syslog server configured
Trigger Node restart
Workaround Remove syslog server
8.7.2.0 Performance
SVAPAR-145278 All High Importance Upgrade from 8.7.0 to 8.7.1 may cause to an invalid internal state, if policy-based replication is in use. This may lead to node warmstarts on the recovery system, or cause replication to stop. (show details)
Symptom Multiple Node Warmstarts
Environment Systems using policy-based replication
Trigger Upgrade from 8.7.0 to 8.7.1
Workaround Make all recovery volume groups independent before upgrading from 8.7.0 to 8.7.1.
8.7.2.0 Policy-based Replication
SVAPAR-146097 All High Importance On systems running 8.7.0 or 8.7.1 software with NVMe drives, at times of particularly high workload, there is a low probability of a single-node warmstart. 8.7.2.0 Drives
SVAPAR-146522 All High Importance FlashCopy background copy and cleaning may get stuck after a node restarts. This can also affect Global Mirror with Change Volumes, volume group snapshots, and policy-based replication (show details)
Symptom Configuration
Environment Systems with FlashCopy maps
Trigger Node restarts
Workaround Restart nodes affected by the issue
8.7.2.0 FlashCopy, Global Mirror With Change Volumes, Policy-based Replication, Snapshots
SVAPAR-148251 All High Importance Merging partitions on 8.7.1.0 software may trigger a single-node warmstart. (show details)
Symptom Single Node Warmstart
Environment Systems running 8.7.1.0 software with partitions
Trigger Partition merge
Workaround None
8.7.2.0 Policy-based High availability
SVAPAR-89331 All High Importance Systems running 8.5.2 or higher using IP replication with compression may have low replication bandwidth and high latency due to an issue with the way the data is compressed. (show details)
Symptom Performance
Environment Systems using IP replication compression
Trigger None
Workaround Disable compression on IP partnership
8.7.2.0 IP Replication
SVAPAR-92804 FS5000 High Importance SAS direct attach host path is not recovered after a node reboot causing a persistent loss of redundant paths. (show details)
Symptom Loss of Redundancy
Environment Mostly seen with ESXi hosts with Lenovo 430-8e SAS/SATA 12Gb HBA (LSI)
Trigger Node reboot, warmstart.
Workaround n/a
8.7.2.0 Hosts
SVAPAR-114758 All Suggested Following a cluster recovery, the names of some back end storage controllers can be lost resulting in default names such as controller0. (show details)
Symptom Configuration
Environment Any with external storage controllers
Trigger T2 cluster recovery
Workaround None
8.7.2.0 Backend Storage
SVAPAR-123614 SVC Suggested 1300 Error in the error log when a node comes online, caused by a delay between bringing up the physical FC ports and the virtual FC ports (show details)
Symptom Error in Error Log
Environment System using NPIV
Trigger Node rejoining the cluster
Workaround None
8.7.2.0 Hot Spare Node
SVAPAR-137322 All Suggested A false 1627 event will be reported on an SVC stretched cluster after adding connectivity to more ports on a backend controller. (show details)
Symptom Loss of Redundancy
Environment Stretched cluster.
Trigger Increasing the number of logins to backend controller by adding connectivity to more ports. A typical scenario would be when transitioning a backend Spectrum Virtualize system from NPIV disabled attachment, through NPIV Transitional to NPIV enabled. The NPIV transitional phase would allow logins to both the physical and virtual(host) WWPNs, which would increase the number of logins.
Workaround Reset all nodes in the virtualizing layer(SVC). This can be done manually one node at a time, or alternatively the software upgrade procedure will reset all nodes.
8.7.2.0 Backend Storage
SVAPAR-137906 All Suggested A node warmstart may occur due to a timeout caused by FlashCopy bitmap cleaning, leading to a stalled software upgrade. (show details)
Symptom Single Node Warmstart
Environment This can occur on any platform configured with FlashCopy, but it is much more likely to cause an outage on a low end, low core systems.
Trigger System upgrade
Workaround Set the clean rate of all the maps to 0 before upgrading, and then reverting them back again afterwards.
8.7.2.0 FlashCopy, System Update
SVAPAR-138286 All Suggested If a direct-attached controller has NPIV enabled, 1625 errors will incorrectly be logged, indicating a controller misconfiguration. (show details)
Symptom Configuration
Environment Systems with direct-attached controllers which have NPIV enabled
Trigger No Value
Workaround No Value
8.7.2.0 Backend Storage
SVAPAR-138859 FS5000, FS5100, FS5200 Suggested Collecting a Type 4 support package (Snap Type 4: Standard logs plus new statesaves) in the GUI can trigger an out of memory event causing the GUI process to be killed. (show details)
Symptom None
Environment FlashSystem 5xxx
Trigger Triggering a Snap Type 4: Standard logs plus new statesaves, via the GUI.
