Chapter 4. Reliability, availability, and serviceability
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By working in a redundant architecture, some tasks that would require that a given application
would be brought offline, can now be execute with the application running, allowing for even
greater availability.
4.5.1 Clustering
IBM Power Systems running under PowerVM and IBM i, AIX and Linux support a spectrum of
clustering solutions. These solutions are designed to meet requirements not only for
application availability as regards to server outages, but also data center disaster
management, reliable data backups and so forth. These offerings include distributed
applications such as with DB2 PureScale, HA solutions using clustering technology with
PowerHA SystemMirror and disaster management across geographies with PowerHA
SystemMirror Enterprise Edition.
For more information please see:
“PowerHA SystemMirror for IBM i Cookbook”:
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg247994.html
“IBM PowerHA SystemMirror 7.1.2 Enterprise Edition for AIX”:
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg248106.html
4.5.2 Virtual I/O redundancy configurations
Within each server, the partitions can be supported with a single VIOS. However, if a single
VIOS is used and that VIOS terminates for any reason (hardware or software caused) then all
the partitions using that VIOS will terminate.
Using Redundant VIOS servers would mitigate that risk. Maintaining redundancy of adapters
within each VIOS in addition to having redundant VIOS will avoid most faults that keep a
VIOS from running. Multiple paths to networks and SANs is therefore recommended.
Figure 4-3 show a diagram of a partition accessing data from two distinct Virtual I/O Servers,
each one with multiple network and SAN adapters to provide connectivity.
Figure 4-3 Partition with dual redundant Virtual I/O Servers
Since each VIOS can largely be considered as an AIX based partition, each VIOS also needs
the ability to access a boot image, having paging space, and so forth under a root volume
Virtual I/O
#1
Logical Partition
LAN Adapter
LAN Adapter
SAN Adapter
SAN Adapter
Virtual
LAN
Virtual
SAN
Virtual I/O
#2
LAN Adapter
LAN Adapter
SAN Adapter
SAN Adapter
Virtual
LAN
Virtual
SAN