In this Issue What is this Newsletter IBM delivers IBM i ... · centralized library Create/remove system pools and manage resources in system pools Add/remove physical servers within

2nd Quarter Midwest Newsletter 4/22/2010 Page 1 of 6

b

What is this Newsletter

Your Midwest Region POWER Field Technical Support

Specialists (FTSS’s) in the Western Pennsylvania, Ohio, Northern Kentucky, Indiana, and Michigan area would like to provide their customers, systems administrators and systems engineers with up-to-date information and news related to IBM POWER-based systems in this Quarterly Newsletter. This newsletter is first issue of 2010 and represents our commitment to providing you a high quality communiqué. We hope you find this useful and please do not hesitate to contact any of the contributors (listed at end of this newsletter) regarding its contents, your thoughts on future topics, and other constructive feedback. We look forward to providing you with additional newsletters in the future. Give us your feedback. Contact Rick Beach ([email protected]).

In this Issue • What is this?

• POWER Technical

Exchange (May

11th

)

• i-Series O/S i 7.1

release

• VM Control

• Did you know?

• VIOS Tip

• POWER 750

Express Details

• Compatibility

Mode

• WPAR Enhanced!

IBM delivers IBM i Release 7.1

Some new capabilities introduced in this

release are:

�The integrated DB2 database for IBM i has been enhanced with support for XML, enabling clients to store and search XML documents. IBM also plans for DB2 for i to support transparent encryption of a specific column in a database table enabling clients to further protect sensitive information. �PowerHA for IBM i is planned to support asynchronous replication providing clients a disk clustering based disaster recovery solution. In addition, PowerHA for i will support LUN-level switching, providing another high availability option for clients with selected IBM System Storage solutions. �IBM i storage management will further leverage Solid State Disk technology by automatically moving data that is accessed most frequently to SSDs, designed to help clients improve application performance. �IBM Power Systems and IBM Rational will provide enhancements to RPG, enabling RPG programs to easily work a variety of client applications including web services, mobile devices, and XML. �Additional management tasks for IBM i will be available in web-based Systems Director Navigator for i that IBM plans to include with the IBM i operating system. Additional monitors for IBM i will be added to Systems Director, providing an alternative to Management Central for clients with multiple IBM i environments. �IBM i integration with BladeCenter and System x via iSCSI technology will be enhanced with support for software target. This solution is planned to support a faster connection between IBM i and x86-based systems while potentially lowering the cost of the solution. �IBM i support for PDF documents will be enhanced to support the transformation of existing spool files to PDF files. Contributed by Dean Woodke

Did you know you can have LPARS that own IVE/HEA ports participate in a Live Partition Mobility operation? Feature Overview

• Live Partition Mobility with Host Ethernet Adapter/Integrated Virtual Ethernet is new feature added to AIX in bos61J (AIX 6.1 TL5) release. • This feature allows users to perform Live Partition Mobility (LPM) from an AIX partition if certain requirements are met. • With this feature, users can perform LPM while IVE/ HEA are assigned to the migrating partition. • Feature uses HMC commands to perform the migration. • The actual migration is performed by the HMC. AIX simply executes commands on HMC to perform migration.

Feature Requirements

To perform Live Partition Migration from AIX, following requirements must be satisfied. – Partition Requirements • Source and Target partition must be capable for partition migration. • Source AIX partition must not have any physical resources as “Required” in its partition profile in HMC. • Source AIX partition must not have any other physical resources besides IVE/HEA. - Configuration Requirements • IVE/HEA must not have “Required” setting in HMC. However, it can have “Desired” setting. • In AIX partition, all IVE/HEA must be configured under EtherChannel as primary adapters. • All primary adapters in EtherChannel must be IVE/HEA • EtherChannel must have a backup adapter, and the backup adapter must be a virtual ethernet adapter. • Migrating AIX partition must have at least one EtherChannel configured with primary adapter as IVE/HEA and backup adapter as virtual ethernet adapter. • Maximum of four EtherChannel is supported in migrating partition. • EtherChannel failover must be functional. • If migration is between two HMC, you must setup SSH authentication between source and remote HMC. You must run mkauthkeys command on source HMC prior to starting migration.

