VIOS in Action With IBM I: Janus Hertz

Common Europe Conference – Vienna | June 2012
VIOS in Action with IBM i
Janus Hertz
Senior IT Specialist
IBM EMEA ETS Center of Competency for Power Systems
Rev. 10-06-2012 © 2012 IBM Corporation

What is the VIOS?
A special purpose appliance partition

– Provide I/O virtualization
– Advanced Partition Virtualization enabler
First GAed 2004
Built on top of AIX, but not an AIX partition
IBM i first attached to VIOS in 2008 with the IBM i 6.1
VIOS is licensed with PowerVM
2 © 2012 IBM Corporation

Where Do I Start with Installing VIOS and IBM i on Power system?
• Latest version at:

http://www.ibm.com/systems/resources/systems_i_Virtualization_Open_Storage.pdf
I/O Virtualization on POWER
IO Bus Virtualization IO Adapter Virtualization

with Dedicated Adapters with VIO Server
VIOS LPAR
LPAR A LPAR B
LPAR A LPAR B
Physical Physical
Adapter Adapter Physical
DevDrv DevDrv Adapter Virtual Virtual Virtual Virtual
Increasing Adapter Adapter Adapter Adapter
DevDrv Server Server DevDrv DevDrv
Adapter BW
& LPAR
Hypervisor Density
per Slot Virtual Fabric
Hypervisor
Func Func
PCI adapter
PCI adapter Func
Port Port PCI adapter
Port
Fabric
Fabric

IBM i + VSCSI (Classic)

Source
System 1
VIOS IBM i Client IBM i Client IBM i Client
(System 1) (System 2) (System 3)
System 2
FC HBA
System 3
6B22 6B22 6B22

Device Device Device
•Assign storage to the physical HBA Type Type Type
in the VIOS
•Hostconnect is created as an open
storage or AIX hosttype,
•Requires 512 byte per sector LUNs
to be assigned to the hostconnect
•Cannot Migrate existing direct
connect LUNs Hypervisor
•Many Storage options supported
POWER6 with IBM i 6.1.1

IBM i + VSCSI (Classic) Storage Virtualizer
VIOS IBM i Client

•Storage is assigned to
the VIOS partition
•Within the VIOS you FC HBA
map the hdisk (lun) to
the vhost corresponding
to the client partition
6B22
•Storage management Device
allocation is done from Type
vhostXXX hdisk1
both the external storage
hdisk2
box and the VIOS VSCSI VSCSI
SERVER Client
•Flexible disk sizes up to
2Tb -512
•16 disks per vscsi Hypervisor
adapter

IBM i + VSCSI Tape and optical
VIOS IBM i Client

•Storage is assigned to
the VIOS partition CD1
OPT01
•Within the VIOS you
map physical tape or
optical or file backed RMT1
TAP01
virtual optical to the
vhost corresponding to
vhostXXX cd1
the client partition rmt1
•No tape library support

with vscsi adpaters. VSCSI VSCSI
Must use VFC adapers. SERVER Client
Hypervisor

IBM i + NPIV ( Virtual Fiber Chanel )

Source
System 1
VIOS IBM i Client IBM i Client IBM i Client

(System 1) (System 1) (System 1)
System 2
8Gbs HBA
System 3
•Hypervisor assigns 2 unique

WWPNs to each Virtual fiber
Virtual address example C001234567890001
•Hostconnect is created as an
iSeries hosttype, Hypervisor
•Requires 520 byte per sector LUNs POWER6 with IBM i 6.1.1
to be assigned to the iSeries
hostconnect on DS8K
•Can Migrate existing direct connect
LUNS
•DS8100, DS8300, DS8700,
Note: an NPIV ( N_port ) capable switch is required to connect the
DS8800, DS5100 and DS5300
VIOS to the DS8000 to use virtual fiber.
supported

NPIV Configuration - Limitations
Single client adapter per physical port per partition

– Intended to avoid single point of failure
– Documentation only – not enforced
Maximum of 64 active client connections per physical port

– It is possible to map more than 64 clients to a single adapter port
– May be less due to other VIOS resource constraints
32K unique WWPN pairs per system platform

