Achieving Business Value Through VIOS

© HelpSystems. Company Confidential.All trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

with Glenn Robinson and Ash Giddings

Achieving Business Value Through VIOS

© HelpSystems. Company Confidential. 2

Ash GiddingsProduct Manager

HelpSystems

Today’s Presenters

Glen RobinsonPower Systems Architect

RSI Consulting


• What Is VIOS?• Benefits of Using VIOS• Deployment Best Practices• VIOS Is Set and Forget, Right?• Some Misconceptions• The Future of VIOS• Q&A and Recap

Agenda


What Is VIOS?


What Is VIOS?

• Virtualizes physical network and storage adapters• Similar to VMware on Intel

VIOS = Virtual I/O Server

• Part of PowerVM• A superset of AIX

Just because you know AIX doesn’t mean you know VIOS . . . but it helps


Benefits of Using VIOS


• Physical adapters are virtualized– Storage and network adapters are “owned” by the VIOS LPARs

• VIOS provides software adapters to the IBM i, AIX, and Power Linux LPARs– Can dramatically reduce the number of physical adapters required on a Power server– Provides virtual Fibre Channel, virtual SCSI, and virtual Ethernet adapters to client LPARs

• VIOS manages Logical Partition Movement– Similar to VMware vMotion– LPARs can be “moved” from one Power server to another without downtime

• VIOS manages LPAR hibernation and remote restart– An active LPAR can be hibernated and restarted later– An LPAR can be restarted on another Power server after a failure



• VIOS manages LPAR hibernation and remote restart

– An active LPAR can be hibernated and restarted later

– An LPAR can be restarted on another Power server after a failure

• Provides a Virtual Media Repository (VMR)

– Single storage location ISO images

• These can be any install, PTF, update media from Fix Central, or an ISV

• Presented to client LPARs as a virtual DVD drive

• Similar to Image Catalog on IBM i



Deployment Best Practices


• Use dual VIOS LPARs for resilience– Client LPARs have paths to storage and

network via both VIOS instances• No downtime is detected by the client

LPARs if a VIOS fails or is restarted after an update

• Use the new HMC v8 GUI to manage the VIOS resources– Easier if you are not familiar with the

VIOS command-line interface

– IBM’s intention is to make VIOS configuration “no touch”

– Even better, use PowerVC to manage your Power environment



• Separate tape and storage traffic over different FC ports

• Link to AD or LDAP for user authentication

• Use the VMR on a separate disk/volume from the VIOS OS data

• Ensure that you are backing up your VIOS instances to an off-site location– This is normally an NFS share on a remote LPAR, which can be IBM i, AIX, Linux,

Windows, or a NAS

• Update your VIOS at least once a year– The whole process normally takes less that 30 minutes, which includes 5-10

minutes restart time



• Use Shared Storage Pools unless absolutely necessary– Simplifies configuration of external storage and SAN switch zoning

– Similar to datastore concept in VMware

– Some LPARs may require NPIV access to the storage• Use of external storage remote mirroring capabilities

• Extreme I/O requirements



• Storage is shared between 2-16 VIOS LPARs

• Creation of virtual disks for LPARs is done in VIOS

• Virtual disks can be thin or thick provisioned

• Easy deployment of new LPARs

• LPM is simplified

• It’s fast



VIOS Is Set and Forget, Right?


Pretty much…– Planning your system up front is key

– Once VIOS is configured, there are no real day-to-day activities

– Monitoring and performance analysis tools are available

VIOS Is Set and Forget, Right?


Some Misconceptions


• You need to be an AIX expert to install and manage VIOS– Not true as installation, configuration, and management can be done

using the HMC GUI

• My access to storage will be slower through VIOS– Really only likely in extreme I/O cases

– The data to/from the LPAR to the external storage does not pass through VIOS, only the SCSI control commands are processed by VIOS

• I need lots of memory and CPU for VIOS– In some systems this is true, but not for most

– Often, it is networking traffic passing through VIOS that determines the CPU and memory required

• IBM i host LPARs provide the same functionality as VIOS– Some but certainly not all, e.g. virtual Fibre Channel

Some Misconceptions


The Future of VIOS


• Development continues with around 2 updates per year

• SR-IOV adapters provide a replacement for virtual Ethernet adapters using virtual NICs

• There is an important difference between vETH and vNICs, especially around network performance and throughput

• Additional SR-IOV capabilities with FC adapters

• SSPv4 brings tiered shared storage pools

• Much less need for CLI access to VIOS

– Simpler implementation and configuration

The Future of VIOS


About Halcyon



Q&A and Recap


• What Is VIOS?• Benefits of Using VIOS• Deployment Best Practices• VIOS Is Set and Forget, Right?• Some Misconceptions• The Future of VIOS

Q&A and Recap


Website:www.helpsystems.com/halcyon

Telephone:

Presenters: [email protected]@rsipvm.com

800-328-1000+44 (0) 1733 234995

Thank you for joining us today!

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Achieving Business Value Through VIOS