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IBM BladeCenter PS701 Technical Overview And Introduction - Comments Welcome

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Summary of BladeCenter PS701

  • Page 1

    Ibm.Com/redbooks red paper front cover ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction david watts kerry anders berjis patel features the power7 processor providing advanced multi-core technology details the follow-on to the bladecenter js23 and js43 servers includes prod...

  • Page 3

    International technical support organization ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction may 2010 redp-4655-00

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    © copyright international business machines corporation 2010. All rights reserved. Note to u.S. Government users restricted rights -- use, duplication or disclosure restricted by gsa adp schedule contract with ibm corp. First edition (may 2010) this edition applies to: ibm bladecenter ps700, 8406-70...

  • Page 5: Contents

    © copyright ibm corp. 2010. All rights reserved. Iii contents notices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Vii trademarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ....

  • Page 6

    Iv ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction 2.2.8 comparison of the power7 and power6 processors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 2.3 power7 processor-based blades . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 2.4 memory...

  • Page 7

    Contents v 4.3.6 pci extended error handling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 4.4 serviceability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 4.4.1 detecting . . . . . . . . . . ...

  • Page 8

    Vi ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction.

  • Page 9: Notices

    © copyright ibm corp. 2010. All rights reserved. Vii notices this information was developed for products and services offered in the u.S.A. Ibm may not offer the products, services, or features discussed in this document in other countries. Consult your local ibm representative for information on th...

  • Page 10: Trademarks

    Viii ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction trademarks ibm, the ibm logo, and ibm.Com are trademarks or registered trademarks of international business machines corporation in the united states, other countries, or both. These and other ibm trademarked terms are ...

  • Page 11: Preface

    © copyright ibm corp. 2010. All rights reserved. Ix preface the ibm® bladecenter® ps700, ps701, and ps702 are premier blades for 64-bit applications. They are designed to minimize complexity, improve efficiency, automate processes, reduce energy consumption, and scale easily. These blade servers are...

  • Page 12

    X ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction the team (l-r): david, berjis, and kerry thanks to the following people for their contributions to this project: from ibm power systems development: chris austen larry cook jeff franke tom flynn kaena freitas ghadir gholam...

  • Page 13: Comments Welcome

    Preface xi find out more about the residency program, browse the residency index, and apply online at: ibm.Com/redbooks/residencies.Html comments welcome your comments are important to us! We want our papers to be as helpful as possible. Send us your comments about this paper or other ibm redbooks p...

  • Page 14

    Xii ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction.

  • Page 15: Introduction and General

    © copyright ibm corp. 2010. All rights reserved. 1 chapter 1. Introduction and general description this chapter provides an introduction and general description to the new ibm bladecenter power7 processor-based blade servers. These new blades offer processor scalability from four cores to 16 cores: ...

  • Page 16

    2 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction 1.1 overview of ps700, ps701, and ps702 blade servers figure 1-1 shows the ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 blade servers. Figure 1-1 the ibm bladecenter ps702, bladecenter ps701, and bladecenter ps700 the ps700 bla...

  • Page 17

    Chapter 1. Introduction and general description 3 the ps701 blade server the ps701 blade server (8406-71y) is a single socket, single-wide 8-core 3.0 ghz power7 processor-based server. The power7 processor is a 64-bit, 8-core with 256 kb l2 cache per core and 4 mb l3 cache per core. The ps701 blade ...

  • Page 18

    4 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction 1.2 ibm bladecenter support blade servers are thin servers that insert into a single rack-mounted chassis that supplies shared power, cooling, and networking infrastructure. Each server is an independent server with its ow...

  • Page 19

    Chapter 1. Introduction and general description 5 table 1-2 bladecenter e models that support the ps700 ibm bladecenter h delivers high performance, extreme reliability, and ultimate flexibility for the most demanding it environments. See “bladecenter h” on page 7. Ibm bladecenter ht models are desi...

  • Page 20

    6 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction bladecenter e’s lower power consumption and calibrated vectored cooling™ allow more servers to fit in a tight power or cooling environment. Figure 1-2 displays the front view of an ibm bladecenter e. Figure 1-2 bladecenter...

  • Page 21

    Chapter 1. Introduction and general description 7 for 8677-4sx, two 2,320-watt, hot-swap power modules and support for two optional 2,320-watt power modules, offering higher power and performance than previous models, extending support to a wider range of blades two hot-swap blowers an advanced mana...