Contributed by Rick Beach ([email protected]).


IBM is pleased to announce a NO CHARGE Power Technical

Exchange Event on Tuesday May 11th. During these half day sessions

participants will be presented with technical information on how to

deploy, implement and exploit some of IBM's newest and industry

leading technologies. Each of the sessions will be given by the IBM

experts as they walk through the specifics on how to get the most from

IBM's Power technology.

Power Systems Technical Exchange

Tuesday May 11th, 2010(please note all times are Eastern Standard Time)

Offered in the

following cities:

Southfield, MI

Grand Rapids, MI

Cleveland, OH

Cincinnati, OH

Indianapolis, IN

Columbus, OH

Pittsburgh, PA

Richmond, VA

Herndon, VA

Bethesda, MD

Baltimore, MD

Need help?

[email protected]

System i Topics – Morning Session

09:00-10:00 System i - PHP for IBM i: Getting Started

10:00-11:00 System i - Practical Web Services for RPG

11:00-12:00 System i - IBM i 7.1 Update

System p Topics – Afternoon Session

1:00-2:00 System p - Planning for Partition Mobility

2:00-3:00 System p - Performance Monitoring for PowerVM

3:00-4:30 System p - AME/AMS

12:00-1:00 Lunch for both sessions

Register today at:http://www.formstack.com/forms/IBM-power_technical_exchange_day

Planning for IBM i Release Life Cycles and Support The support and life cycle strategies for IBM i reflect the fact that companies run their most critical business applications on the

platform. These strategies include the practice to support an IBM i release until the next two releases have been made available, plus

twenty four months – which translates to approximately six years support, given the delivery of a new release approximately every two

years. Automated operating system upgrades are available to easily move up to the next two releases providing for an ongoing supported

IBM i environment. For example, customers running IBM i 5.3 or 5.4 can easily upgrade to IBM i 6.1. IBM i 5.4 and 6.1 are currently

supported releases. With the introduction of the next release in 2010, support for i 5.4 is planned to extend until at least 2012.

Contributed by John Bizon and Dean Woodke


VMControl Editions (Matrix of Features/Functions)

VMControl VMControl

Express Edition

VMControl

Standard Edition

VMControl

Enterprise Edition

Virtualization Capabilities Virtualize resources Manage virtual images Optimize system pools

PowerVM

Create/manage virtual machines (x86,

PowerVM and z/VM) � �

�

Virtual machine relocation � � �

Capture/import, create/remove

standardized virtual images �

�

Deploy standard virtual images � �

Maintain virtual images in a

centralized library �

�

Create/remove system pools and

manage resources in system pools

�

Add/remove physical servers

within system pools �

Contributed by Doug Herman

VIOS Tip: FP22 (VIOS 2.1) Introduced a new command (chkdev) that allows you to get information that can “help you check devices for virtual provisioning capability”, in particular to check if your device is NPIV capable. This would be very helpful in a migration effort fom Virtual Scsi devices to and NPIV-based environment. # chkdev [-dev Name] [-verbose]

VMControl Unifies Virtualization Management Enables consistent multi-platform virtualization management for IBM Systems

� Manages Power Systems, System z®, System x®, storage and network resources

� Integrates management of virtual servers, appliances, storage, networks and clouds

Optimize With System Pools

� Create, modify, delete

� Automate resource mobility

� Manage utilization and availability

Manage Virtual Image Libraries

� Create, capture, import, deploy

� Centralize image management

� Migrate virtual-to-virtual images

Virtualize Workloads

� Create, modify, delete VMs

� Manage multiple hypervisors

� Relocate VMs


POWER 750 Express

The new Power 750 Express Server was announced in February of this year and is now available for new server orders. General availability for

upgrades and MES orders is scheduled for June 2010.