– Removing adapter does not reclaim WWPNs
Can be manually reclaimed through CLI (mksyscfg, chhwresJ)
“virtual_fc_adapters” attribute
– If exhausted, need to purchase activation code for more
Device Limitations
– Maximum of 128 visible target ports
Not all visible target ports will necessarily be active
Redundant paths to a single DS8000 node
Device level port configuration
Inactive target ports still require client adapter resources
– Maximum of 64 target devices
Any combination of disk and tape
Tape libraries and tape drives are counted separately

Redundant VIOS with NPIV

POWER6
Step 1: configure virtual and physical FC adapters
– Best Practice to make VIOS redundant or
separate individual VIOS partitions where a
IBM i single hardware failure would not take down
Client IASP SYSBAS both VIOS partitions.
VFC
adapters
Server
VFC Step 2: configure SAN fabric and storage
adapters – Zone Luns to the virtual WWPNs.
– Each DASD sees a path through 2 VIOS
partitions
1
VIOS VIOS
•Notes: Support up to 8 paths per LUN

•Not all paths have to go through
separate VIOS partitions.
•New multi-path algorithm in 7.1 TR2
2
Physical FC
connections

6B25 Adapter Look & Feel
Similar in look & feel to

other IOPless storage
adapters
Attached device resources

have real hardware CCINs

Support for IBM Storage Systems with IBM i
DS3200
DS4700
Table as of N Series DS3400 Storwize DS5100 DS8100 DS8700
DS4800 DS6800 SVC XIV
April 5, 2011 @@ DS3500 V7000 DS5300 DS8300 DS8800
DS5020
DS3950
6.1 / 7.1 5.4 / 6.1
IBM i POWER6/7 POWER5/6/7
5.4 / 6.1 / 7.1 6.1 / 7.1 6.1 / 7.1 6.1 / 7.1 6.1 / 7.1 6.1 / 7.1 5.4 / 6.1 / 7.1 5.4 / 6.1 / 7.1
Version
Rack / POWER5/6/7 POWER6/7 POWER6/7 POWER6/7 POWER6/7 POWER6/7 POWER5/6/7 POWER5/6/7
Hardware Not DS3200#, Not 7.1 ###
Tower Yes DS3500## POWER5/6/7
Systems
Direct* or VIOS Direct or VIOS – Direct or VIOS –
IBM i IFS / NFS
VIOS VIOS VIOS –VSCSI and Direct VIOS VIOS VSCSI and VSCSI and
Attach (NAS) NPIV% NPIV** NPIV**
6.1 / 7.1 6.1 / 7.1

IBM i 6.1 / 7.1 6.1 / 7.1 6.1 / 7.1 6.1 / 7.1 6.1 / 7.1 6.1 / 7.1 6.1 / 7.1
POWER6/7 POWER6/7 @, Not
Version POWER6/7 POWER6/7 POWER6/7 POWER6/7 POWER6/7 POWER6/7 POWER6/7
IFS / NFS #, ## supported
Power Hardware (BCH) (BCH) (BCH) (BCH) (BCH) (BCH) (BCH)
Blades (NAS)
IBM i IFS VIOS VIOS

VIOS VIOS VIOS VIOS n/a VIOS VIOS
Attach (NAS) NPIV** NPIV**
Notes
- This table does not list more detailed considerations, for example required levels of firmware or PTFs required or configuration performance considerations
- POWER7 servers require IBM i 6.1 or later
- This table can change over time as addition hardware/software capabilities/options are added
# DS3200 only supports SAS connection, not supported on Rack/Tower servers which use only Fibre Channel connections, supported on Blades with SAS
## DS3500 has either SAS or Fibre Channel connection. Ractk/Tower only uses Fibre Channel. Blades support either SAS or Fibre Channel (either BCS or BCH)
### Not supported on IBM i 7.1. But see SCORE System RPQ 846-15284 for exception support
* Supported with Smart Fibre Channel adapters – NOT supported with IOP-based Fibre Channel adapters
** NPIV requires Machine Code Level of 6.1.1 or later and requires NPIV capable HBAs (FC adapters) and switches
@ BCH supports DS3400, DS3500, DS3950 & BCS supports DS3200, DS3500
@@ N Series can only be used as file server. No load source/boot support. Support only through IFS. No IBM i data base support
% NPIV support for DS5100/DS5300 requires IBM i 7.1 TR2 and must have POWER7 firmware: Ax730_xxx or the POWER6 firmware Service Pack that will be
released 2Q2011
For more details, use the System Storage Interoperability Center: www.ibm.com/systems/support/storage/config/ssic/
Note there are currently some differences between the above table and the SSIC. The SSIC should be updated to reflect the above information
IBM PowerVM Virtual Ethernet
Virtual I/O Server Client 1 Client 2
Shared
PowerVM Ethernet switch Ethernet
Adapter
– Part of PowerVM Hypervisor
ent ent CMN CMN
– Moves data between LPARs (Phy) (Vir) (Vir) (Vir)
Shared Ethernet Adapter VLAN-Aware Ethernet Switch