  • Page 22

    8 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction figure 1-4 bladecenter h front view figure 1-5 displays the rear view of an ibm bladecenter h. Figure 1-5 bladecenter h rear view the key features of ibm bladecenter h chassis are as follows: a rack-optimized, 9 u modular ...

  • Page 23

    Chapter 1. Introduction and general description 9 a high-availability mid-plane that supports hot-swap of individual blades two 2,900-watt, hot-swap power modules and support for two optional 2,900-watt power modules, offering redundancy and power for robust configurations two hot-swap redundant blo...

  • Page 24

    10 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction figure 1-6 bladecenter ht front view.

  • Page 25

    Chapter 1. Introduction and general description 11 figure 1-7 shows the rear view of the bladecenter ht. Figure 1-7 bladecenter ht rear view bladecenter ht delivers rich telecommunications features and functionality, including integrated servers, storage and networking, fault-tolerant features, opti...

  • Page 26

    12 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction the key features of the bladecenter ht are as follows: support for up to 12 blade servers, compatible with the other chassis in the bladecenter family four standard and four high-speed i/o module bays, compatible with the...

  • Page 27

    Chapter 1. Introduction and general description 13 figure 1-9 shows the rear view of the chassis. Figure 1-9 the rear of the bladecenter s chassis the key features of ibm bladecenter s chassis are as follows: a rack-optimized, 7 u modular design enclosure for up to six hot-swap blades two optional d...

  • Page 28: 1.3  Operating Environment

    14 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction 1.2.2 number of ps700, ps701, and ps702 blades in a chassis the number of power7 processor based blades that can be installed in a bladecenter chassis depends on several factors: bladecenter chassis type number of power s...

  • Page 29: 1.4  Physical Package

    Chapter 1. Introduction and general description 15 ibm bladecenter h operating temperature – 10.0 to 35 °c (50 to 95 °f) at 0 to 914 m (0 to 3000 ft.) – 10.0 to 32 °c (50 to 90 °f) at 914 to 2,133 m (3000 to 7000 ft.) relative humidity 8% to 80% maximum altitude: 2,133 meters (7000 ft.) ibm bladecen...

  • Page 30: 1.5  System Features

    16 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction table 1-5 shows the physical dimension of the bladecenter chassis that supports the power7 processor based blade servers. Table 1-5 physical dimension of supported bladecenter chassis 1.5 system features the ps700, ps701,...

  • Page 31

    Chapter 1. Introduction and general description 17 figure 1-10 top view of ps700 blade server disk: – two disk drive bays support one or two sas hdd – hardware mirroring raid 0, raid 1, and raid 10 on-board integrated features: – service processor (sp) – two 1 gb ethernet ports (hea) – sas controlle...

  • Page 32

    18 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction 1.5.2 ps701 system features the bladecenter ps701 is shown in figure 1-11. Figure 1-11 top view of the ps701 blade server the features of the server are as follows: machine type and model number 8406-71y form factor singl...

  • Page 33

    Chapter 1. Introduction and general description 19 on-board integrated features: – service processor (sp) – two 1 gb ethernet ports (hea) – sas controller – usb controller which routes to the usb 2.0 port on the media tray. – 1 serial over lan (sol) console through sp expansion card i/o options: – o...

  • Page 34

    20 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction 1.5.3 ps702 system features the two halves of the bladecenter ps702 are shown in figure 1-12. Figure 1-12 top view of ps702 blade server ciov connector cffh connector screw-down point to attach to ps702 base blade 32 dimm...

  • Page 35

    Chapter 1. Introduction and general description 21 the features of the server are as follows: machine type and model number 8406-71y + fc 8358 form factor double-wide (60 mm) blade processors: – two-socket 16-core 64-bit power7 processor operating at a 3.0 ghz clock speed – based on cmos 12s 45 nm s...

  • Page 36

    22 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction table 1-6 minimum features for ps700 ps701 and ps702 blade server 1.5.5 power supply features the power consumption for each ps700, ps701, and ps702 blade server is 12v at 350 watts maximum, which is provided by the blade...

  • Page 37

    Chapter 1. Introduction and general description 23 power7 intelligent threads technology enables workload optimization by selecting the most suitable threading mode (single thread (per core) or simultaneous multi-thread 2 or 4 modes also called 2-smt and 4-smt). The intelligent threads technology ca...