The IBM Power 750 Express server packs a lot of punch in a 4u server. It is physically similar in structure and options to the Power 6 550 but

with much more capability in the same footprint. With up to 32 POWER7 processor cores and 512GB of memory, the Power 750 is an ideal

server for consolidating multiple applications or as a large database server. The new Active Memory Expansion feature introduced with

POWER7 further extends available memory to applications by using a compression/decompression technology. The Power 750 is an excellent

entry level, mid-range server for mission critical AIX, IBM i or Linux applications. For database workloads, the leading performance of the

POWER7 processors provides the compute power needed with fewer processors, lowering per core software licensing costs. The flexibility and

granularity provided with PowerVM virtualization provides an excellent server platform for consolidating workloads and driving server

utilization.

Po w er S yste m 75 0

N EBS / ETS I fo r ha rs h e nv iro nm en tsC erti f ic at ion (So D )

Ac tiv e Th e rm a l Po we r M anagem ent

D yn am ic Ene rgy Sa v e & C ap pingEne rgyScale

3 U SB , 2 S e r ia l, 2 HMCIn tegrat ed Po rts

Ye s (A C or D C Po we r)

S in gle ph as e 2 40v a c or -4 8 VDC

IB 12X SDR / DDR

Y e s / 4 M ax (58 02/ 587 7 GA ) ( 57 9 6/G30 o n 0 4 /3 0)

1 S lim -lin e & 1 Ha lf H eigh t

Q uad 10 /10 0/10 0 0

O ptio na l: D ua l 1 0Gb t

Ye s

PC Ie x 8 : 3 S lots (2 sh ared)

PC I-X D DR : 2 S lot s

G X+ & GX+ + B us

U p to 8 SFF SAS D ASD (2 .4 TB )

7 3 / 14 6 / 30 0GB @ 15K (O pt: R AID )

U p to 51 2GB (4 ,8 , 1 6G B D IMM S )

6 C ore s @ 3 .3 G Hz (8 1. 24 - 2 52 .5 6 )

8 C ore s @ 3 . 0 - 3 .5 5 GH z (8 6.99 – 331 .0 6)

M ax : 4 So cke ts (3 .5 5 = 32 -co re ON LY )

Power System 750 (8233-E8B )

M ed ia B ay s

R ed un dant Pow e r an d

C oo lin g

C lu ste r

R em o te IO D raw ers

In tegrat ed V ir tu al E th erne t

In tegrat ed SA S / SA TA

IO Expan sion S lo ts

D ASD / Ba y s

D DR3 M em o ry

POWER 7 A rch ite ctu re

N EBS / ETS I fo r ha rs h e nv iro nm en tsC erti f ic at ion (So D )

Ac tiv e Th e rm a l Po we r M anagem ent

D yn am ic Ene rgy Sa v e & C ap pingEne rgyScale

3 U SB , 2 S e r ia l, 2 HMCIn tegrat ed Po rts

Ye s (A C or D C Po we r)

S in gle ph as e 2 40v a c or -4 8 VDC

IB 12X SDR / DDR

Y e s / 4 M ax (58 02/ 587 7 GA ) ( 57 9 6/G30 o n 0 4 /3 0)

1 S lim -lin e & 1 Ha lf H eigh t

Q uad 10 /10 0/10 0 0

O ptio na l: D ua l 1 0Gb t

Ye s

PC Ie x 8 : 3 S lots (2 sh ared)

PC I-X D DR : 2 S lot s

G X+ & GX+ + B us

U p to 8 SFF SAS D ASD (2 .4 TB )

7 3 / 14 6 / 30 0GB @ 15K (O pt: R AID )

U p to 51 2GB (4 ,8 , 1 6G B D IMM S )

6 C ore s @ 3 .3 G Hz (8 1. 24 - 2 52 .5 6 )

8 C ore s @ 3 . 0 - 3 .5 5 GH z (8 6.99 – 331 .0 6)

M ax : 4 So cke ts (3 .5 5 = 32 -co re ON LY )

Power System 750 (8233-E8B )

M ed ia B ay s

R ed un dant Pow e r an d

C oo lin g

C lu ste r

R em o te IO D raw ers

In tegrat ed V ir tu al E th erne t

In tegrat ed SA S / SA TA

IO Expan sion S lo ts

D ASD / Ba y s

D DR3 M em o ry

POWER 7 A rch ite ctu re

4 U

D e p th : 2 8 .8 ”

N O C o D

The Power 750 is the first RISC-based ENERGY STAR-qualified server designed with features to help become more energy efficient. When

managed by IBM Systems Director and Active Energy Manager, these Intelligent Energy features enable the POWER7 processors to operate at a

higher frequency if environmental conditions permit, for increased performance per watt. Alternatively, the server can operate at a reduced

frequency if user settings permit, for significant energy savings.