PowerVM Hypervisor
– Part of the VIO server
– Logical device
Ethernet
– Bridges traffic to and from Switch
external networks
Additional capabilities
– VLAN aware
– Link aggregation for external networks
– SEA Failover for redundancy

SEA Failover Configuration
VIOS VIOS Partition Partition

SEA
SEA
VETH
VETH
VETH
VETH
VETH
VETH
VETH
ETH
ETH
Hypervisor
Client
Network
network

Virtual Ethernet Limits

Description Limit
Maximum virtual Ethernet adapters per LPAR 256
Maximum number of VLANs per virtual adapter 21 VLAN (20 VID, 1 PVID)
Number of virtual adapter per single SEA sharing a single physical network adapter 16
Maximum number of VLAN IDs 4094
Maximum number of physical adapters in a link aggregation 8 primary, 1 backup

PowerVM Active Memory Sharing
Reduce memory costs by improving memory utilization on Power Servers
Supports over-commitment of logical memory with

overflow going to a paging device POWER Server
Intelligently flow memory from one partition to Virtual

another for increased utilization and flexibility I/O
Dedicated Server
Memory
Shared Memory
Memory from a shared physical memory pool is
dynamically allocated among logical partitions as
needed to optimize overall memory usage
CPU Shared CPU
Designed for partitions with variable memory
requirements Paging
PowerVM Enterprise Edition on POWER6 and PowerVM Hypervisor AMS

Power7 processor-based systems
– Partitions must use VIOS for I/O
virtualization
Make sure it’s a good fit for you!
16 * All statements regarding IBM's future direction and intent are subject to change or © 2012 IBM Corporation
withdrawal without notice, and represent goals and objectives only.
LPAR Suspend/Resume – Customer Value
Resource balancing for long-running batch jobs

– e.g. suspend lower priority and/or long running workloads to free resources.
Planned CEC outages for maintenance/upgrades

– Suspend/resume may be used in place of or in conjunction with partition mobility.
– Suspend/resume may require less time and effort than manual database shutdown and restart,
for example.
Requirements:
• All I/O is virtualized
• HMC version 7 releases 7.3
• FW: Ax730_xxx
• IBM i 7.1 TR2
• VIOS 2.2.1.0 FP24 SP2

Partition Suspend/Resume Partition Suspend/Resume supported on POWER7

IBM i 7.1 TR2
Power7 System #1
Storage
Suspended
IBM i Client
Partition
1 Subsystem
Validate environment
for appropriate
resources
A
en0 Ask partiton if it’s
(if)
ready for suspend
vscsi0 ent1
Suspend Partition ReservedStorage Pool
CPU and I/O LUN
M M M M M M Move Memory and CPU

VLAN to Storage Pool
C C C
Hypervisor
Partition Suspended
VASI vhost0 ent1
A
Mover ent2 en2
Service vtscsi0
SEA (if)
fcs0 ent0 VIOS

PowerVM Live Partition Mobility
• Move running partition from one system to Live Partition Mobility

another with almost no impact to end users
• Requires POWER7 systems or later, PowerVM

Enterprise, and all I/O must be through the Movement of the
OS and
Virtual I/O Server applications to a
different server
with no loss of
service
• Requires IBM i 7.1 with TR4
Virtualized storage and Network Infrastructure
Potential Benefits
• Eliminate planned outages
• Balance workloads across systems
• Energy Savings