  • Page 38

    24 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction 1.5.8 i/o features the ps700 and ps701 have one ciov pcie expansion card slot and one cffh pcie high-speed expansion card slot. The ps702 blade server has two ciov expansion card slots and two cffh expansion card slots. T...

  • Page 39

    Chapter 1. Introduction and general description 25 qlogic 4 gb fibre channel expansion card (ciov) the qlogic 4 gb fibre channel expansion card (ciov) for bladecenter, feature #8241, enables you to connect the bladecenter servers with ciov expansion slots to a fibre channel san. Pick any fibre chann...

  • Page 40

    26 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction 3 gb sas passthrough expansion card (ciov) this card, feature #8246, is an expansion card that offers the ideal way to connect the supported bladecenter servers to a wide variety of sas storage devices. The sas connectivi...

  • Page 41

    Chapter 1. Introduction and general description 27 http://www.Redbooks.Ibm.Com/abstracts/tips0690.Html?Open qlogic ethernet and 4 gb fibre channel expansion card (cffh) the qlogic ethernet and 4 gb fibre channel expansion card, feature #8252, is a cffh high speed blade server expansion card with two...

  • Page 42

    28 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction the card has the following features: 1.2us mpi ping latency 20 gbps infiniband ports cpu offload of transport operations end-to-end qos and congestion control hardware-based i/o virtualization tcp/udp/ip stateless offload...

  • Page 43

    Chapter 1. Introduction and general description 29 used to communicate to the multiple lpars, which helps in virtualization/sharing of the ethernet port without using the ethernet bridge on the virtual io server. The ps700 and ps701 blade servers have two 1 gb hea. The ps702 has four 1 gb heas (two ...

  • Page 44

    30 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction function with a single supporting i/o switch module. However, i/o switch modules should be added in pairs to eliminate single points of failure. For the latest and most current information about blade, expansion card, swi...

  • Page 45

    Chapter 1. Introduction and general description 31 1.6.2 sas i/o modules sas i/o modules provide affordable storage connectivity for bladecenter chassis using sas technology to create simple fabric for external shared or non-shared storage attachments. A sas module can also perform raid controller f...

  • Page 46

    32 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction serverproven: http://www.Ibm.Com/servers/eserver/serverproven/compat/us/eserver.Html bladecenter interoperability guide http://www.Ibm.Com/support/docview.Wss?Uid=psg1migr-5073016 table 1-12 fibre channel i/o modules 1.6....

  • Page 47

    Chapter 1. Introduction and general description 33 table 1-13 converged network modules supported by the qlogic cna 1.6.5 infiniband switch module the voltaire 40 gb infiniband switch module for bladecenter provides infiniband qdr connectivity between the blade server and external infiniband fabrics...

  • Page 48

    34 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction http://www.Ibm.Com/servers/eserver/serverproven/compat/us/eserver.Html bladecenter interoperability guide http://www.Ibm.Com/support/docview.Wss?Uid=psg1migr-5073016 with ps700, ps701, and ps702 blades, the following expa...

  • Page 49

    Chapter 1. Introduction and general description 35 for the latest support information, see one of the following resources: serverproven: http://www.Ibm.Com/servers/eserver/serverproven/compat/us/eserver.Html bladecenter interoperability guide http://www.Ibm.Com/support/docview.Wss?Uid=psg1migr-50730...

  • Page 50: 1.8  Building to Order

    36 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction table 1-17 compares the processor core options and frequencies, l3 cache sizes between the p& blade servers and entry power7 rack server power 750. Table 1-17 comparison of p7 blade server and p750 server for a detailed c...

  • Page 51: Architecture and Technical

    © copyright ibm corp. 2010. All rights reserved. 37 chapter 2. Architecture and technical overview this chapter discusses the overall system architecture of the power7 processor-based blade servers and provides details about each major subsystem and technology. The topics covered are: 2.1, “architec...

  • Page 52: 2.1  Architecture

    38 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction 2.1 architecture this chapter discuses the overall system architecture represented by figure 2-1, with its major components described in the following sections. Figure 2-1 ps701 logical data flow 2.2 the ibm power7 proces...

