Power Systems Enterprise Servers with PowerVM Virtualization and RAS

Power Systems Enterprise Servers with PowerVM Virtualization and RAS

by Dino Quintero, JinHoon Baek, Guillermo Diez, Hassan Elsetohy, Debra Francis, Bing He, Rajesh Jeyapaul, Anil Kalavakolanu, Tejaswini Kaujalgi, David Kgabo, Ricardo Puig, Vani Ramagiri
Released December 2011
Publisher(s): IBM Redbooks
ISBN: None

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Book description

This IBM® Redbooks® publication illustrates implementation, testing, and helpful scenarios with IBM Power® Systems 780 and 795 using the comprehensive set of the Power virtualization features. We focus on the Power Systems functional improvements, in particular, highlighting the reliability, availability, and serviceability (RAS) features of the enterprise servers.

This document highlights IBM Power Systems Enterprise Server features, such as system scalability, virtualization features, and logical partitioning among others. This book provides a documented deployment model for Power 780 and Power 795 within a virtualized environment, which allows clients to plan a foundation for exploiting and using the latest features of the IBM Power Systems Enterprise Servers.

The target audience for this book includes technical professionals (IT consultants, technical support staff, IT Architects, and IT Specialists) responsible for providing IBM Power Systems solutions and support.

Table of contents

  1. Notices
    1. Trademarks
  2. 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
  3. Chapter 1: Introducing POWER7 Enterprise Server RAS and virtualization features
    1. High availability in today’s business environments
    2. Introduction to RAS and virtualization
      1. Reliability, availability, and serviceability (RAS)
      2. Virtualization
      3. Latest available feature enhancements
  4. Chapter 2: Exploring RAS and virtualization features in more detail
    1. New RAS and virtualization features with POWER7
      1. Active Memory Mirroring for the hypervisor on Power 795
      2. Hot GX adapter repair
      3. Improved memory RAS features
      4. Active Memory Expansion
    2. Significant features
      1. Active Memory Mirroring for the hypervisor on the Power 795
      2. Persistent hardware deallocation
      3. First Failure Data Capture (FFDC)
      4. Processor RAS features
      5. Memory RAS features
      6. Dynamic service processor (SP) failover at run time and redundant SP
      7. Hot node add and repair
      8. Hot node upgrade (memory)
    3. TurboCore and MaxCore technology
      1. Enabling and disabling TurboCore mode
    4. Hypervisor and firmware technologies
      1. Hypervisor
      2. Firmware
      3. Dynamic firmware update
      4. Firmware update and upgrade strategies
    5. Power management
      1. Differences in dynamic power saver from POWER6 to POWER7
    6. Rapid deployment of PowerVM clients
      1. Deployment using the VMControl plug-in
      2. File-backed virtual optical devices
      3. Deployment using the System Planning Tool (SPT)
    7. I/O considerations
      1. Virtual SCSI
      2. N_Port ID Virtualization (NPIV)
    8. Active Memory Sharing
      1. Shared memory pool
      2. Paging virtual I/O server
      3. Client LPAR requirements
      4. Active Memory Sharing and Active Memory Expansion
      5. Active Memory Sharing with Live Partition Mobility (LPM)
    9. Integrated Virtual Ethernet
    10. Partitioning
      1. Creating a simple LPAR (1/2)
      2. Creating a simple LPAR (2/2)
      3. Dynamically changing the LPAR configurations (DLAR) (1/2)
      4. Dynamically changing the LPAR configurations (DLAR) (2/2)
  5. Chapter 3: Enhancing virtualization and RAS for higher availability
    1. Live Partition Mobility (LPM)
      1. Partition migration
      2. Migration preparation
      3. Inactive migration
      4. Active migration
    2. WPAR
      1. Types of WPARs
      2. Creating a WPAR
      3. Live Application Mobility (LPM)
    3. Partition hibernation
