IBM PowerVM Best Practices

IBM PowerVM Best Practices

by Adriano de Almeida, Rafael Antonioli, Urban Biel, Sylvain Delabarre, Bartłomiej Grabowski, Kristian Milos, Fray L Rodríguez
Released October 2012
Publisher(s): IBM Redbooks
ISBN: None

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Book description

This IBM® Redbooks® publication provides best practices for planning, installing, maintaining, and monitoring the IBM PowerVM® Enterprise Edition virtualization features on IBM POWER7® processor technology-based servers.

PowerVM is a combination of hardware, PowerVM Hypervisor, and software, which includes other virtualization features, such as the Virtual I/O Server.

This publication is intended for experienced IT specialists and IT architects who want to learn about PowerVM best practices, and focuses on the following topics:

  • Planning and general best practices

  • Installation, migration, and configuration

  • Administration and maintenance

  • Storage and networking

  • Performance monitoring

  • Security

  • PowerVM advanced features


This publication is written by a group of seven PowerVM experts from different countries around the world. These experts came together to bring their broad IT skills, depth of knowledge, and experiences from thousands of installations and configurations in different IBM client sites.

Table of contents

  1. Figures
  2. Tables
  3. Examples
  4. Notices
    1. Trademarks
  5. Preface
    1. The team who wrote this book
    2. Now you can become a published author, too!
    3. Comments welcome
    4. Stay connected to IBM Redbooks
  6. Chapter 1: Introduction and planning
    1. Keeping track of PowerVM features
    2. Virtual I/O Server specifications
      1. Virtual I/O Server minimum requirements
      2. Configuration considerations of the Virtual I/O Server
      3. Logical Volume Manager limits in a Virtual I/O Server
    3. Planning your Virtual I/O Server environment
      1. System Planning Tool
      2. Document as you go
      3. Hardware planning
      4. Sizing your Virtual I/O Server
      5. IBM Systems Workload Estimator
      6. Shared or dedicated resources
      7. Single, dual, or multiple Virtual I/O Servers
      8. Network and storage components
      9. Slot numbering and naming conventions
      10. Operating systems on virtual client partitions
  7. Chapter 2: Installation, migration, and configuration
    1. Creating a Virtual I/O Server profile
      1. Processing mode - shared or dedicated
      2. Processing settings
      3. Memory settings
      4. Physical I/O adapters
      5. Virtual I/O adapters
      6. Deploying a Virtual I/O Server with the System Planning Tool
    2. Virtual I/O Server installation
    3. Updating fix packs, service packs, and interim fixes
      1. Virtual I/O Server service strategy
      2. Approved third-party applications in the Virtual I/O Server
      3. Applying fix packs, service packs, and interim fixes
    4. Virtual I/O Server migration
      1. Options to migrate the Virtual I/O Server
      2. Virtual I/O Server migration considerations
      3. Multipathing software
  8. Chapter 3: Administration and maintenance
    1. Backing up and restoring the Virtual I/O Server
      1. When to back up the Virtual I/O Server
      2. Virtual I/O Server backup strategy
      3. Backing up user-defined virtual devices
      4. Restoring the Virtual I/O Server
      5. NIM server resilience
    2. Dynamic logical partition operations
      1. Dynamically adding virtual Fibre Channel adapters
    3. Virtual media repository
    4. Power Systems server shutdown and startup
  9. Chapter 4: Networking
    1. General networking considerations
      1. Shared Ethernet Adapter considerations
      2. Maximum transmission unit best practices
      3. Network bandwidth tuning
    2. Single Virtual I/O Server
    3. Virtual network redundancy and failover technology
      1. Dual Virtual I/O Server with VLAN tagging
      2. Shared Ethernet Adapter failover with load sharing
  10. Chapter 5: Storage
    1. Storage Considerations
      1. Virtual I/O Server rootvg storage
      2. Multipathing
      3. Mixing virtual SCSI and NPIV
      4. Fibre Channel adapter configuration
    2. Virtual Small Computer System Interface
      1. When to use a virtual Small Computer System Interface
      2. Configuring the Virtual I/O Server with a virtual SCSI
      3. Exporting virtual Small Computer System Interface storage
      4. Configuring the Virtual I/O client with virtual SCSI
    3. Shared Storage Pools
      1. Requirements per Shared Storage Pool node
      2. Shared Storage Pools specifications
      3. When to use Shared Storage Pools
      4. Creating the Shared Storage Pools
      5. SAN storage considerations
      6. Monitoring storage pool capacity
      7. Network considerations
    4. N-Port ID Virtualization
      1. When to use N-Port ID Virtualization
      2. Configuring the Virtual I/O Server with N-Port ID Virtualization
      3. Configuring the virtual I/O client with N-Port ID Virtualization
  11. Chapter 6: Performance monitoring
    1. Measuring Virtual I/O Server performance
      1. Measuring short-term performance
      2. Network and Shared Ethernet Adapter monitoring
      3. Measuring long-term performance
  12. Chapter 7: Security and advanced IBM PowerVM features
    1. Virtual I/O Server security
      1. IBM PowerVM Hypervisor security
      2. Virtual I/O Server network services
      3. Viosecure command
    2. IBM PowerSC
    3. Live Partition Mobility
      1. General considerations
      2. Implementing Live Partition Mobility
      3. Storage considerations
      4. Network considerations
    4. Active Memory Sharing
      1. When to use Active Memory Sharing
      2. Implementing Active Memory Sharing
      3. Active Memory Deduplication
  13. Abbreviations and acronyms
  14. Related publications
    1. IBM Redbooks
    2. Other publications
    3. Online resources
    4. Help from IBM
  15. Index (1/2)
  16. Index (2/2)
  17. Back cover

Product information

  • Title: IBM PowerVM Best Practices
  • Author(s): Adriano de Almeida, Rafael Antonioli, Urban Biel, Sylvain Delabarre, Bartłomiej Grabowski, Kristian Milos, Fray L Rodríguez
  • Release date: October 2012
  • Publisher(s): IBM Redbooks
  • ISBN: None