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IBM introduced a new era in UNIX® and Linux® operating environment computing with the introduction of the IBM eServer™ p5 server family. These systems revolutionize information technology economics with lightning-quick POWER5™ processors and new IBM Virtualization Engine™system technologies options that included:
- Processing resources in eServer p5 systems can be fine tuned to have more "virtual servers" or dynamic logical partitions (LPARs) than processors. Partitions can be allocated in units as small as 1/10th of a processor and may be incremented in units of 1/100th of a processor.
- This fine tuning capability allows consolidation of multiple independent workloads, resulting in the equivalent of a "server farm in a box".
- Businesses get the benefit of high systems utilization and easier administration of consolidated systems, helping lower their total cost of ownership (TCO).
- Partitions can be assigned to a shared processor pool, providing automatic, non-disruptive balancing of processing power and improved service levels as processing needs change.
- The virtual I/O option includes virtual SCSI for sharing Fibre Channel and SCSI adapters and the attached disk drives and virtual networking to enable the sharing of Ethernet adapters, providing greater flexibility to configure cost-effective systems.
This paper describes the practical uses of virtual I/O and provides hints and tips for exploiting this new capability. Virtual I/O is included in the Advanced POWER Virtualization feature for eServer p5 systems. The Advanced POWER Virtualization feature requires AIX 5L™ V5.3, SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 9 for POWER™ (SLES 9) or Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS 3 for POWER, Update 3 (RHEL AS 3).
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