    4. IBM SystemMirror PowerHA
      1. Comparing PowerHA with other high-availability solutions
      2. PowerHA 7.1, AIX, and PowerVM
    5. IBM Power Flex
      1. Power Flex Overview: RPQ 8A1830
      2. Power Flex usage options
    6. Cluster Aware AIX (CAA)
      1. Cluster Aware AIX Services
      2. Cluster Aware AIX event infrastructure
    7. Electronic services and electronic service agent
      1. Benefits of ESA for your IT organization and your Power systems
      2. Secure connection methods
  6. Chapter 4: Planning for virtualization and RAS in POWER7 high-end servers
    1. Physical environment planning
      1. Site planning
      2. Power and power distribution units (PDUs)
      3. Networks and storage area networks (SAN)
    2. Hardware planning
      1. Adapters
      2. Additional Power 795-specific considerations
      3. Planning for additional Power server features
      4. System management planning
      5. HMC planning and multiple networks
      6. Planning for Power virtualization
      7. Planning for Live Partition Mobility (LPM) (1/2)
      8. Planning for Live Partition Mobility (LPM) (2/2)
    3. CEC Hot Add Repair Maintenance (CHARM)
      1. Hot add or upgrade
      2. Hot repair
      3. Planning guidelines and prerequisites (1/2)
      4. Planning guidelines and prerequisites (2/2)
    4. Software planning
    5. HMC server and partition support limits
    6. Migrating from POWER6 to POWER7
      1. Migrating hardware from POWER6 and POWER6+ to POWER7
      2. Migrating the operating system from previous Power servers to POWER7
      3. Disk-based migrations
      4. SAN-based migration with physical adapters
      5. After migration to POWER7
    7. Technical and Delivery Assessment (TDA)
    8. System Planning Tool (SPT)
    9. General planning guidelines for highly available systems
  7. Chapter 5: POWER7 system management consoles
    1. SDMC features
      1. Installing the SDMC
      2. SDMC transition
      3. SDMC key functionalities
      4. HMC versus SDMC
      5. Statement of direction for support HMC
    2. Virtualization management: Systems Director VMControl
      1. VMControl terminology
      2. VMControl planning and installation
      3. Managing a virtual server
      4. Relocating a virtual server
      5. Managing virtual appliances
      6. Creating a workload
      7. Managing server system pools
    3. IBM Systems Director Active Energy Management (AEM)
      1. Active Energy Manager (AEM) overview
      2. AEM planning, installation, and uninstallation
      3. AEM and the managed systems
      4. Managing and monitoring the consumed power using AEM (1/2)
      5. Managing and monitoring the consumed power using AEM (2/2)
    4. High availability Systems Director management consoles
  8. Chapter 6: Scenarios
    1. Hot node add and repair
      1. Hot node add
      2. Hot node repair
    2. Hot GX adapter add and repair
      1. Hot GX adapter add
      2. Hot GX adapter repair
    3. Live Partition Mobility (LPM) using the HMC and SDMC
      1. Inactive migration from POWER6 to POWER7 using HMC and SDMC
    4. Active migration example
    5. Building a configuration from the beginning
      1. Virtual I/O servers
      2. HEA port configuration for dedicated SEA use
      3. NIB and SEA failover configuration
      4. Active Memory Sharing configuration
      5. NPIV planning
      6. Client LPAR creation (virtual servers)
      7. Server-side NPIV configuration (1/3)
      8. Server-side NPIV configuration (2/3)
      9. Server-side NPIV configuration (3/3)
    6. LPM and PowerHA
      1. The LPM operation
      2. The PowerHA operation
  9. Chapter 7: POWER7 Enterprise Server performance considerations
    1. Introduction
    2. Performance design for POWER7 Enterprise Servers
      1. Balanced architecture of POWER7
      2. Processor eDRAM technology
      3. Processor compatibility mode
      4. MaxCore and TurboCore modes
      5. Active Memory Expansion
      6. Power management’s effect on system performance