Workaround Prepare and trigger livedumps via the CLI then take an option 3 snap either via the GUI or CLI. In the failure scenario, the GUI will hang but the GUI process will respawn, the snap collection will complete successfully in the background. The snap file can then be copied with scp or via the GUI.
8.7.2.0 Support Data Collection
SVAPAR-139943 All Suggested A single node warmstart may occur when a host sends a high number of unexpected Fibre Channel frames. (show details)
Symptom Single Node Warmstart
Environment Any system with FC connection to hosts.
Trigger None
Workaround None
8.7.2.0 Fibre Channel
SVAPAR-140588 All Suggested A node warmstart may occur due to incorrect processing of NVMe host I/O offload commands (show details)
Symptom Single Node Warmstart
Environment Any system with NVMe hosts configured
Trigger None
Workaround None
8.7.2.0 NVMe
SVAPAR-142939 FS5000 Suggested Upgrade to 8.7.1 on FS5045 with policy-based replication or high availability is not supported. (show details)
Symptom Configuration
Environment FS5045 with PBR or PBHA
Trigger Attempted upgrade to 8.7.1
Workaround None
8.7.2.0 Policy-based Replication
SVAPAR-143621 All Suggested REST API returns HTTP status 502 after a timeout of 30 seconds instead of 180 seconds (show details)
Symptom None
Environment Environments using the REST API
Trigger Running a REST API command that takes longer than 30 seconds
Workaround None
8.7.2.0 REST API
SVAPAR-144033 All Suggested Spurious 1370 events against SAS drives which are not members of an array. (show details)
Symptom Error in Error Log
Environment Systems with SAS drives.
Trigger None
Workaround None
8.7.2.0 Reliability Availability Serviceability
SVAPAR-144062 All Suggested A node may warmstart due to a problem with IO buffer management in the cache component. (show details)
Symptom Single Node Warmstart
Environment None
Trigger None
Workaround None
8.7.2.0 Cache
SVAPAR-144271 SVC Suggested An offline node that is protected by a spare node may take longer than expected to come online. This may result in a temporary loss of Fibre Channel connectivity to the hosts (show details)
Symptom Loss of Redundancy
Environment Systems with spare nodes configured
Trigger A node that is protected by a spare node comes back online
Workaround None
8.7.2.0 Hot Spare Node
SVAPAR-144515 All Suggested When trying to increase FlashCopy or volume mirroring bitmap memory, the GUI may incorrectly report that the new value exceeds combined memory limits. (show details)
Symptom Configuration
Environment 8.7.0 or 8.7.1 systems using FlashCopy or volume mirroring
Trigger Trying to increase bitmap space for FC / MR
Workaround Use CLI to increase bitmap memory
8.7.2.0 FlashCopy, Volume Mirroring
SVAPAR-146064 All Suggested Systems using asynchronous policy-based replication may incorrectly log events indicating the recovery point objective (RPO) has been exceeded. (show details)
Symptom Error in Error Log
Environment Systems with volume groups configured with asynchronous policy-based replication
Trigger A short interruption to replication
Workaround None
8.7.2.0 Policy-based Replication
SVAPAR-146640 All Suggested When volume latency increases from below 1ms to above 1ms, the units in the GUI performance monitor will not be incorrect. (show details)
Symptom None
Environment Systems running 8.7.x
Trigger Volume latency increasing from below 1ms to above 1ms
Workaround Refresh the GUI cache
8.7.2.0 Graphical User Interface
SVAPAR-93445 FS5100, FS5200, FS7200, FS7300, FS9100, FS9200, FS9500 Suggested A single node warmstart may occur due to a very low-probability timing window related to NVMe drive management. (show details)
Symptom Single Node Warmstart
Environment Systems with NVMe Drives
Trigger None
Workaround None
8.7.2.0 No Specific Feature

4. Useful Links

Description Link
Product Documentation
Concurrent Compatibility and Code Cross Reference
Support Information pages providing links to the following information:
  • Interoperability information
  • Product documentation
  • Configuration Limits
IBM Storage Virtualize Policy-based replication and High Availability Compatibility Cross Reference
Software Upgrade Test Utility
Software Upgrade Planning
IBM Storage Virtualize IP quorum application requirements