IBM Systems Director 6.3 Arrives Early Yes, you read that right - it arrived earlier than the date in the IBM Announcement - a free to use unexpected Xmas present from IBM. I have never heard of an early delivery before - perhaps I am getting to old and cynical :-)   The Base Server download for AIX is a larger 1.9 GB file (was 1.3 GB for 6.2) but that includes includes AEM,VMControl (and Service and support manager but we probably don't need that as we have the function in Power Systems via the HMC).  They all get installed in one go but you... [More]

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This is a follow on to a previous blog on " PowerVM Virtual Ethernet Speed is often confused with VIOS, SEA IVE/HEA speed "- here is a Direct Link   I regularly get asked : "I have just heard about this [PowerVM virtual switch | vSwitch | Hypervisor Ethernet Switch] is available but I can't find out any information at all, help!"   They are wanting to run two (or more) virtual switches within the one Power machine to completely separate the network packets of groups of virtual machines (LPARs) so they know for sure there can... [More]

Tags:  vswitch switch hypervisor power6 power ethernet aix powervm power7 virtual

I need you to help me settle an argument or rather lack of information. I am getting conflicting messages about whether these smaller Power7 machines use Local and Near or Local and Far memory. I documented what I thought was correct in the Part 1 of this series of blog's.   Actually, there is not much difference as these machines have two tiers of memory like "on the chip" or "some where else" so the names are hardly vital but I would like my facts straight. Unfortunately, I don't have examples of these machines with more... [More]

Tags:  730 affinity lssrad 740 srad 710 750 lpar aix power powervm 720 power7 vm

Here is another question from that larger Power 7 machine customer. They have large Virtual Machines (Logical Partitions) and can't see all the CPUs on the screen. This is made worst by Power 7 machines - not a problem with the processors or machines but there are: So many CPUs on larger machines like Power 770/780 and the mighty Power 795 Then the new Simultaneous Multi-Threading (SMT) now means four threads per physical CPU (core). This means lots of physical CPUs and each has four logical CPUs.  So what happens on the screen - you see a... [More]

Tags:  nmon physical longer cpu power aix powervm term

I just moved our Power 5 based internal to IBM Wiki Webserver to Power 6 p570 which was recently freed up now that we (Advanced Technical Support, EMEA) are mainly working on the Power 7 machines. The Power 6 machine are still very useful for testing beta copies of new software like AIX and the end of year VIOS functions but some features are Power 7 dependent. We are removing the Power 5 machines because we are moving building and to a much smaller computer room and have to move from 15 racks down to 5 racks. We have been a little lazy in... [More]

Tags:  vios 6 storwize asmi power7 upgrade apache power aix webserver

   While I was installing a re-purposed POWER6 machine over the weekend, got round to installing my Dual Virtual I/O Servers, from DVD and then upgrading from there and I noticed a new service pack 2 for the latest VIOS version. It must have sneaked out without me noticing and there is a Interim fix too.  The VIOS 2.2.0.12-FP24 SP2 Readme highlights lots of fixes including some for the Shared Storage Pool feature. A feature that I have been using and talking about (see this blog for more information).     This got me thinking!  I talk to lots... [More]

Tags:  server power7 vios aix recommended levels i/o virtual power powervm

 ITM means IBM Tivoli Monitoring and is part of the Tivoli software suite for cross platform Systems Management performance monitoring. I has been around a long time and is a very feature rich product. In this blog was don't want to list some of its 100's of features but it is fully Power Systems Aware and captures all the advanced stats from new features of POWER6 and POWER7.  Here we just want to point out that it can capture all the information you want and display is any way you want from its database of stats that it collects from its... [More]

Tags:  aix power power7 power6 cec monitoring itm performance vm

  The USA AIX Virtual User Group have just announced a Systems Director on Power series of live webinar sessions in the next 3 months.  Briefly: Starts May 12th 2011. It is delivered remotely, over the Internet, so you can listen in from your desk and watch the slides or any demonstrations with no travelling. It covers the Overview and Basics through to the high function Tivoli Monitoring (ITM) features that are part of the Enterprise Edition of Systems Director. This is delivered by the USA Advanced Technical Skills (ATS) group and I recognise... [More]

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I get email a few times a week like "Nigel, what do you recommend for getting a good view of what the whole Power Server is doing, what resources are free for reuse for further Virtual Machines and which Virtual Machines are busy" My detailed thoughts are on the DeveloperWorks AIX wiki here: AIX Other Performance Tools but it appears no one reads websites any more, so I thought I would blog a few examples by screen capture to illuminate what is available. My first Whole Power Server and Virtual Server view recommendation is Systems... [More]

Tags:  systems power monitoring lpar performance virtual power7 server aix

 I am not making a claim to fame (OK, I am really) but the UK Power Systems Advanced Technical Support group (that is me and Gareth) dropped the term "LPAR" or Logical Partition as a New Years resolution.  We like to occasionally test to see if we can influence other IBMers and the IT Industry. We now in 2011 onwards use the terms: Virtual Server - this is the term used by Systems Director for over three years. While I can live with that name but the abbreviation of VS - it just does not feel or sound right. Virtual Machine - this... [More]

Tags:  power server vm powervm lpar virtual power7 powersystems machine

  Hints &Tips for Systems Director 6.2+ for AIX on POWER (Part 2) Here are a few more hints and tips - you can find Part 1 HERE 23) Excellent document on getting Systems Director running faster or starting with the right resources The document "Performance Tuning and Scaling Guide for IBM Systems Director 6.2.x" can be found at: http://tinyurl.com/SDperformance 24) Systems Director supported SAN Disks + Switches matrix can be found at http://tinyurl.com/SDdisks This explains the way that various disks are connected to Systems... [More]

Tags:  power6 aix director power systems power7

  This picture was taken by Shawn Mullen - Security Architect for AIX and cool speaker at the event too. It was taken outside of the Gala Dinner on the Wednesday evening - where we had good food and "interesting" Czech musical entertainment at the beautiful historic Zofin Palace on an island in the main river. From left to right are some of the top speakers at the conference: Ignoring the waiter with the excellent champagne! Jay Kruemcke - Power Software Program Director, USA - Mr AIX to his friends - twitter: chromeaix Patrick... [More]

Tags:  aix aix6 prague ibmtechu power aix7 power7

The SDMC Redbook is available now - actually on the announcement date - so some one was planning ahead! IBM Systems Director Management Console: Introduction and Overview , SG24-7860-00 http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg247860.html 6.9 MB and 430 pages

Tags:  "power aix power sdmc hmc systems" power7

Hi, I am just back from the Prague Technical University last week. Everything worked well at the conference at the Hilton and the sessions were excellent - even the ones that I ran :-)   but I keep making one mistake ... I volunteer to give an extra session or two. I ran the following sessions: Systems Director Lecture for AIX/POWER Users This covers the basics for a techie that needs to get it running including the architecture/components, pre-requisites, Advanced plug-in selection, The Systems Director Editions for reduced cost, compared... [More]

Tags:  systems aix power power7 director