This has been replace by better python programs you can find POWER8 Watts Temp SSP I/O from HMC REST API Version 2 Download of the code files is available :-) Python code walk through completed here  AIXpert Blog: SSP I/O Graphs via the HMC REST API Python code walkthrough The HMC can support loads of statistics about the servers it controls at both the server level and the Virtual Machine level. This function has been available... [More]

This AIXpert Blog has been superceded by version 3 of the scripts and covers: - Energy, SSP I/O and not Server and LPAR Performance Stats.  Click  HERE  to get to the new AIXpert Blog entry.   Stop PRESS: I have just been told the Energy stats do not work on the POWER8 E870 or E880 as they don't include the hardware to collect measurements Unfortunately, it is not documented in the IBM KnowledgeCenter Supported are POWER8 S8xx, S8xxL and E850, when connected to a HMC   Note: this Python script creates HMC Sessions... [More]

Time to review your AIX and VIOS levels?   It is part of my job to work with customers that have hit performance problems or gone critical after a "small" configuration change ("What could possibly go wrong? - Oh nuts!"). Time and time again my first reaction is: "That AIX, VIOS and Firmware version is so old !    What where you thinking? "     Avoid running in Production on your vital Servers software with issues, security holes and bugs that someone hit 2 + years ago, raised a PMR, IBM... [More]

AIX 7, VIOS and SSP - SSD/Flash Cache Best Practice I have been asked for this a couple of times and the answers that spring to mind are Ha ha ha ha ha ha! Oh, you are serious! Consultant standard answer number 1: "It depends" Hmmm! Tricky! I guess the problem is: The questioner is really wanting a prediction of what will happen and is it going to be cost-effective. And these questions  have no answer . If you look the topic up on Google you will get hits on the Official Announcement and a few cut'n'pastes of them, which... [More]

This is really a reminder to myself because I hate searching for this list on my laptop but please  comment on anything you see that as missing. Here is my list of things to check or do to make a nice clean image Date, time correct Timezone correct IP address & full hostname OK Check the content of /etc/hosts and /etc/resolv.conf are as expected Remove junk files from /tmp etc. & old / large logs Also check / and /home for unwanted files AIX “errclean 0” to remove old error log that don't apply to the new deploy AIX... [More]

The VIOS Install Instructions and Readme files can be found here: http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=hpc1vios_home The new  on 11th Nov 2016 VIOS release 2.2.5 with the first service pack is VIOS 2.2.5.10. The VIOS 2.2.5 Readme includes the Installation instructions can be found here: http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=hpc1vios-40ce3a66 In this we find the usual limits but also a few rules for this and the increased number of VIOS nodes. Please read the "Readme" in full. Here I will highlight the important... [More]

UPDATE: The Official IBM VIOS 2.2.5 Shared Storage Pools (Phase 6) New Features Announcement arrives three weeks after GA but better late than never, right! You can find it at this URL:   VIOS Shared Storage Pools (Phase 6) Announcement   = the Official Version   My Summary of the Important Features Available with VIOS 2.2.5 – Generally Available 11 th Nov 2016 1.  SSP VIOS nodes from 16 to 24   – a normally 12 dual VIOS servers 2.  Fully support the DeveloperWorks SSP Disaster... [More]

This question was asked in the developerWorks Forum - a good question too.   Oh, if only life was that simple!  A rule of thumb you could apply, perhaps automatically.  But you are asking the impossible. The first rule of paging space is:  Never ever run out of paging space as "absolute mayhem is guaranteed". This is a quote from the very early UNIX manual pages.   Lets split this in to difference cases: 1) There is many GB of unused RAM for a long period = clearly the free memory not needed (unless the... [More]

To give is the full title IBM PowerVC (Power Systems Virtualisation Centre) Cloud Manager Edition 1.3.1 (phew!) became available in June 2016.  I think we will be calling it PowerVC Cloud Edition and it came out with the following new features: Regular Standard Edition AIX VM - Active Memory Expansion Dynamic Resource Optimiser – can be scheduled Remove a VM but keep the storage “just in case” Internal database moved from DB2 to MariaDB Novalink improvements  [not covered in this session] Project & user role... [More]

Update in 2017: I had to rebuild my Raspberry Pi due to a failed MicroSD "disk" and followed these instructions again and found I had missed a step: As the root user add to the end of  /boot/config.txt this line: dtoverlay=w1-gpio and reboot. I found the DS18B20 temperatue probes did NOT work if I installed the Ubuntu 16.04.02 server image downloaded from Ubuntu (it appears it is missing some feature I could not fathom) but the Ubuntu MATE 16.04.02 image from the Raspberry Pi website (it took me to... [More]

As Mr nmon I was recently asked about a nmon feature for which the answer was: " You should use the nmon External Data Collectors feature. "  Only  to be told " Eh! "  When I went looking there is a mention of the feature in the nmon Manual pages for AIX 7.2 but I could not find the old the full explanation on the Internet.  Eventually, I found it hidden away on a wiki which was used for testing during a DeveloperWorks update - it was a lucky find before it was scrapped.  So... [More]

I am just using this blog as somewhere to store my reminders and notes for this major PowerVC release . Editions PowerVC now has two Editions: PowerVC Standard for PowerKVM PowerVC Standard for PowerVM Cloud PowerVC Manager for PowerVM You can upgrade from PowerVC Standard Edition for PowerVM to Cloud PowerVC Manager for PowerVM. There is already a PowerVC 1.3.1.1 update - recommended. Also you need HMC 850 and VIOS 2.2.4.22 - recommended. Database As you upgrade to 1.3.1 the underlying database will be changed from DB2 to MariaDB which is Open... [More]

This is me on YouTube - for lots of POWER Chips, Power Systems machines, AIX, PowerVM, PowerVC, PowerSC, Linux on Power videos https://www.youtube.com/user/nigelargriffiths nmon on AIX on Power There are 3 videos for getting started nmon for AIX which take roughly 39 minutes in total Online use https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jH7TnnFDWVg Data capture https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oX-buCI53LY Graphing with nmon Analyser (Excel)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jH7TnnFDWVg nmon for Linux on Power, x86/AMD64, mainframe, ARM. There are 3.5... [More]

I got this interesting question from Andrew Bielecki ( BieleckiAP 060000HJ8U ) from a different blog entry: I have 10 VIO servers with 16TB storage pool (16 x 1TB LUNs) on EMC VNX storage which we want to migrate to EMC VMAX3. What would be the best way to migrate this pool? Should we add 16 LUNs from VMAX3 and remove 16 LUNs from VNX or should we use failgrp command and mirror pool on VNX to VMAX3? It is a good question as there are many ways to do this operation and you are thinking of two good ones. The actual underlying disks subsystems... [More]