Yes this is still the AIX pert Blog but my beautiful POWER8 machines can also run that "odd ball" operating system now called IBM i. That should generate some comments :-)   We have a project to install IBM i 7.2 and then adopt it into PowerVC for Capture and Deploy. This feature is in beta test and selected customers allowed to give it ago. It is planned for full release later this year (that is not an IBM promise). If you are interested in testing PowerVC with IBM i visit:... [More]

Assuming you have dozens to hundreds of AIX VM's now running on your PowerVC controlled machines at some point you will have to upgrade the AIX version to keep current and ensure security.   PowerVC does not have OS upgrade functions but it does have features that can help make upgrades safe and simpler.  The upgrading of AIX is already handled by tried and tested methods and to be blunt I am not convinced I want PowerVC to do it as I want to visually check the install worked and immediately address any issues to ensure the... [More]

If while installing SUSE SLES 11.3 on your POWER8 machine from the regular DVD media, you get this on the console after 5 seconds after booting:   Welcome to SuSE Linux Enterprise 11!   Type  "install"  to start the YaST installer on this CD/DVD   Type  "slp"      to start the YaST install via network   Type  "rescue"   to start the rescue system on this CD/DVD Welcome to yaboot version r22.8-r1190.SuSE booted from... [More]

We have the new HMC 8.1 code stream to manage the POWER8 machines. It also manages the POWER6 and POWER7 machines but not POWER5.  I find the HMC Virtual Storage Management panel very useful and saves me time for assigning Shared Storage Pool (SSP) space to virtual machines (VM's) and automatically doing this for Dual VIO Servers without having to log-on to the VIOS servers at all.  It is also good for assigning virtual DVDs to VMs to boot and install the various operating systems, AIX, RHEL, SLES, Fedora, Debian, etc.... [More]

I "borrowed" this from Jay Kruemcke' slide deck but it is important information for all to know

RHEL (6.4 and 6.5) Servers show their PC heritage when you assign server style static IP addresses instead of home network DHCP controlled IP networks. [[That will generate a few comments!!]] I find the /etc/resolv.conf file gets modified after a reboot and so DNS fails - this is a broken as designed feature. I would enjoy someone trying to defend this feature and why it does this for my benefit!  [[That will generate a even more comments!!]] RANT ON I search the network and the comments are the "NetworkManager" is doing this -... [More]

Many people in computing, we seem fixated on "percentages" when talking about CPU use - We need to fix that. When a computer has an absolutely fixed number of CPUs on the time scale of a few years the percentages of the box makes a lot of sense. But in a virtualised world we will have to change. For 10 years, we can do Dynamic CPU changes to a LPAR (Virtual Machine). Yesterdays 40% used is today's 80% because the admin guy  added a couple of CPUs over night. If we look at the percentages and see a massive jump and hit the... [More]

 In the past with the POWER7 and POWER7+ based machines at the lower end like the Power710 to Power740 Models, users had to shut down the whole machine to add, remove or replace an adapter safely. In fact, some machines would power off as you removed the lid.   This is no longer the case with the whole POWER8 range including the Scale-Out Models like the S822 and S824.  These machines do not have the blind swap cassettes which allow the adapters to be removed from the rear of the machine.  So you must have the cable... [More]

Odd. I thought I have put this on this blog before but I can find it now so just in case ... here it is or here it is again.   The SSP4 can have mirrored failure group FC disks to handle adapter, FC cable, FC switch, entire FC disk sub-system, site or VIOS failure. But there is still a single SSP Repository disk.  Isn't this a single point of failure? The answer is " No because you can quickly rebuild the contents of the Repository Disk after it has failed ." You are not meant to know this as it is internal to the VIOS... [More]

I was told that Fedora's latest build for the Power ppc64 processor would support SMT=8 , if you "err ... um"   have machine with a processor that support that SMT=8 !!!  This is not an announcement.   So I gave it ago - here is my report: Getting Ready And I can't help thinking PowerVC would remove all this work, once the new version arrives that support my ... umm err! new machine!!   Update I can tell you know that this was a POWER8 S824 machine as it is now available. Also Fedora 20 does not... [More]