Requirements & Planning

Source and destination must be mobility capable and
compatible.
– Enhanced hardware virtualization capabilities.
– Identical or compatible processors. HMC
– Compatible firmware levels.
Source and destination must be LAN connected – same

subnet. LAN
All resources (CPU, Memory, IO adapters) must be LPAR
virtualized prior to migration.
– Hypervisor will handle CPU and Memory
automatically, as required. Virtual IO adapters SAN
are pre-configured, and SAN-attached disks
accessed through Virtual IO Server (VIOS)
Boot
Source and destination VIOS must have symmetrical access Paging
to the partition’s disks. Application Data
– e.g. no internal or VIOS LVM-based disks.
OS is migration enabled/aware.
– Certain tools/middleware can benefit from being
migration aware also.

Live Partition Mobility Partition Mobility supported on POWER7

IBM i 7.1 TR
Power7 System #1 Power7 System #2
Suspended
IBM i Client
Partition
1 Shell
IBM i Partition
Client 1
Once enough
Finish memory
the migration
M M M M M M M Validate environment M M M M M M M
Create
pages
Create
and shell
havepartition
Startremove been
virtual
migrating
SCSI
the
for appropriate
moved,
on target
memorysuspend
original system
LPAR the
devices
pages
resources
en0 source system
definitions en0
A (if) (if) A
vscsi0 ent1 ent1 vscsi0

HMC
VLAN VLAN
Hypervisor Hypervisor
VASI vhost0 ent1 ent1 vhost0 VASI
Mover ent2 en2 en2 ent2 Mover

Service vtscsi0 vtscsi0 Service
SEA (if) (if) SEA
fcs0 ent0 VIOS VIOS

ent0 fcs0
Storage
Subsystem

Installing VIOS
PowerVM Standard or Enterprise Edition must be ordered

– VIOS install media
migration utility
install image
– activation code
Partition Creation
– physical adapters
– virtual adapters
Partition Activation to SMS
DVD Install
– Can also install over network – NIM Server
Post-Install Tasks

Check VIOS enablement
In HMC, display managed system’s properties

VIOS enablement
Select managed system Capacity on demand Advanced POWER

virtualization (now PowerVM)
Enter 32-digit enablement code

LPAR configuration – create a partition

VIOS partition configuration – physical IO

VIOS install: SMS setup
When the partition is powered on, the PFW screen will appear
Hit 1 to enter the SMS menu and set up the install source for
VIOS
VIOS install: Select Install/Boot Device
Select option 5, then option 1

VIOS install: Select DVD as boot device

VIOS install: verify disk unit
Choose option 2 to verify VIOS is going to be installed on the correct disk unit
VIOS install: verify disk unit
hdisk0 is the first physical disk or LUN detected

VIOS can be installed on mirrored integrated disk, or installed on the SAN
Power Virtualization IBM i and BladeCenter S
System & Metode, Denmark

www.system-method.com
• IBM Business Partner

• Software Solutions & Hosting company
Focuses on very small / old existing installations
• 1 BladeCenter S chassis
• 1 JS12 POWER6 blade
• 2 HS21 x86 blades
• Provides hosting services to several clients/companies

• 1 IBM Virtual IO Server 2.2 (VIOS) host LPAR
• 9 IBM i 6.1 client LPARs – for different customers
Pros:
• Cheap hardware compared to traditional Power servers
• Possible to get customers that would potentially have switched to the “dark sideJ”
• Flexible
Cons:
• More complex, requires three different skills sets (Blade, VIOS, IBM i)
References:
• PowerVM Quicksheet - http://tablespace.net/quicksheet/powervm-quicksheet.pdf
• PowerVM Quickstart - http://tablespace.net/quicksheet/powervm-quickstart.html
• VIOS Cheat Sheet - http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/aix/library/au-

viocheatsheet/index.html?ca=drs-
• Get to know the VIOS CLI - http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/aix/library/au-

vioscli/index.html?cmp=dw&cpb=dwaix&ct=dwnew&cr=dwnen&ccy=zz&csr=111011#VIO%20is%2
0critical
• IBM i on a POWER blade read-me-first:

http://www.ibm.com/systems/resources/systems_power_hardware_blades_i_on_blade_readme.p
df

