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Local, Nar & Far Memory part 6 - Too High a Virtual Processor number has a Bad Side Effect
The title should read "Local, Near & Far ..." - I will not correct it or links might fail. In this entry we carry on from part 5 but we are going to look at setting the virtual processor number for the virtual machine . There is a side effect that is not obvious and after 6 years of using them, it never occurred to me so perhaps it is news to others too. The problem of virtual processors is that they are ephemeral - i.e. they don't actually exist and costs nothing. So I find most systems administrators feel they can be generous... [More]
Tags:  powervm virtual processor power7 power6 entitlement aix |
Local, Near & Far Memory part 8 - Dynamic LPAR changes can mess up your placement
After you have started and used your virtual machine (VM) for a while, you may decide to change its size using a Dynamic LPAR (DLPAR) change from the HMC (or SDMC or IVM, of course). This has virtual machine placement implications. When shrinking your VM, the hypervisor will decide which CPU or memory (LBM) to release and it might not select what you think is the obvious choice. When enlarging your VM, we might thing there is an obvious way to grow in a balanced way but we can't see: 1) where physically our virtual machine is placed in the... [More]
Tags:  ram processor placement power6 power7 powervm dlpar lpar vm entitlement virtual lmb cpu aix |
Shared Storage Pools 3 and Systems Director 6.3.2
The new VIOS Shared Storage Pools 3 (SSP3) arrived a month ago and I have all my VIOS updated now to VIOS 2.2.2.1 plus fixes. This brings with it the regular VIOS improvements but also new features for SSP3 including: Better pool use stats for example see the below lssp command and the Used percentage and Unused(mb) columns and the over view output too has new data $ lssp -clustername stars -sp atlantic -bd Lu Name Size(mb) ProvisionType %Used Unused(mb) Lu Udid orange7a 32768 THIN 9% 29615 7d58538152 …... [More]
Tags:  power7 systems storage shared 6.3.2 pools director powervm 3 |
Shared Storage Pools 2 - Thin provisioning, monitoring free space + Alerts
Hi, I just release a fifth hands-on movie this month and on this interesting topic. You can find the movie here: Shared Storage Pools 2 - Thin provisioning, monitoring free space + Alerts Shared Storage Pool Thin provisioning is pretty cool and saves a lot of disk space . Effectively the 100's of GBs of unused disks space in 100's of Virtual Machines (LPARs) are bought together in one place in the Shared Storage Pool and then can be used for real. All this without the use of clever disk subsystems. The risk is that you use all the disk... [More]
Tags:  monitoring power7 space vios powervm thin provisioning alerts and free aix |
Local, Near & Far Memory part 4 - Aggressive Intelligent Threads
This is a follow on from yesterdays blog due to Chris Gibson highlighting a question/concern from one of his customers in Australia.They were comparing Power6 and Power7 and the utilisation numbers from the SMT Logical Processors and the graphs look different. I looked at some nmon data (what else!) and yes they are looking different and then I ran a simple generated workload test and duplicated the graphs. Below I then explain them - once again these are my personal observations rather than an official AIX developers insider statement. I... [More]
Tags:  smt core powervm logical aix threads aggressive vp processor intelligent power7 power |
Shared Storage Pool - What LUN Sizes to Use?
Questions I have a number of customers asking me these types question:
Are there are good practices on how to size disks for the storage pools. If I want a 5 TB pool, how many disks which size, does it matter ? Also are there any document limits regarding, pool disk, LUN and so on. Answers Not sure about best practice but there is common sense - will that do? Restrictions are included with the VIOS announcement "Read Me" notes, which you can find here for the current VIOS 2.2.1.3... [More]
Tags:  shared size power powervm vios storage lun pool |
Local, Near & Far Memory part 7 - VM placement also needs RAM
We all tend to concentrate on the CPU first and the memory second. CPUs, as the "brains" of the machine, does get a high focus and have a lot of extreme technology within it but the RAM is the "guts" of the machine to "feed" the CPU with nutrient data. OK, let us stop the analogy there :-) Along with reducing the number of CPUs via a lower virtual processor count, we also need to have the CPUs matching the memory - so AIX has a fighting change to localise a running process to its home SRAD and thus have it's data... [More]
Tags:  entitlement ram lpar power7 vm placement virtual aix cpu power6 processor powervm lmb |
VIOS upgrade to try Shared Storage Pools - hints and tips
Shared Storage Pools is the next big thing to owed systems admin time and boost flexibility for Power Systems, PowerVM and controlling SAN disks from the VIOS and HMC. I will not go on about SSP here but I particular like the fact Live Partition Mobility even with SAN disks is ready to go with SSP and there is no need to reZone the SAN disks. To start using the new and improved SSP, you need the latest Virtual I/O Server (VIOS) - the version name is a nightmare! Who ever thought VIOS 2.2.1.3 FP25 SP01 with iFix was a sensible name for a... [More]
Tags:  power6 power7 aix powervm vios |
Systems Director - Can't get your HMC recognised ?
