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

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]

I regularly get asked to run a demonstration for IBM Systems Director but that is a time consuming business for both me and the audience. Especially,  when you can find out every thing that I know from the comfort of you own office or even home office plus Stop, Replay and Pause via YouTube videos. So here is a reminder and hopefully a page I can point to when I next gets asked.   Topic Title YouTube Minutes 1 ISD63 Workshop 1 Techie Intro v2 Link 42 2 ISD63 Workshop 2 Quick Look v2 Link 16 3 ISD63 Workshop 3 Install v2 Link 18 4... [More]

The latest Versioned Workload Partition (VWPAR) Version 1.1.2 is available but largely secret! With this update I get on my AIX 7 virtual machine,  in which I have installed both AIX5.2 and AIX 5.3 support: # lslpp -L | grep -i vwpar vwpar.52.rte 1.1.0.0 C F AIX 5.2 Versioned WPAR Runtime vwpar.images.52 1.1.2.0 C F Versioned WPAR 5.2 Support vwpar.images.53 1.1.2.0 C F Versioned WPAR 5.3 Support vwpar.images.base 1.1.2.0 C F Versioned WPAR... [More]

The answer is "it depends" and there is no Rule Of Thumb - IMHO. The 2 times ROT is very old school and for small servers where peaks could really run out of RAM fast and hurt. The worst I saw was 6 times but that was OS guys and RDBMS guys and app guys all said  2 times ... each!!  and then the System Admin guy just added them up not realising it was the same 2 times!  Basically, bonkers and they used 2% in the end. With machines with large memory, say starting at 64 GB, the memory demand peaks will not go too high nor... [More]

When you install Linux on an IBM POWER processor machine (Red Hat, SUSE or now includes Fedora), you then need to add the IBM supplied additional RPM packages. These give you a whole bunch of useful tools like HMC comms so you can Dynamic LPAR change and LPM, diagnostic tools, and configuration listing commands. Plus more importantly nmon :-)   The repository allows you to update your packages as new versions become available and to benefit from fixes and additional functions.  Without these you don't get the full Power... [More]

The fifth POWER Ask the Experts is a one day customer technical event in the UK which ran in Manchester and London on 15th/16th July 2013. It proved to be a very popular free event.  We had well over a 100 people attend which was a mixture of customers, a few Business partners and some IBMers. Agenda 10:00  - Power Systems Update - Pat O'Rourke: Austin Briefing Centre, USA   Download 22MB .pdf 11:15  - Performance Best Practices with POWER7 - Nigel Griffiths, ATS Europe  Download 3.5MB .pdf... [More]

I have tried to get permission to pass on these numbers publically but got no answer at all.  As these are facts rather than opinions, I see no harm in them. So I will work on the old theory: "it is easier to ask for forgiveness than permission" ... here goes. The AIX Virtual User Group often asks a few questions as part of the registration process for the next webinar session and it generates fascinating statistics from real POWER and AIX users. Observations: The people that join the AIX Virtual User Group are well above the... [More]

For an update on what happened and download the session slides go to https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/blogs/aixpert/entry/power_ask_the_experts_technical_event_uk_session_downloads

I am getting asked more about security these days than in the previous decade - perhaps there is renewed focus on this area as we hear about hacker groups taking what they want from organisations and companies in the News every day.  Below is an answer I gave to a recent email question on what AIX offers on the security side, spotting vital files being changed and what parts of PowerSC to use for quick wins. For AIX security the three big hitters for "out of the box" AIX hardening are: Ditch telnet/ftp in the entire computer room... [More]

Tags:  ftp aixpert powersc aix rbac telnet hardening security trusted

POWER Relative Performance (rPerf) is often used as a way to approximate the expected difference in performance between two Power Systems servers. Although rPerf is a useful tool, it is important to understand the limitations of using rPerf  to provide an estimate the performance of your specific workloads in your particular environment with a new server, First, rPerf numbers, like any published benchmark, represent the best case result when the application, configuration and system resources are all optimized -- factors that  are likely not... [More]

Tags:  aix powervm rperf lpar sizing power7

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

Hot news this morning is IBM announcing the updating of the Lower End Power 710/730 and Power 720/740 models to include Power7+ processor with 2.5 larger L3 cache, Active Memory Expansion accelerator, and GHz boost Double the memory size This gives a large performance boost and drastically higher "bangs per buck" as the Americans say or "Value for money" as we Brits say. Almost everything else is the same so if you know the older models it is easy to understand Announcement letters for the new Power7+ models: Power 710 ,... [More]

Tags:  power710 aix power7 power7+ power760 power750