z/VM configuration

Within each of the two LPARs, a z/VM® member is configured as part of a common SSI cluster.

Each z/VM member is configured to exploit all processors and all of the storage that is configured for the hosting LPAR (see System z – LPAR Configuration).

For each z/VM member, four paging devices were configured on the DS8K15 storage server (see Storage server - DS8K15). Each paging device had a size of 10016 cyl 3390 (equivalent to an IBM 3390 Model 9 DASD), resulting in a combined paging area of approximately 34 GB (roughly 1.5 times the real storage size available to each z/VM member). While this is slightly less than what is recommended for a typical z/VM installation, for the tests performed for this project z/VM paging was not a factor.

For each z/VM member, two spool devices were configured on the DS8K15 (see Storage server - DS8K15). Each spool device had a size of 10016 cyl 3390 (equivalent to an IBM 3390 Model 9 DASD), resulting in a combined spool space of approximately 17 GB. While spool space is configured separately for each member in an SSI cluster, the spool area as a whole is shared by all members.

The z/VM system was connected to an internal TCP/IP network via an OSA Express2 adapter.