From: Bill Verzal (Bill_Verzal@BCBSIL.COM)
Date: Wed Aug 21 2002 - 12:18:43 EDT
I have read them. There is good information in there. Would would be well
advised to be sure of your hardware allocations as you carve up the
Regatta. It is quite easy to allocate resources to multiple LPAR's. If
you do this. the secondary LPAR's will complain. No biggie - you just need
to correct the error.
I use a combination of Visio and Excel.
BV
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bill Verzal
Technical Consultant
Forbes Technical Consulting
(312) 653-3684
bill_verzal@bcbsil.com
MailStop: 27.201C
antfio@MUZE.CO
M To: aix-l@Princeton.EDU
Sent by: IBM cc:
AIX Discussion Subject: Re: p670 availability
List
<aix-l@Princet
on.EDU>
08/21/2002
11:06 AM
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to IBM AIX
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Excellent info, Bill. Thanks. We're looking at a 670 ourselves and I
couldn't find that info anywhere, yet.
I did find a redbook on the 690 today which I have yet to read. It's the
"System Handbook" for the 690. Since the 690 and 670 are almost identical
in
nature, this seems like a good read.
-Anthony
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bill Verzal [mailto:Bill_Verzal@BCBSIL.COM]
> Sent: Wednesday, August 21, 2002 12:01 PM
> To: aix-l@Princeton.EDU
> Subject: Re: p670 availability
>
>
> I/O drawers are not hot-pluggable. PCI cards not
> "hot-swappable" cannot be
> hot-swapped, even though the Regatta supports it.
> Microcode requires a complete outage. CPU and memory of
> course do as well.
> Hot-swappable cards can be changed out on the fly, but each
> one requires
> 25-minutes CE time due to the number of "mounting screws" on
> the carrier.
>
> Also, here are some more issues I raised related to these
> questions, along
> with the answers I received. I had some questions on
> statements that were
> made in the sales manual.
>
> BV
>
> First:
>
> A minimum of 4 GB of system memory is recommended per LPAR.
>
> Can you clarify this statement ? Why is it "recommended?"
>
> This is only a recommendation, depending the
> environment 1 or 2 GB
> of memory minimum per LPAR might do the job. This
> recommendation
> will allow for optimal performance with a minimum
> configured LPAR
> for the average environment. This will allow for
> applications to
> utilize 2 to 3 GB of memory while leaving enough
> memory for the
> Hypervisor and AIX. On average, most applications
> will size 2 - 3
> GB of memory per CPU. This is just an average, some
> applications
> may require more or less that the 2 - 3 GB average.
> For example,
> some web base or routing applications requires only 1
> - 1 1/2 GB of
> memory per CPU, in this case you will size your total
> memory for 2
> - 3 GB of memory per CPU. Another example, some Databases can
> utilize 2 - 4 GB of memory per CPU, in this case you
> would size
> your memory for 3 - 5 GB of memory per CPU. If you are running
> multiple applications in the same LPAR or same OS
> image then your
> memory requirements will be greater. It is
> recommended to allocate
> 1/2 GB to 1 GB of memory for AIX and the Hypervisor.
> The memory is
> configured in whole numbers, so as a rule of thumb
> you size the
> memory at lease a Gigabyte or more higher than what
> the application
> requires
>
> Second:
>
>
> Minimum of two internal SCSI hard disks are required per
> p690 server.
> It is recommended that these disks be utilized as mirrored boot
> devices. These disks should be mounted in the first 7040-61D I/O
> drawer. This configuration provides service personnel the maximum
> amount of diagnostic information if the system
> encounters errors in
> the boot sequence.
>
> What does this mean ?
>
> This configuration will allow you to minimize your
> system downtime
> due to a disk Drive failure or service work on an I/O drawer.
>
> Boot support is also available from local SCSI, SSA, and
> Fibre Channel
> adapters, or from networks via ENET or token-ring adapters. The
> pSeries 690 does not support booting from FDDI adapters
> #2741 or #2742
> located in 7040-61D I/O drawers.
>
> No questions there...
>
> Consideration should also be given to the placement of AIX rootvg
> volume group in the first I/O drawer. This allows AIX to
> boot any time
> other I/O drawers are found offline during boot.
>
> Why would an I/O drawer be offline, and what are
> scenario's that this
> might affect us on ?
>
> The key reason for an I/O drawer to be offline is for
> maintenance
> or repair.
>
> If the boot source other than internal disk is configured, the
> supporting adapter should also be in the first I/O drawer.
>
> What does this mean ?
>
> The p690 will provide a very highly available
> environment without
> HACMP, but depending on how a p690 is configured the
> availability
> of a system may drop. To minimize downtime due to a
> single failure
> you should spread your dependencies across the I/O
> subsystem as
> much as possible. Dependencies are things like rootvg
> disk drives,
> network adapters, and adapters used to access disk
> drives (Fibre
> Channel, SSA, and SCSI). The first I/O drawer is the
> first drawer
> to come online or have power applied. There is a
> remote chance that
> a problem in one I/O drawer can affect I/O drawers
> downstream. A
> problem could be disconnecting downstream cables for
> maintenance or
> service. Let's say you configured all of the I/O
> resources (rootvg
> Disk Drives, Ethernet adapters, Fibre Channel
> adapters, etc.) for
> LPAR #1 in the first half of drawer #3. Your single point of
> failure in this case would be any failure that would
> affect the
> first planer board in drawer #3, and would cause LPAR #1 to go
> down. If on the other hand, half of the I/O resources
> was spread
> across two different drawers (drawer 1 and 3) then
> you can pull
> things like RIO or power cables and LPAR # 1 will not go down.
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> ---------------------------------------------
>
> Bill Verzal
> Technical Consultant
> Forbes Technical Consulting
> (312) 653-3684
> bill_verzal@bcbsil.com
> MailStop: 27.201C
>
>
>
> Holger.VanKoll@SW
> ISSCOM.COM To:
> aix-l@Princeton.EDU
> Sent by: IBM AIX cc:
> Discussion List Subject: p670
> availability
> <aix-l@Princeton.
> EDU>
>
>
> 08/21/2002 10:50
> AM
> Please respond to
> IBM AIX
> Discussion List
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Hello,
>
> I have to find out
>
> - which parts cause a scheduled downtime when they fail (not
> hot-pluggable, but redundant)
> - which parts cause a unscheduled downtime when they fail
> (not redundant)
> - which parts cause no downtime when they fail (hot-pluggable).
>
> I know I can find this out by reading a few books, but maybe
> anyone did
> this before?
>
> I am also interested in incomplete answers.
>
> Thank you and regards,
>
> Holger
>
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