Tags:  ppc64 fedora

With Power Systems there are many ways to run your Operating System(s) and each has advantages and each has a different install process. 1 Native Headless Whole Machine Mode Number of operating systems = 1 Operating Systems: AIX, IBM i, Linux Console = RS232 Dumb terminal Virtual Machines = none Machine types = Blades, Power Systems or PowerLinux (only runs Linux, of course) Comments: Can't make use of the Power hardware based virtualisation advantage. Typically, the install would be from physical DVD for simplicity or for larger roll... [More]

This blog also applies to Power Servers running Linux on Power native on the machine. While you can perform a text based Linux install on the dumb console terminal emulator (see previous AIXpert Blog about the serial cable that you need and the software) as a challenge to survive the Tab navigation, space selection, sometimes the cursor works and occasional Function Key show stopper (SUSE SLES 11) - I would recommend a VNC install. First, you can get back to your desk to run VNC viewer client to complete the install and not stand in the noisy... [More]

Normally I recommended to go virtual: I would recommend anyone trying a Power System or PowerLinux system to run it with a Hardware Management Console (HMC)  -now called a Power Management Console - or using Integrated Virtualisation Manager (IVM = like HMC and VIOS combination as the first LPAR / VM).  This way you are using the full power of the Power based machines to run LPARs / Virtual Machines and push higher utilisation and extra flexibility. But if you must go commando! But some what to ignore those benefits and just run the... [More]

Inspired by this TED Talks Video on Leadership TED Talk by Simon Sinek Topic: How Great Leaders Inspire Action 18 minutes long http://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action.html It tells us to start with Why? To win hearts and minds. And not explain What? or How? until the Why? is very clear. I thought I would make an attempt: Why POWER8?  We believe server sprawl means a future in which we drown in small computers taking 80% of the worlds electricity to run their idle loops 80% of the time. We believe we have got... [More]

If you have: High-end Power 770, Power780 or Power 795 machines With Capacity Upgrade on Demand (CUoD) More than 4 CPU cores and 32 GB RAM which are not Activated (dark) ... then you are ready for Power Integrated Facility for Linux (IFL) - which is a offers a package of 4 cores and 32 GB of memory at a special low price (given the resources, you can order more than one IFL) which includes the PowerVM license and PowerVM SWMA for the newly activated CPU cores excludes a Linux license for the newly activated CPU cores which you can purchase... [More]

Please provide comments on this blog entry - I want to know where I have it wrong? With IBM's massive investment in Linux on Power my brain hurts trying to express the advantages.  This is because the technology is excellent but the bits you want depend on where you are coming from.  So I have tried to break out potential users in to various types. For the record I am an Ab Linux on POWER User type! A - Current AIX and POWER user Already understands the POWER infrastructure, AIX and/or IBM i and are adding a new operating system... [More]

I have been installing beta copies of PowerVC, the new IBM product which is available tomorrow 6th Dec 2013. It is quick to install and allows rapid rolling out of new virtual machines to a group of physical Power machines from your list of pre-packaged software images in just a few seconds of your time and roughly 2 to 3 minutes elapse time till you can login and use it.  PowerVC is based on OpenStack which has lots of modules to install and configure.  It is installed on Red Hat Enterprise Linux RHEL 6.4 on Power or x86 - So it is a... [More]

*** STOP PRESS ***  -  See the update in red at the bottom. I was asked this lots of times at the recent POWER Technical Universities in Orlando and Athens. Compared to a low numbers of local disks The LUNs on a SAN disk subsystem with caching are very fast - even a simple test like AIX install times have halved.  In addition, you don't have to fiddle about with stripping AIX Logical Volumes across disks or retro fit this to rootvg Volume Group filesystems after the install. Compared to a system with a hot bottlenecking NPIV... [More]

IBM announced lots of Power Systems software yesterday but the official announcements are pretty thin on the details. I have many Twitter tweets asking "What the heck does that all really mean?" and the official statements are marketing messages and not technical information like: How do you get that working?   What are the pre-reqs?   What are the actual commands?  What does the Graphical User Interface look like?  How does that help me as a System Admin person? How, in the 21st century, IBM can announce a... [More]