Intelligent Treads is a new technology with POWER7 and available on the Power 750 model. It provides up to 128 simultaneous compute

threads on a single server with 32 cores. Intelligent Threads technology improves application performance. Single Thread (per core) and 2 or 4

SMT (per core) modes are available. Workloads can be optimized by selecting the most suitable treading mode for particular workloads.

Intelligent Cache is also a new technology with POWER7 which maximizes cache access to cores and is available on the Power 750 server.

The Power 750 Express has all the redundant components and industry leading Reliability Availability and Serviceability (RAS) features you’ve

come to expect with previous IBM Power Systems. It is designed with capabilities to deliver leading edge application availability and allow more

work to be processed with less operational disruption. RAS capabilities include recovery from intermittent errors or failover to redundant

components, detection and reporting of failures and impending failures, as well as self-healing hardware that automatically initiates actions to

effect error correction, repair or component replacement. In addition, the Processor Instruction Retry feature provides for the continuous

monitoring of processor status with the capability to restart a processor if certain errors are detected. If required, workloads can be redirected to

alternate processors, all without disruption to application execution. The Power 750 Express implements Light Path diagnostics, which provide

an obvious and intuitive means to positively identify failing components. This allows system engineers and administrators to easily and quickly

diagnose hardware problems. Hardware failures that may have taken hours to locate and diagnose can now be detected in minutes, avoiding or

significantly reducing costly downtime. IBM Systems Director ‘Call-home’ capability enables proactive service that may result in higher system

availability and performance.

Contributed by (Tony Garone)


WPAR MGR

Node A

Node B Mobile SAN WPAR: App

SAN disk: root FSs

SAN disk: NON-root FSs App Web

SAN disk array

WPAR Mobility with SAN disk

WPAR Enhancements and compatibility test for Application mobility The IBM Workload Partitions Manager for AIX provides an easy, consistent way to manage Workload Partitions across an enterprise. The WPAR Manager is based on a client/server architecture in which agents on the managed systems are directed by a WPAR Manager server. The WPAR Manager agents must be installed in the global instance of each AIX 6.1 operating system image that is to be managed. The WPAR Manager enables Live Application Mobility, ability to clone or relocate a WPAR to another system without restarting the application or causing significant impact to the application users. WPARs can be relocated manually from the WPAR Manager console or automatically based on a policy that uses processor load, memory utilization and other system metrics. Live Application Mobility, which is enabled by the WPAR Manager, is designed to improve application availability and server utilization while reducing administrative workload. WPAR manager can also list the best choices of target systems when relocating a WPAR. IBM announced enhancements to the WPAR Manager and V2.1 provides significant new capabilities:

• Fully integrated into IBM Systems Director as a plug-in.

• Supports Live Application Mobility of WPARs that use SAN devices for storage.

• Significantly improved speed of Live Application Mobility operations. Live Application Mobility for WPARs with SAN devices: The SAN support for Live Application Mobility is only available for WPARs running on AIX 6.1 Technology Level 4 and later. The SAN hardware must be supported by AIX Multipath I/O (MPIO). SAN devices can be used for WPAR system and application data.

Faster Live Application Mobility for WPARs: Live Application Mobility has been significantly enhanced to provide for faster relocation operations. This enhancement can reduce the amount of time the applications are in transit and are not responding to end-user requests, in some cases to only a few seconds. Compatibility testing for Application Mobility Compatibility testing includes critical and optional tests. Each time a system is registered, the WPAR Manager starts a background process that compares the properties of the new system to the system properties of all previously registered systems. These compatibility tests help to determine if a WPAR can be relocated from one managed system to another. For each relocation type - live or static, there is a set of critical tests that must pass for one managed system to be considered compatible with another. The critical tests for static relocation are a subset of the tests for live relocation. For live relocation, the critical compatibility tests check the following compatibility criteria on the arrival system and the departure system:

• The operating system type, version and level must be the same on both the systems.