So you have Discovered, given Access and run Inventory on your HMC and it is not finding the Servers and Virtual Servers that the HMC is connected too! What do you do next? Well here are a series of suggestions for you to try (this is not an official diagnostics path but might help you out): How much memory has your HMC got? I get people trying to use old HMCs and the original ones had just 1 GB of memory. This is basically not enough these days - in my humble opinion - unless you have just one machine! But how do you find out what you have?... [More]
Tags:  aix power7 powervm director hmc power6 systems |
Local, Nar & Far Memory part 5 - Low Entitlement has a Bad Side Effect
The title should read "Local, Near & Far ..." - I will not correct it or links might fail. With a shared processor virtual machine (I am calling this "VM" but was called LPAR!) there are various suggestions of setting Entitlement ("Desired processing units" on the LPAR profile on the HMC, I am calling this "E") and Virtual Processor numbers (I am calling this "VP"). For Capped, the Entitlement is the maximum guaranteed CPU time that you can't go over and you round up the Entitlement to the... [More]
Tags:  processor virtual powervm low aix power7 power6 entitlement |
nmon - I can't see all the CPUs on-screen. Please Help!
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 |
AIX 5.2 Versioned WPAR - Ideas for a demo, please
We have blogged on this really cool AIX 7 feature in the past - but here is my problem: Once I install the AIX 5.2 mksysb image in to the Workload Partition running on AIX7 it all works fine but ... then what can I show an audience to show off "AIX 5.2 running on top of AIX 7": I need a simple application that only runs on AIX 5.2 . Something simple enough that it does not take hours to install and hopefully that it is something visually interesting to see. I am told we can run Oracle 8 now including the kernel extension but its not... [More]
Tags:  aix7 power7 wpar powervm versioned aix |
VIOS Shared Storage Pools - In Redbooks Already
I asked Scott about a Redbook for the new VIOS functions for Shared Storage Pools and he told me that chapters had already been added to the current PowerVM Redbooks. I almost fell of the chair! I have been ignoring the regular Redbook update emails - but I guess I should pay more attention. So I took a look and found the Shared Storage Pools have chapters in two regular PowerVM Redbooks - note you have to download the most recent updates. IBM PowerVM Virtualization - Introduction and Configuration SG24-7940 IBM PowerVM Virtualization -... [More]
Tags:  aix powervm power6 power7 vios |
YouTube for all your POWER, AIX, Systems Director, PowerSC, PowerVM Hands-On Videos
Just completed the move of the POWER and AIX Hands-on Movies to YouTube videos - after pruning we have 97 of them. This means you can watch them on your mobile Smartphone and Tablets in addition to your workstation/personal computer. You can find them all here:
YouTube look for my "Nigel Griffiths" Channel http://www.youtube.com/user/nigelargriffiths This should mean they are simpler to find, search for and view. During the transfer I pruned out a few of the older ones particular Systems 6.2 as we now have a set of Systems... [More]
Tags:  youtube systems power powersc aix vidoes powervm director |
To extreme micro-partition or to Workload-Parttion, that is the question?
So I got asked, just as an example configuration which forces lots of workload per CPU: Given a 16 CPU POWER machine and a need to run 100 workloads, would I recommend 100 LPARs or 100 WPARs? In case you are not familiar with POWER technology: LPAR = Logical Partition used the PowerVM to split CPU, memory and I/O across multiple virtual machines (also called virtual servers). The I/O is handles by a special purpose LPAR called the Virtual I/O Server, which provides virtual network, virtual disks, virtual optical and virtual tape. Each LPAR has... [More]
Tags:  aix7 power7 wpar workload lpar powervm vios |