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Those trademarks followed by ® are registered trademarks of IBM in the United States; all others are trademarks or common law marks of IBM in the United States.
For a complete list of IBM Trademarks, see www.ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml:
*, AS/400®, e business(logo)®, DBE, ESCO, eServer, FICON, IBM®, IBM (logo)®, iSeries®, MVS, OS/390®, pSeries®, RS/6000®, S/30, VM/ESA®, VSE/ESA,
WebSphere®, xSeries®, z/OS®, zSeries®, z/VM®, System i, System i5, System p, System p5, System x, System z, System z9®, BladeCenter®
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Notes:
Performance is in Internal Throughput Rate (ITR) ratio based on measurements and projections using standard IBM benchmarks in a controlled environment. The actual throughput that any user will
experience will vary depending upon considerations such as the amount of multiprogramming in the user's job stream, the I/O configuration, the storage configuration, and the workload processed.
Therefore, no assurance can be given that an individual user will achieve throughput improvements equivalent to the performance ratios stated here.
IBM hardware products are manufactured from new parts, or new and serviceable used parts. Regardless, our warranty terms apply.
All customer examples cited or described in this presentation are presented as illustrations of the manner in which some customers have used IBM products and the results they may have achieved. Actual
environmental costs and performance characteristics will vary depending on individual customer configurations and conditions.
This publication was produced in the United States. IBM may not offer the products, services or features discussed in this document in other countries, and the information may be subject to change without
notice. Consult your local IBM business contact for information on the product or services available in your area.
All statements regarding IBM's future direction and intent are subject to change or withdrawal without notice, and represent goals and objectives only.
Information about non-IBM products is obtained from the manufacturers of those products or their published announcements. IBM has not tested those products and cannot confirm the performance,
compatibility, or any other claims related to non-IBM products. Questions on the capabilities of non-IBM products should be addressed to the suppliers of those products.
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Common Europe Conference – Vienna | June 2012

VIOS in Action with IBM i

Rev. 10-06-2012 © 2012 IBM Corporation

What is the VIOS?

A special purpose appliance partition

2 © 2012 IBM Corporation

Where Do I Start with Installing VIOS and IBM i on Power system?

• Latest version at:

I/O Virtualization on POWER

IO Bus Virtualization IO Adapter Virtualization

Port Port PCI adapter

4 © 2012 IBM Corporation

IBM i + VSCSI (Classic)

6B22 6B22 6B22

POWER6 with IBM i 6.1.1

5 © 2012 IBM Corporation

IBM i + VSCSI (Classic) Storage Virtualizer

VIOS IBM i Client

POWER6 with IBM i 6.1.1

6 © 2012 IBM Corporation

IBM i + VSCSI Tape and optical

VIOS IBM i Client

•No tape library support

POWER6 with IBM i 6.1.1

7 © 2012 IBM Corporation

IBM i + NPIV ( Virtual Fiber Chanel )

VIOS IBM i Client IBM i Client IBM i Client

•Hypervisor assigns 2 unique

8 © 2012 IBM Corporation

NPIV Configuration - Limitations

Single client adapter per physical port per partition

Maximum of 64 active client connections per physical port

32K unique WWPN pairs per system platform

9 © 2012 IBM Corporation

Redundant VIOS with NPIV

•Notes: Support up to 8 paths per LUN

10 © 2012 IBM Corporation

6B25 Adapter Look & Feel

Similar in look & feel to

Attached device resources

11 © 2012 IBM Corporation

Support for IBM Storage Systems with IBM i

6.1 / 7.1 6.1 / 7.1

IBM i IFS VIOS VIOS

IBM PowerVM Virtual Ethernet

Virtual I/O Server Client 1 Client 2

Shared Ethernet Adapter VLAN-Aware Ethernet Switch

13 © 2012 IBM Corporation

SEA Failover Configuration

VIOS VIOS Partition Partition

14 © 2012 IBM Corporation

Virtual Ethernet Limits

Maximum virtual Ethernet adapters per LPAR 256

Maximum number of VLAN IDs 4094

Maximum number of physical adapters in a link aggregation 8 primary, 1 backup

15 © 2012 IBM Corporation

PowerVM Active Memory Sharing

Reduce memory costs by improving memory utilization on Power Servers