picked up a 9111-520 p5 hardware recently with 8 Gig of RAM, lots of internal disk space...6 x 140 gig
had 7.1 pre-installed, and managed to upgrade the firmware to latest SF240_xxxx
goal is to virtualize this and have LPARs running aix 7.1, 6.x, and Rhat for ppc ..
need some directions and advices ??
from what I have read, you must put the VIO server on hdisk0 , and ha ve either IVM or HMC installed, in order to create and/or manage LPARs..?? :wall:
Yes, you need an HMC to manage LPAR's. The HMC connects to your Pseries hosts via an out-of-band ethernet network and monitors the hardware as well as facilitating LPAR management.
so, you are saying , I don't need VIO Server in order to create and manage LPARs..
I just need HMC..
you need vio server to virtualize hardware (adapters, storage) - while IVM or HMC are managing the lpars (cpu, memory, IO allocation). On a 520 you probably want to virtualize adapters when you want to create more than 1-2 lpars as the amount of slots is pretty limited and I doubt you have any IO expansion drawers.
Regards
zxmaus
so I would need vio server to be installed in to a bootable disk like hdisk0 or hdisk1, since PCI slots are limited, if I wanted to play with multiple LPARS,
hdisk0 was pre-installed with AIX 7.1
I did one VIO server installed on hdisk1, and try to bootup the VIO server, but comes up with an error saying something like a partition host is required,
the installation seemed to be done correctly...
you need to create an lpar to install the vio server - for that you need IVM or HMC - than you can create more lpars and allocate virtual resources like virtual storage or virtual adapters to them.
You cannot install the vio into an unpartitioned frame as this doesnt make any sense. And this is pretty much what the system tells you during startup.
did some further reading on this ,
and thought that IVM installation is part of VIO installation..
I wonder if this IVM thing has been re-installed already on my hdisk0, with aix 7.1 installed..all I have to do is to run some commands to enable it..it is a web-based app through a browser ??
correct me if I am wrong ??
I need to play with some virutalization things on this:
a) IVM install
b) create some kind of partition using IVM, to house the VIO Server
c) install VIO
d) use IVM gui to manage and/or create further LPARs
we dont use IVM in my company so I am not a specialist ...
anyways ... there is a redbook that seems to explain pretty detailed what you need to do to get yourself going ...
Regards
zxmaus
Yes IVM is a part of VIO when you install on a low end machine, usually you put the VIO DVD in the drive and turn the machine on. It should guide you from there. Hiwever as the machine has been used you'll need to reset it to factory defaults.
You do need a VIO enabled machine in order to do this. Its a separate licence that is referenced by the machines Serial Number.
Check the redbook that zxmaus gave you a link to, that should explain the process, 2.1 for the reset and 2.4 to set the VIO enabled code
so every machine p520 does get a valid VIO license I am hearing..
as for HMC, usually it comes with a x86 console machine, I don't have that kind of luxury, after doing some research, it seems you can installed a bunch of HMC Linux related software on a generic Linux machine and have it connected to the network at the back of this p520's HMC1 and HMC2..
anybody tried it before ??
Yeah, you need a pod code to run IVM, or VIOS if you have an HMC.
Check your serial number here to see if you can even install IVM / VIOS here:
IBM Capacity on Demand: Activation code
If not then you are stuffed unless you buy the licence.
For the HMC machine you'll either have to go and buy one or search other forums because we cannot help you with building an unlicensed HMC here.
went to this..
IBM Capacity on Demand: Activation code
in an attempt to get a code
for my power 5 p520, what do I fill in as a system type ??
I can get the serial # through prtconf -v
IVM and VIO are basically the same thing. The difference is with IVM you do not need an HMC for it to work as the graphical interface used to create LPARs is on the VIO using IVM. Using IVM you can do everything that is possible with a VIO configured system. the main difference is with IVM you can only have one VIO server so there is no reslilience!
For an environment with dual VIO servers and multiple LPARs you will need an HMC and 5 or more internal (or SAN) disks: 2 each for mirrored rootvg on the VIO servers and the remaining disk(s) can be partitioned into client logical volumes and virtualised to the client LPARs using VSCSI devices.
You may check out the below links about PowerVM technologies, how to manage LPARS using HMC, IVM. How to deploy VIO LPAR and how to manage it, etc. everything is detailed in the videos:
developerWorks: Wikis - Systems - Movies
VIO concept:
https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/wikis/display/virtualization/VIO
These should get you started and answer all of your questions as they have answered mine 