VIO Introduction and installation

 INTRODUCTION TO VIO

Prior to the introduction of POWER5 systems, it was only possible to create as many separate logical partitions (LPARs) on an IBM system as there were physical processors. Given that the largest IBM eServer pSeries POWER4 server, the p690, had 32 processors, 32 partitions were the most anyone could create. A customer could order a system with enough physical disks and network adapter cards to so that each LPAR would have enough disks to contain operating systems and enough network cards to allow users to communicate with each partition.
The Advanced POWER Virtualization™ feature of POWER5 platforms1 makes it possible to allocate fractions of a physical CPU to a POWER5 LPAR. Using virtual CPU’s and virtual I/O a user can create many more LPARs on a p5 system than there are CPU’s or I/O slots. The Advanced POWER Virtualization feature accounts for this by allowing users to create shared network adapters and virtual SCSI disks. Customers can use these virtual resources to provide disk space and network adapters for each LPAR they create on their POWER5 system.
(see Figure ).

There are three components of the Advanced POWER Virtualization feature: Micro-Partitioning™, shared Ethernet adapters, and virtual SCSI. In addition, AIX 5L Version 5.3 allows users to define virtual Ethernet adapters permitting inter-LPAR communication. This paper provides an overview of how each of these components works and then shows the details of how to set up a simple three-partition system where one partition is a Virtual I/O Server and the other two partitions use virtual Ethernet and virtual SCSI to differing degrees. What follows is a practical guide to help a new POWER5 customer set up simple systems where high availability is not a concern, but becoming familiar with this new technology in a development environment is the primary goal.

Micro-Partitioning

An element of the IBM POWER Virtualization feature called Micro-Partitioning can divide a single processor into many different processors. In POWER4 systems, each physical processor is dedicated to an LPAR. This concept of dedicated processors is still present in POWER5 systems, but so is the concept of shared processors. A POWER5 system administrator can use the Hardware Management Console (HMC) to place processors in a shared processor pool. Using the HMC, the administrator can assign fractions of a CPU to individual partitions. If one LPAR is defined to use processors in the shared processor pool, when those CPUs are idle, the POWER Hypervisor™ makes them available to other partitions. This ensures that these processing resources are not wasted. Also, the ability to assign fractions of a CPUC to a partition means it is possible to partition POWER5 servers into many different partitions. Allocation of physical processor and memory resources on POWER5 systems is managed by a system firmware component called the POWER Hypervisor.

Virtual Networking

Virtual networking on POWER5 hardware consists of two main capabilities. One capability is provided by a software IEEE 802.1q (VLAN) switch that is implemented in the Hypervisor on POWER5 hardware. Users can use the HMC to add Virtual Ethernet adapters to their partition definitions. Once these are added and the partitions booted, the new adapters can be configured just like real physical adapters, and the partitions can communicate with each other without having to connect cables between the LPARs. Users can separate traffic from different VLANs by assigning different VLAN IDs to each virtual Ethernet adapter. Each AIX 5.3 partition can support up to 256 Virtual Ethernet adapters.

In addition, a part of the Advanced POWER virtualization virtual networking feature allows users to share physical adapters between logical partitions. These shared adapters, called Shared Ethernet Adapters (SEAs), are managed by a Virtual I/O Server partition which maps physical adapters under its control to virtual adapters. It is possible to map many physical Ethernet adapters to a single virtual Ethernet adapter thereby eliminating a single physical adapter as a point of failure in the architecture.
There are a few things users of virtual networking need to consider before implementing it. First, virtual networking ultimately uses more CPU cycles on the POWER5 machine than when physical adapters are assigned to a partition. Users should consider assigning a physical adapter directly to a partition when heavy network traffic is predicted over a certain adapter. Secondly, users may want to take advantage of larger MTU sizes that virtual Ethernet allows if they know that their applications will benefit from the reduced fragmentation and better performance that larger MTU sizes offer. The MTU size limit for SEA is smaller than Virtual Ethernet adapters, so users will have to carefully choose anMTU size so that packets are sent to external networks with minimum fragmentation.

Virtual SCSI

The Advanced POWER Visualization feature called virtual SCSI allows access to physical disk devices which are assigned to the Virtual I/O Server (INTRODUCTION TO VIOS). The system administrator uses INTRODUCTION TO VIOS logical volume manager commands to assign disks to volume groups. The administrator creates logical volumes in the Virtual I/O Server volume groups. Either these logical volumes or the physical disks themselves may ultimately appear as physical disks (hdisks) to the Virtual I/O Server’s client partitions once they are associated with virtual SCSI host adapters. While the Virtual I/O Server software is packaged as an additional software bundle that a user purchases separately from the AIX 53 distribution, the virtual I/O client software is a part of the AIX 5.3 base installation media so an administrator does not need to install any additional filesets on a Virtual SCSI client partition. Srikrishnan provides more details on how the Virtual SCSI feature works Take a console of HMC.
First we must install INTRODUCTION TO VIO server which is a separate OS which plays important role to share hardware resources like Ethernet, SCSI adapter, DEV ROM.