• The processor class on the arrival system must be at least as high as the processor class of the departure system.

• The version, release, modification, and fix level of the bos.rte, bos.wpars, mcr.rte filesets must be the same on both the systems.

• The bos.rte.libc file must be the same on both the systems. This is the only critical test for static relocation

• There must be at least as many storage keys on the arrival system as on the departure system. In addition to these critical tests additional optional tests can be added for determining compatibility. These optional tests are selected as part of the WPAR group policy for the WPAR planned for relocation, and are taken into account for both types of relocation. Two managed systems might be compatible for one WPAR and not for another, depending on which WPAR group the WPAR belongs to and which optional tests were selected as part of the WPAR group policy. Critical tests are always applied in determining compatibility regardless of the WPAR group to which the WPAR belongs. Optional tests to check the compatibility of arrival and departure systems:

• NTP must be enabled on both the systems.

• Physical memory on the arrival system must be at least as high as memory of the departure system.

• The processor speed for the arrival system must be at least as high as the processor speed for the departure system.

• The version, release, modification, and fix level of the xlC.rte file set must be the same on both the systems.

Contributed by Ravi Singh


POWER Compatibility Modes POWER compatibility modes are designed to allow for users to migrate (think Live Partiition Mobility) from POWER6-based servers to POWER7-based servers without experiencing partition or application downtime. Migrating partitions from POWER6 to POWER7 (or n to n+1 architectures) requires that the partitions be compatible regardless of the actual hardware architecture. There is a configuration attributes for each LPAR related to POWER Compatibility Mode. On your POWER6 servers this attribute can be POWER6 or POWER6+ mode. In order to perform an LPM operation to an available POWER7 server (for F/W upgrade, maintenance, more resources, etc...) the LPM operation actually migrates the partition from POWER6 to POWER7 'maintaining' the POWER Compatibility mode. No steps need to be taken by the administrator in this scenario. HOWEVER, in order to migrate an LPAR from a POWER7 server to a POWER6 server, that compatibility mode cannot be POWER7, since the POWER6 servers cannot handle POWER7 compatibility. Changing POWER compatibility modes does require a profile change, shutdown, and subsequent reacticivation of the affected LPAR. One other item of note regarding POWER Compatibility Modes is that certain POWER7 features are ONLY available to LPAR’'s that are running in POWER7 compatibility mode. These items are (but not limited to):

• SMT4 capability - POWER6, POWER6+ compatibility modes ONLY support SMT/SMT2

• Partition Sizes > 64 Cores

• Larger (32) number of storage protection keys (8 for applications)

• Double Precision Vector Scaling (VSX)

Also, only certain versions of AIX 6.1 will run in POWER7 compatibility mode on POWER7 servers. NO versions of AIX 5.3 will run on POWER7 servers in POWER7 compatibility mode. AIX 5.3 is ONLY supported on POWER7 servers in POWER6/POWER6+ compatibility mode.

Below is a matrix of supported AIX 6.1 and AIX 5.3 versions and compatibility modes.

Contributed by Rick Beach

Contributors OH and No. KY Cleveland, OH Kevin McCombs [email protected] Cincinnati, OH Ross Coniglio [email protected] Columbus, OH Rick Beach [email protected] IN PA Indianapolis, IN Richard Milton [email protected] Pittsburgh, PA [email protected] MI Flint, MI Dean Woodke [email protected] Detroit, MI John Bizon [email protected] Detroit, MI Ravi Singh [email protected] Detroit, MI Rick Milton [email protected] Detroit, MI Doug Hermann [email protected] Mgr, Brian Richmond [email protected]

Mgr, Bill Steins [email protected]

In this Issue What is this Newsletter IBM delivers IBM i ... · centralized library Create/remove system pools and manage resources in system pools Add/remove physical servers within

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