  • Page 53

    Chapter 2. Architecture and technical overview 39 ibm has been innovative to achieve required levels of throughput and bandwidth. Areas of innovation for the power7 processor and power7 processor-based systems include (but are not limited to) the following elements: on-chip l3 cache implemented in e...

  • Page 54

    40 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction table 2-1 summarizes the technology characteristics of the power7 processor. Table 2-1 summary of power7 processor technology 2.2.2 power7 processor core each power7 processor core implements aggressive out-of-order (ooo)...

  • Page 55

    Chapter 2. Architecture and technical overview 41 2.2.3 simultaneous multithreading an enhancement in the power7 processor is the addition of the smt4 mode to enable four instruction threads to execute simultaneously in each power7 processor core. Thus, the instruction thread execution modes of the ...

  • Page 56

    42 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction 2.2.4 memory access each power7 processor chip has two ddr3 memory controllers, each with four memory channels (enabling eight memory channels per power7 processor). Each channel operates at 6.4 gbps and can address up to...

  • Page 57

    Chapter 2. Architecture and technical overview 43 optimized for servers the power7 processor forms the basis of a flexible compute platform and can be offered in a number of guises to address differing system requirements. The power7 processor can be offered with a single active memory controller wi...

  • Page 58

    44 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction figure 2-6 shows the flr-l3 cache regions for the cores on the power7 processor die. Figure 2-6 flr-l3 cache regions on the power7 processor the innovation of using edram on the power7 processor die is significant for sev...

  • Page 59

    Chapter 2. Architecture and technical overview 45 2.2.7 power7 processor and intelligent energy energy consumption is an important area of focus for the design of the power7 processor which includes intelligent energy features that help to optimize energy usage and performance dynamically, so that t...

  • Page 60: 2.4  Memory Subsystem

    46 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction 2.3 power7 processor-based blades the ps700 blade contains a single processor socket with a four-core processor and eight ddr3 memory dimm slots. The ps701 blade contains a single processor socket with an eight-core proce...

  • Page 61

    Chapter 2. Architecture and technical overview 47 figure 2-7 memory dimm topology for the ps700 figure 2-8 memory dimm topology for the ps701 and ps702 base blade there are eight buffered dimm slots on the ps700, and 16 on the ps701 and ps702 base blade with an additional 16 slots on the ps702 expan...

  • Page 62

    48 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction the memory-placement rules are as follows: memory is installed in dimm-pairs (as in two dimms) dimm pairs must be matched in size (that is, two 4 gb dimms or two 8 gb dimms). Minimum memory requirement are as follows: – p...

  • Page 63

    Chapter 2. Architecture and technical overview 49 for the ps701, table 2-5 shows the required placement of memory dimms depending on the number of dimms installed. Table 2-5 ps701 dimm placement rules dimm socket: ps701 number of dimms to install: 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 p1-c1 x x x x x x x x p1-c2 x x ...

  • Page 64

    50 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction for the ps702, table 2-6 shows the required placement of memory dimms depending on the number of dimms installed. Table 2-6 ps702 dimm placement rules dimm socket: ps702 number of dimms to install 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 2...

  • Page 65: 2.5  Technical Comparison

    Chapter 2. Architecture and technical overview 51 2.5 technical comparison table 2-7 shows a comparison of the technical aspects of the ps700, ps701, and ps702 blade compared to a power 750 express. Table 2-7 comparison of technical characteristics between ps blades and the power 750 express systems...

  • Page 66: 2.6  Internal I/o Subsystem

    52 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction 2.6 internal i/o subsystem each power7 processor as implemented in the power7 processor-based blades utilizes a single gx+ bus which is used to connect to the i/o subsystem. The i/o subsystem is a gx+ multifunctional host...

  • Page 67

    Chapter 2. Architecture and technical overview 53 ciov form factor a ciov expansion card uses the pci express 2.0 x8 160 pin connector. A ciov adapter requires compatible switch modules to be installed in bay 3 and bay 4 of the bladecenter chassis. The ciov card can be used in any bladecenter that s...

  • Page 68

    54 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction figure 2-9 shows the locations of the pcie ciov and cffh connectors and the physical location codes for the ps700. Figure 2-9 ps700 location codes for pcie expansion cards figure 2-10 shows the locations of the pcie ciov ...

