Logical partitions

Ross Mauri tackles System i questions in chat

Ross Mauri, the general manager of IBM Power Systems, held forth at a fireside chat at iSociety earlier this week. The full transcript of the chat is worth reading. Hat tip to David Vasta for the heads-up.

Here are a few excerpts of the transcript. On early feedback of System i blades:

so far we have a small number of customers using i blades, but we are getting good feedback from key early users, both in Bladecenter S and H chassis. For example BC-H … Websphere on i on multiple blades appears to be a popular choice, for BC-S … we see customers are mixing i blades and x86 blades to build a combined infrastructure. We just completed our first round of worldwide education on blades with business partners. We expect that to pay off in 2009. We are also investing in additional blade support virtual tape and new disk options … so we will hit some key customer requirements for blades in the first half of 2009

On virtual System i partitions:

feedback from customers says that the virtual i partitions support is one of the most exciting new capabilities. Virtual partitions enables you to run multiple images of IBM i without dedicated hardware, so it’s great for people who are testing apps

And finally, the potential role of the IBM i operating system in cloud computing:

we already have many partners offering IBM i based applications as a service - those partners are everything from small ISVs .. to the largest … ie Oracle, JDE. the large ISVS especially like this because it allows them to reach down into small and medium businesses for the future as we move to cloud computing … IBM i will be participant

Linux wins in straight sets over AIX and System i

Every year IBM issues a press release touting its IT support for the U.S. Open tennis tournament in Flushing Meadows, N.Y. In past years, they have always talked about the Power processor technology and the benefits of System p and i, as well as Linux on i and p.

This year, their message is about going “green.” Surprise.

Not only that, but read into the details and you’ll discover that they’re only running Linux on Power now. No AIX. No IBM i (they weren’t running IBM i before, but still).

Timothy Prickett Morgan has a good, albeit short, piece, grousing about this U.S. Open development.

Considering that IBM doesn’t own a Linux operating system and has just rejiggered pricing on i 6.1 and AIX 6.1 to make them more competitive with Linux, the Grand Slam systems that IBM makes available to the U.S. Open, the French Open, and the Australian Open would seem to be a perfect place to show how a mix of AIX and i on Power6 iron is the best way to support modern Web applications. I mean, IBM does want to sell its own operating systems, right? And if AIX and i can’t–or won’t–compete against Linux on a level court with a study and straight net, well, what’s the point?

In past years, we’ve written about IBM running the U.S. Open on the Search400.com site. The backbone of the operation used to be System p5 550 servers running AIX and Linux partitions, with the AIX partitions running player search and feedback applications. Meanwhile, Linux partitions on the System p servers and two System i servers ran other Web-serving applications as well as applications at the event hosting the Web site’s scoring system.

Now, apparently, it’s all Linux. At least it’s still on Power, but like Morgan says, this would be a prime opportunity to show off AIX and IBM i. Instead, Linux takes over the No. 1 seed.

Lack of SATA drive support a good thing?

As if often the case, digging into the comments of blogs online can often be more interesting than the posts themselves. Take this example from Maxed Out, the System i Network blog by Chris Maxcer.

The blog itself isn’t bad — Maxcer quotes Clabby Analytics analyst Joe Clabby as basically saying that mainframe technology is still bleeding down into lower platforms, and the Power Systems group is and will continue to be a beneficiary to that. One of Clabby’s points is that the mainframe has been doing virtualization for decades.

The first comment, then, questions whether x86 virtualization with VMware has now exceeded virtualization on Power, as VMware supports virtualized SATA drives while IBM i on BladeCenter does not. “Has x86 virtualization software now exceeded what IBM offers?” the comment asks.

Oh, but I say nay nay, another commenter writes:

Any limitations on the use of SATA drives with i are intentional. The “read me first” document for planning storage virtualization with IBM i strongly recommends the use of Fibre Channel physical drives due to the performance and reliability requirments of production workloads. SATA drives have a reputation for being, relatively speaking, slow and less reliable. Rather than let the lure of cheap disks become a substitute for good capacity planning, IBM has chosen not to support SATA drives for i on blades … at least for the time being.

i5/OS on blade server not coming until next year

There was plenty of talk earlier this year that a server blade running i5/OS might be ready by the end of this year, but in conversations I had this week from IBM’s Power systems group, that’s not going to happen.

Scott Handy, a marketing VP in the group, said i5/OS will be available on the Power6 blade in the first half of next year, presumably around the same time Power6 System i rack servers will be ready as well. He told me that “i5/OS isn’t ready yet.”

There’s another thing. A feature of the Power6 chip is Live Partition Mobility, which allows users to move an entire hard partition from one physical server to another without any downtime. Right now it’s available on AIX and Linux. Obviously it’s not available on i5/OS yet because there isn’t a Power6-based server running i5/OS yet, but Handy wouldn’t commit to me about whether it would be available for i5/OS, only saying that IBM is “working on it.”

Draft redbook on logical partitioning

IBM is working on a draft redbook about logical partitioning on System i and p. Since Big Blue has been pushing the two platforms as good locations for server consolidation projects (especially the System p), knowing LPARs like the back of your hand is a good first step.