Right click on Partion-> Create-> Lagical Partition

Give Partitation name. It can be anything In this example I have created INTRODUCTION TO VIO server with nameINTRODUCTION TO VIO_Server.

Select Partition Environment as Virtual I/O Server.
Keep as it is and click on Next.
Give Profile name it can be anything.

I have given profile name as Introduction to VIO_server.profile

Click on Next button.

INTRODUCTION TO VIO OS dosent require much RAM.We will specify Minimum /Desire /Maximum memory 1 GB.

Click on Next button

Keep as it is and click on Next button.

In this example we are having single physical CPU of 4 core.

For INTRODUCTION TO VIO assign Minimum /Desire/Maximum processing unit as 0.3 each.

Question:How the Calculation of Unit is ?

0.1   to 0.10=1 core CPU.

Click on Advance button

Select sharing mode as Uncapped and click on OK button

Below screen will appear.

Click on Unit U787F.001.DPM52W7 as selected in given snap and click on Add as desire button

Following screen will appear. Select all Require boxes and click on next button

Don’t do anything here and click on next button.

Don’t do anything here and click on Next button

Click on Ethernet and click on Create adapter button.

Check Access external network and IEEE 802.1Q compatible adapter and click on OK

Here we have created Virtual Ethernet adapter.

Now we will again create Shared Ethernet adapter.

To create that again click on create adapter button. Following screen will appear.

Check on IEEE 802.1Q compatible adapter and click on OK button.

The output will be like below.

Select both required adapter.

Select SCSI and click on Create server adapter.

Create two SCSI adapters and click on Next button.

In  output, two  SCSI adapter will be as below

Don’t do anything here click on Next button.

Click on Next button

Click on Finish button.

Now we will have to activate the INTRODUCTION TO VIO server.

To activate it right on INTRODUCTION TO VIO server and click on Activate button.

Before that make sure that INTRODUCTION TO VIO installationDVD is in AIX box on which we are creating the LPARs

Check on Open a terminal window or console session and boot mode as SMS and click on OK.

Here onward INTRODUCTION TO VIO OS installation will start.

Right click on INTRODUCTION TO VIO_Server and click on Open Terminal window.

Here we will see the installation of INTRODUCTION TO VIO follow the steps of installation which is very easy to understand and similar to AIX operating system installation.

Installation

You have two options to install the AIX-based INTRODUCTION TO VIO Server:
1. Install from CD
2. Install from network via an AIX NIM-Server

Installation method
#1 is probably the more frequently used method in a pure Linux environment as installation method #2 requires the presence of an AIX NIM (Network Installation Management) server. Both methods differ only in the initial boot step and are then the same. They both lead to the following installation screen:

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——————————————————————————- Welcome to the Virtual I/O Server. boot image timestamp: 10:22 03/23 The current time and date: 17:23:47 08/10/2005 number of processors: 1 size of memory: 2048MB boot device: /pci@800000020000002/pci@2,3/ide@1/disk@0:\ppc\chrp\bootfile.exeSPLPAR info: entitled_capacity: 50 platcpus_active: 2This system is SMT enabled: smt_status: 00000007; smt_threads: 2 kernel size: 10481246; 32 bit kernel
——————————————————————————-

The next step then is to define the system console. After some time you should see the following screen:

******* Please define the System Console. *******Type a 1 and press Enter to use this terminal as the system console.

Then Choose language of installation

>>> 1 Type 1 and press Enter to have English during install.

This is the main installation menu of the AIX-based INTRODUCTION TO VIO-Server:

Welcome to Base Operating System
Installation and Maintenance
Type the number of your choice and press Enter. Choice is indicated by >>>.>>>

1 Start Install Now with Default Settings
2 Change/Show Installation Settings and Install
3 Start Maintenance Mode for System Recovery

88 Help ? 99 PreIntroduction to VIOus Menu

>>> Choice [1]:

Select Hard disk where you need to install INTRODUCTION TO VIO base operating system as we do in AIX Base operating system.

Once the installation is over. You will get login Prompt similar to AIX server.

INTRODUCTION TO VIO server is nothing but AIX on top of that Virtualisation software loaded on it. Generally onINTRODUCTION TO VIO server we do not host any application. Its basically used for sharing I/O resources ( DISK & Network ) to the client LPAR hosted in same Physical server.

Initial setup
After the reboot you are presented with the INTRODUCTION TO VIO-Server login prompt. You can’t login as user root as you have to use the special user id padmin. No initial default password is set. Immediately after login you are forced to set a new password.

We have to accept the license with following command

Give below command

Here i am creating One VG with name LPAR1vg of hdisk1 and hdisk2

Here I am creating LV with name LPAR1lv (size : 250 G) of LPAR1vg

Now ,activate the INTRODUCTION TO VIO server