| Flexible Resource Model |
| Virtualization Support |
- Enables system virtualization in concert with the Virtualization Engine systems technologies**
- Offers flexibility to easily adjust physical resources to meet changing workload requirements. Helps improve service levels and decreased downtime**
- Increases physical resource utilization through virtualization of processors, memory and disk resources*
- Helps reduce expense of “idle” capacity in standalone systems**
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| Micro-Partitioning* |
- Enables creation of highly granular virtual servers as small as 1/10th of a processor
- Adjust processor capacity in increments as small as 1/100th of a processor
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| Dynamic Logical Partitioning** |
- Enables addition or removal of processors, adapters or memory without system or partition reboot, improving system availability and resource utilization
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| Dynamic Capacity Upgrade on Demand** |
- Allows activation of additional processors and/or memory when needed—without a system or partition reboot—for greater flexibility and improved workload throughput
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| Dynamic Processor Sparing (with CUoD)** |
- Supports dynamic substitution of failing processor once a threshold has been met with a spare CUoD processor to help keep systems available and processing their assigned workloads
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| Workload Management |
- Adds automatic time-based policies and new control points to allocate resources to applications within a single system image
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| Advanced Accounting |
- Provides detailed accounting records on usage at regular intervals
- Allows for more direct allocation of costs to different parts of the business based on resource usage
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| Micro-Partitioning Performance Enhancement* |
- The AIX 5L scheduler has been modified to ease the administration of micro-partitions by eliminating the need to carefully size the number of virtual processor defined for a partition.
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| System Scalability |
| Simultaneous Multithreading* |
- Can deliver up to 30 percent more commercial performance over similar systems without simultaneous multithreading
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| JFS2 File System |
- Efficient storage of large (up to 32 Terabyte) files that assist deployment of advanced applications and databases
- Includes the capability to grow or shrink JFS2 file system online
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| Large Pages* |
- Additional page sizes on later versions of the POWER5 and POWER5+ processors support 16GB and 64K pages and help improve throughput for compute-intensive workloads and applications that require large amounts of data to be transferred between memory and storage These new page sizes are in addition to the existing 4K and 16M page sizes supported on older POWER5 and POWER4 processors.
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| Security |
| Command Access Protection Profile Security Certification (CAPP/EAL4) |
- AIX 5L V5.2 has been certified to comply with the rigorous Common Access Protection Profile (CAPP/EAL4) security certification.
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| Multilevel Security Support |
- AIX 5L, in conjunction with Argus Systems Pitbull, can be configured to meet the demanding requirements for Multilevel Security at government and financial institutions.
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| NFSv4 ACL Support on JFS2 and GPFS |
- Improves authentication and access control
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| Pluggable Authentication Module |
- Permits the use of distributed security services to reduce administrative effort associated with linking users to multiple applications
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| Enterprise Identity Mapping |
- Allows a user single-point access to a network comprised of heterogeneous server platforms
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| Adaptable LDAP Client |
- The AIX 5L V5.3 LDAP client can accommodate arbitrary schema customizations to allow AIX 5L to be a well behaved client that can seamlessly integrate into existing non-IBM LDAP infrastructures.
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| Active Directory Support |
- AIX 5L V5.3 supports using a Microsoft Active Directory Server as an LDAP repository and authentication source.