    3. POWER7 Servers performance considerations
      1. Processor compatibility mode
      2. TurboCore and MaxCore modes
      3. Active Memory Expansion (AME)
      4. Logical memory block size
      5. System huge-page memory
    4. Performance considerations with hardware RAS features
      1. Active Memory Mirroring for the hypervisor
    5. Performance considerations with Power virtualization features
      1. Dynamic logical partitioning (DLPAR)
      2. Micro-partitioning
      3. PowerVM Lx86
      4. Virtual I/O server
      5. Active Memory Sharing
      6. Live Partition Mobility
    6. Performance considerations with AIX
      1. Olson and POSIX time zones
      2. Large page size
      3. One TB segment aliasing
      4. Memory affinity
      5. Hardware memory prefetch
      6. Simultaneous multithreading (SMT)
      7. New features of XL C/C++ V11.1
      8. How to deal with unbalanced core and memory placement
      9. AIX performance tuning web resources
    7. IBM i performance considerations
      1. Overview
      2. Optimizing POWER7 performance through tuning system resources
    8. Enhanced performance tools of AIX for POWER7
      1. Monitoring POWER7 processor utilization
      2. Monitoring power saving modes
      3. Monitoring CPU frequency using lparstat
      4. Monitoring hypervisor statistics
      5. Capabilities for 1024 CPU support
      6. Monitoring block IO statistics
      7. Monitoring Active Memory Expansion (AME) statistics (1/2)
      8. Monitoring Active Memory Expansion (AME) statistics (2/2)
      9. Monitoring memory affinity statistics
      10. Monitoring the available CPU units in a processor pool
      11. Monitoring remote node statistics in a clustered AIX environment
    9. Performance Management for Power Systems
      1. Levels of support available within PM for Power Systems
      2. Benefits of PM for Power Systems
      3. Data collection
      4. Accessing the PM for Power Systems website
  10. Chapter 8: PowerCare Services offerings for Power Enterprise Servers
    1. PowerCare highlights
    2. PowerCare Services offerings
      1. Availability optimization services
      2. Systems Director and VMControl enablement
      3. Systems Director Active Energy Manager enablement
      4. IBM Systems Director Management Console
      5. Security assessment
      6. Performance optimization assessment
      7. Power Flex enablement
      8. Power 795 upgrade implementation services
      9. PowerCare technical training
  11. Appendix A: Administration concepts
    1. Making a root volume group (rootvg) easier to manage
    2. Example importing non-root volume group
    3. A dynamic LPAR operation using the HMC
    4. Setting up Secure Shell keys between two management consoles
    5. Simple cluster installation
    6. Installing and configuring PowerHA (1/3)
    7. Installing and configuring PowerHA (2/3)
    8. Installing and configuring PowerHA (3/3)
  12. Appendix B: Performance concepts
    1. Performance concepts
    2. Throughput versus response time
    3. Performance and computing resources
      1. Central processing unit
      2. Multiple core systems
      3. Memory architecture
      4. Server I/O storage
      5. Performance metrics
      6. Performance benchmarks
  13. Appendix C: ITSO Power Systems testing environment
    1. Austin environment
    2. Poughkeepsie benchmark center environment
    3. ITSO Poughkeepsie environment
  14. Related publications
    1. IBM Redbooks publications
    2. Other publications
    3. Online resources
    4. Help from IBM
  15. Index (1/2)
  16. Index (2/2)
  17. Back cover

Product information

  • Title: Power Systems Enterprise Servers with PowerVM Virtualization and RAS
  • Author(s): Dino Quintero, JinHoon Baek, Guillermo Diez, Hassan Elsetohy, Debra Francis, Bing He, Rajesh Jeyapaul, Anil Kalavakolanu, Tejaswini Kaujalgi, David Kgabo, Ricardo Puig, Vani Ramagiri
  • Release date: December 2011
  • Publisher(s): IBM Redbooks
  • ISBN: None