Dynamic Partition Manager: A quicker and easier way to deploy Linux servers
Linux® servers and applications have run on mainframes and LinuxONE systems for years, but configuration and setup are fairly complicated and requires the use of several specific tools. However, with IBM® Dynamic Partition Manager (DPM), system administrators now have a quicker and easier way to deploy Linux servers, using only the Hardware Management Console (HMC). The HMC is the user interface for managing mainframes and LinuxONE systems, along with their resources.
DPM is a configuration manager that is designed for setting up and managing Linux servers that run on a mainframe or LinuxONE system. On a DPM-enabled system, the runtime environment for your Linux server is called a partition. A partition is also the runtime environment for a hypervisor and its guest operating-system images. On other platforms, a partition is a portion of the system hard disk that you create to run different operating systems on the same disk, or to give the appearance of separate hard disks for multiple users or other purposes. On a mainframe or LinuxONE system, a partition is a virtual representation of all of the physical hardware resources, which include processors, memory, and input/output (I/O) adapters, that are available to an operating system or hypervisor. On mainframe and LinuxONE systems, as on other platforms, an adapter is a physical device that connects the system to other computers or devices. In contrast to other platforms, adapters on a mainframe or LinuxONE system can be shared between partitions, which reduces the amount of adapters that might be required to handle a specific workload.
To make use of DPM, system administrators select specific tasks in the HMC; the user interface of these tasks has a design that is similar to the tools that system administrators use on other platforms. These specific HMC tasks are available only on a DPM-enabled system. Figure 1 shows the HMC Welcome page, which provides a visual summary of the number and status of elements that are managed through the HMC: systems, the partitions that run on those systems, and the adapters that are configured for those systems.
When your company orders a mainframe or LinuxONEsystem with the required DPM features, IBM service representatives install the system and enable DPM, so it is ready for use when the system is powered on. DPM is available on the following systems.
- IBM z16: machine types 3931 and 3932
- IBM z15: machine types 8561 and 8562
- IBM z14®: machine types 3906 and 3907
- IBM LinuxONE Emperor 4: machine type 3931
- IBM LinuxONE Rockhopper 4: machine type 3932
- IBM LinuxONE III: machine types 8561 and 8562
- IBM LinuxONE Emperor II (Emperor II): machine type 3906
- IBM LinuxONE Rockhopper II (Rockhopper II): machine type 3907
- Modify system resources without disrupting running workloads.
- Monitor sources of system failure incidents and conditions or events that might lead to workload degradation.
- Create alarms so that you can be notified of specific events, conditions, and changes to the state of system resources.
- Update individual partition resources to adjust capacity, redundancy, availability, or isolation.