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| Reliability, Availability, Serviceability (RAS) |
| First Failure Data Capture |
- Captures failures and error log analysis (ELA) to analyze data and take corrective actions
- Key failure resolution data is written to NVRAM
- Lightweight Memory Trace** provides additional diagnostic information to help identify root cause for system problems
- XMALLOC_debug has been enhanced in AIX 5L V5.3 to allow the administrator to dynamically adjust the amount of memory allocation diagnostic information gathered without requiring a reboot
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| Automated System Hang Recovery |
- Helps systems remain available without administrator intervention
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| Dynamic Processor Deallocation |
- Proactively checks processor integrity and removes failing processors so that systems are more available
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| System UE-Gard** |
- Improves system uptime by proactively managing checkstop errors at a thread level
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| Multi-path I/O (MPIO) |
- Enhances internal reliability of storage connections and permits maintenance deferral while offering interoperability between heterogeneous storage subsystems in a SAN
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| Network Performance |
| Virtual IP Address (VIPA) |
- Helps applications remain available if a network connection is lost
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| IP Multi-path Routing |
- Improves network availability by providing multiple routes to a destination
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| Multiple Default Gateways |
- Keeps traffic moving through a network by automatically detecting and routing around dead gateways
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| Mobile IPv6 |
- Extends Internet connectivity to handheld devices
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| Network Tuning Interface |
- Helps reduce administrative effort associated with managing and tuning networks
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| Systems Management |
| Java Web Start |
- Provides improved performance for Web-based Systems Manager
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| Service Update Management Assistant (SUMA) |
- Enables policy-based automated download of operating system fixes and maintenance levels direct from IBM to the client's fix distribution center
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| compare_report |
- Provides reports that compare fix levels on a system to a reference system or base level of fixes for easier administration
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| RSCT (Reliable Scalable Cluster Technology) Resource Monitoring and Control |
- Delivers clustering technology to automate resource monitoring, improving system availability and performance
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| Migration via Alternate Disk Install |
- Improves management of multiple operating system migrations in environments where downtime is critical
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| New Release and Service Strategy |
- The new release and service strategy implemented February 2006 helps clients maintain a more stable AIX 5L environment by reducing the number of OS upgrade cycles and providing additional service delivery options that can allow clients to stay on a given maintenance level for a longer period of time and still receive support from IBM.
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| Multibos |
- Multibos supports two root volume groups on a single physical disk that can be upgraded separately to provide the advantages of Alternate Disk Installation for clients that have only a single physical disk on their AIX 5L V5.3 systems.
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| Migration mksysb |
- Migration mksysb allows a client to move an older version of AIX to the new Power Architecture™ hardware and upgrade it to AIX 5L V5.3 without having to go through and intermediate upgrade platform.
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| Storage |
| Split Mirror Backup Support |
- Helps reduce any impact to system performance by removing the need to rebuild an entire mirror
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| JFS2 File System Snapshot |
- Helps administrators manage a file system for action and easier backup
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| I/O Size and Alignment for Logical Volume Manager |
- Removes size and alignment restrictions to help improve file system and overall system performance
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| Storage Area Network (SAN) Boot |
- Adds capability to initiate system boot from a single point-of-contact in a SAN
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| NFSv4 |
- AIX 5L V5.3 was the first UNIX vendor to provide full support for the new, open standards-based NFSv4 distributed file system. NFSv4 provides greatly enhanced security and interoperability compared to NFSv3
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| NFS Support for Concurrent I/O and Direct I/O |
- AIX 5L V5.3 now supports Concurrent I/O and Direct I/O for NFSv3 and NFSv4 to improve performance for support clients that wish to use NFS-based file systems for database storage.
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| Global Logical Volume Manager |
- GLVM allows clients to synchronously mirror AIX 5L V5.3 volume groups over a network.
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| NFS Edge Server Caching |
- AIX 5L V5.3 includes an NFS edge server caching subsystem that can substantially reduce the amount of wide area traffic associated with using NFS across geographically dispersed sites. This caching mechanism is transparent to the NFS server and client.
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| Network Data Administration Facility |
- NDAF is a new utility based on technology developed by IBM Research that can substantially reduce the administration costs of managing large, replicated NFSv4 environments.
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| Development and Performance Tools |
| Xprofiler |
- Helps developers identify the most processor-intensive software functions via a graphical interface
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| Performance Monitoring Tools |
- Allows administrators and users to more easily collect information and optimize system performance in addition to identifying correct upgrade components
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| Template-based Performance Tuning |
- Allows administrators the capability to capture system tuning schemes via stanza files and export them to multiple servers
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| Monitoring Multiple Partitions Performance** |
- The topas command was enhanced to support monitoring the performance of multiple partitions via the —C flag
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