Mt Xia: Technical Consulting Group

Business Continuity / Disaster Recovery / High Availability
Data Center Automation / Audit Response / Audit Compliance

Additional documents of interest

  • Successful Business Continuity - Part 1 - Users and Groups
    This article was published in the April 2005 issue of AIX Update magazine and discusses system administration needs and requirements oriented around users and groups. The overall emphasis of this series of articles is for implementation of enterprise wide unique identifiers for a variety of parameters, such as user names, group names, UID and GID numbers.
  • Successful Business Continuity - Part 2 - Machine and Host Names
    This article was published in the May 2005 issue of AIX Update magazine and discusses naming structures for machines, systems, adapters, and aliases. The overall emphasis of this series of articles is for implementation of enterprise wide unique identifiers for a variety of parameters.
  • Successful Business Continuity - Part 3 - Volume Names
    This article was published in the December 2005 issue of AIX Update magazine and discusses naming structures for volume groups, logical volumes, log logical volumes, directory mount points, etc. The overall emphasis of this series of articles is for implementation of enterprise wide unique identifiers for a variety of parameters.
  • Successful Business Continuity - Part 4 - MQ Series, Startup/Shutdown Scripts, Error Processing
    This article was published in the April 2006 issue of AIX Update magazine and discusses how to implement AIX in an environment dedicated to business continuity. The topic of this article is the assignment of MQ Series queue names and aliases, resource group startup and shutdown script names (Application startup/shutdown script names), error logging, and error notification.
  • Successful Business Continuity - Part 5 - Miscellaneous topics
    This article was published in the August 2006 issue of AIX Update magazine and discusses how to implement AIX in an environment dedicated to business continuity. A variety of topics is discussed in this article including automated documentation generation and management.
  • Automated Microcode Management System
    One of the most difficult administration tasks in an AIX environment is attempting to keep the firmware and microcode up-to-date. Mt Xia has devised an automated method of gathering the Microcode information, determining which microcode needs to be updated, generating reports, and uploading the required microcode updates to each individual system.
  • Calculating the size of a Virtual Processor
    This document describes the algorithms used to calculate the size of a virtual processor when using shared processors in an LPAR. The IBM documentation describes how to calculate CPU utilization, NOT how to size for configuration, this document clarifies this process. A description of the HMC input fields for the processor tab is included.
  • Basics of Partition Load Manager Setup
    This presentation was provided by Ron Barker from IBM regarding the PLM Basic setup.
  • ppt
  • pdf
  • Partition Load Manager Standards

    The Partition Load Manager (PLM) provides CPU and memory resource management and monitoring across logical partitions (LPARs). Partition Load Manager allows you to effectively use CPU and Memory resources by allowing you to set thresholds for designated resources. When a threshold is exceeded, Partition Load Manager can try to assign CPU and/or Memory resources to that LPAR by using resources assigned to other LPARs that are not being used.

    Determining which node is more or less deserving of resources is primarily done by taking into account certain values defined in what is known as a policy file. This policy file details partitions, their entitlements, their thresholds, and organizes the partitions into groups. Every node, but not every LPAR, managed by Partition Load Manager must be defined in the policy file along with several associated attribute values. Some of the attributes that are associated with the node are the maximum, minimum, and guaranteed resource values, variable share values, and so on. These are the attributes taken into consideration by Partition Load Manager when a decision is made as to whether a resource is reallocated from one LPAR to another.

    PLM is an automated mechanism for utilizing the Dynamic LPAR (DLPAR) capabilities of the HMC and requires communication with the HMC. This means that before PLM will function, DLPAR must be functional on the HMC. DLPAR requires communication with each LPAR via the Resource Monitoring and Control (RMC) subsystem.

    NOTE: The RMC subsystem is not installed when the AIX operating system is installed from the NIM server as an "rte" install.

    The following fileset must be installed on every PLM client LPAR to enable RMC communications with the HMC and PLM:

    csm.client
    

    The PLM communications are also dependent upon SSH and SSL and must be installed on every PLM client LPAR.

    Refer to the PLM configuration procedures for more information


    A single PLM server can manage multiple frames across multiple HMC's. In the Mt Xia environment there is a single primary PLM in each data center. Within a frame there are two classifications of CPU's, dedicated and shared. Policy files are used by the PLM to control each frame and a single policy file will exist for each frame. The policy file is named for the serial number of each frame. When new frames are added to Mt Xia's environment, a policy file will be created on the PLM and the name of the policy file will be the serial number of the frame. Policy files currently exist with names such as:

    • 107CE4E - p520 - Warner Home Video
    • 10F6BEE - p570 - Warner Home Video
    • 51A432B - p590 - Mt Xia
    • 51A432C - p590 - Mt Xia

    Every LPAR created in the Mt Xia environment will be managed by a PLM and will be initially assigned a minimum amount of CPU and memory resources. This means there will be a policy file on the PLM for every frame in the data center where the PLM exists.

    Within a PLM policy there are two groups to represent the two CPU classifications, dedicated and shared. Each LPAR will be assigned to one of these two groups, depending upon what type of CPU's are assigned to the LPAR.

    As a configuration standard, every policy will be configured to immediately release free CPU and memory resources. Most other configuration parameters within the PLM will depend upon the LPAR and application requirements.

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    Standards
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    Policies
    Guidelines
    Procedures


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