There are a variety of I/O types and processes that you could have in your server solution.
See Planning for networking and communications, which focuses on I/O that is not related to networking and communications. Even though I/O processes are complicated, your manufacturer also has resources that can help you plan.
Before you begin with the main planning tasks, you need to gather this information:
| Before you begin | |
|---|---|
| __ | Have a list of devices that need to communicate with your server. |
| __ | For each device, indicate the type of connection that it makes to the server. |
| __ | Ensure that those types of I/O connections are still supported. |
| I/O planning tasks | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| __ | Plan for I/O expansion units If your solution requires I/O expansion units, make sure that you add this to your plan, complete with the RIO/HSL loop connection to the expansion unit. For each unit, you should include a list of attached I/O devices; and for each device, you should make sure that you have the appropriate driver. If you plan to hot swap cards or drives in your expansion units, add this to your plan. See System Planning Tool to determine all of this information. |
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| __ | Plan for I/O devices I/O devices typically connect to expansion units. The devices perform functions that your solution demands, such as storage. Your plan needs to include a list of all devices, including their connection to the server through expansion units. |
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| __ | Plan for I/O adapters Often solutions demand special adapters to connect I/O devices. If your solution requires adapters, add these to your plan. See Special planning considerations for auxiliary write cache I/O adapters. |
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| __ | Plan for virtual I/O Virtual I/O enables sharing of physical resources — such as storage, adapters, and devices — among partitions. Multiple partitions can share the physical I/O resources of the server, and each partition can simultaneously use both virtual and physical I/O devices. In addition, virtual I/O allows administrators to create new partitions without adding physical I/O adapters to the system. For more information about virtual I/O with AIX® or Linux®, see Planning for the Virtual I/O server. For more information about virtual I/O with i5/OS®, see Creating a Linux logical partition using i5/OS virtual I/O resources. |
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| After you finish | |
|---|---|
| __ | Record a list of I/O expansion units that need to be installed with a diagram of their RIO/HSL loops. |
| __ | Record a list of devices that are initially plugged into the I/O expansion units with the necessary drivers and adapters next to the name of each I/O device. |
| __ | Detail your virtual I/O plan. |