Edit: Still good stuff
Originally posted May 12, 2020 on AIXchange
Tips for technical documentation like IBM Redbooks, Power Systems Virtual User Group replays. There’s always something to learn, or relearn.
I’m always interested in hearing how others configure and maintain their systems. Sure, many lessons can be learned by trial and error in the test lab, but through my years in tech, I’ve gained the most by listening to those around me. I try to soak up all information I can, whether it’s random scripts and tips and anecdotes, or technical documentation like IBM Redbooks, Power Systems Virtual User Group replays and the perspectives of IBM Champions and AIX experts on Twitter. There’s always something to learn, or relearn.
With this in mind, I want to note that the latest version of the IBM POWER Virtualization Best Practices Guide (version 4.0) came out in March. While it’s a fairly short document, it’s a dense read—but it’s definitely worth your time.
Here’s the table of contents:
1 INTRODUCTION
2 VIRTUAL PROCESSORS
2.1 Sizing/configuring virtual processors
2.2 Entitlement vs. Virtual processors
2.3 Matching entitlement of a LPAR close to its average utilization for better performance
2.4 When to add additional virtual processors
2.5 How to estimate the number of virtual processors per uncapped shared LPAR
3 AIX VIRTUAL PROCESSOR MANAGEMENT -PROCESSOR FOLDING
3.1 VPM folding example
3.2 Tuning Virtual Processor Management Folding
3.3 POWER7/POWER7+/POWER8/POWER9 Folding
3.4 Relationship between VPM Folding and PHYP dispatching
4 AIX PERFORMANCE MODE TUNING
4.1 Processor Bindings in Shared LPAR
5 LPAR PAGE TABLE SIZE CONSIDERATIONS
6 ASSIGNMENT OF RESOURCES BY THE POWERVM HYPERVISOR
6.1 PowerVM Resource assignment ordering
6.2 Overview of PowerVM Hypervisor Resource Assignment
6.3 How to determine if a LPAR is contained within a chip or drawer/Dual Chip Module (DCM)
6.3.1 Displaying Resource Assignments for AIX
6.3.2 Displaying Resource Assignments for Linux
6.3.3 Displaying Resource Assignments for IBM i
6.4 Optimizing Resource allocation for affinity
6.5 Optimizing Resource Assignment –Dynamic Platform Optimizer
6.6 Affinity Groups
6.7 LPAR_placement=2
6.8 LPAR_placement considerations for failover/Disaster recovery
6.9 Server Evacuation Using Partition Mobility
6.10 PowerVM Resource Consumption for Capacity Planning Considerations
6.11 Licensing resources (COD)
7 ENERGY SCALE
8 PROCESSOR COMPATIBILITY MODE
9 CONCLUSION
10 REFERENCES
The references consist of a number of links to various articles and documents, including a piece I wrote on setting up LPARs. Note that the link in the doc no longer works, but that article (“An LPAR Review”) is preserved in my archive. Even though it was originally published in 2009, the information is still relevant. But be sure to pull up the doc and check out all the references, because you’ll find lots of good information.