  • Page 69

    Chapter 2. Architecture and technical overview 55 figure 2-11 shows the locations of the pcie ciov and cffh connectors for the ps702 expansion blade (feature code 8358) and the physical location codes. Figure 2-11 ps702 expansion blade location codes for pcie expansion cards bladecenter i/o topology...

  • Page 70

    56 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction figure 2-12 bladecenter e i/o topology figure 2-13 bladecenter h i/o topology blade server 14 blade serve r 1 on-boar d 1gbe expansion card i/ o b ay 3 i/ o b ay 4 i/o b ay 2 i/o b ay 1 standard i/o bays connections legen...

  • Page 71

    Chapter 2. Architecture and technical overview 57 figure 2-14 bladecenter ht i/o topology figure 2-15 bladecenter s i/o topology blade server 12 blade serve r 1 on-boar d 1gbe cffh expansion cards standard i/o bays connections high- speed i/o bays connections br idge modules i/o bays connections sta...

  • Page 72

    58 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction 2.6.3 i/o expansion cards the following i/o expansion cards provide additional resources that can be used by a native operating system, the virtual i/o server (vios), or assigned directly to a lpar by the vios. See 1.5.8,...

  • Page 73

    Chapter 2. Architecture and technical overview 59 figure 2-16 fcoe connections in ibm bladecenter for more information about fcoe, read an introduction to fibre channel over ethernet, and fibre channel over convergence enhanced ethernet, redp-4493, available from the following web page: http://www.R...

  • Page 74

    60 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction for more information about infiniband, read hpc clusters using infiniband on ibm power systems servers, sg24-7767, available from the following web page: http://www.Redbooks.Ibm.Com/abstracts/sg247767.Html the 4x infiniba...

  • Page 75

    Chapter 2. Architecture and technical overview 61 figure 2-17 system overview of usb connections bladecenter media tray the bladecenter media tray, depending on the bladecenter chassis used, can contain up to two usb ports, one optical drive and system status leds. For information about the differen...

  • Page 76

    62 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction ive provides logical ethernet ports that can communicate to logical partitions (lpars) reducing the use of ibm power hypervisor™. The design provides a logical connection for multiple lpars to a physical port, allowing lp...

  • Page 77: 2.8  Service Processor

    Chapter 2. Architecture and technical overview 63 the ive implementation on the ps700, ps701, and ps702 blades use a maximum rate of 1 gbps and the hea ports are integrated onto the base blades and expansion unit. The two physical ports on the ps700 and ps701 are associated to a single logical port ...

  • Page 78

    64 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction sol offers the following advantages: remote administration without keyboard, video, or mouse (headless servers) reduced cabling and without requiring a serial concentrator standard telnet interface, eliminating the requir...

  • Page 79: 2.9  Internal Storage

    Chapter 2. Architecture and technical overview 65 you can establish up to 20 separate web-interface, telnet, or ssh sessions with a bladecenter amm. For a bladecenter unit, this step enables you to have 14 simultaneous sol sessions active (one for each of up to 14 blade servers) with six additional ...

  • Page 80

    66 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction figure 2-20 ps700 sas configuration figure 2-21 ps701 sas configuration ciov sas card ps700 p1-d1 sas controller s as hdd sas switch in bay4 s as switch in bay3 sas hdd p1-d2 ciov sas card ps701 and ps702 bas e p1-d1 sas ...

  • Page 81

    Chapter 2. Architecture and technical overview 67 figure 2-22 ps702 sas configuration figure 2-23 show the physical locations and codes for the hdds in the ps700 figure 2-23 hdd location and physical location code ps700 ciov sas card ciov sas card ps701 and ps702 base ps702 expans ion unit only p2-d...

  • Page 82

    68 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction figure 2-24 show the physical location and code for a hdd in a ps701. The ps702 expansion unit locates the hdd is the same location with a physical location code of p2-d1. Figure 2-24 hdd location and physical location co...

  • Page 83

    Chapter 2. Architecture and technical overview 69 2.10.1 ibm bladecenter s disk storage modules the bladecenter s supports up to two storage modules, these modules provide integrated sas storage functionality to the bladecenter s chassis. The storage module’s collection of disk drives are made acces...

  • Page 84

    70 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction performance, robust functionality, and unparalleled ease of use. As part of the ibm ds series, the ds5020 express offers the following features: high-performance 8 gbps capable fibre channel connections optional 1 gbps is...

  • Page 85: 2.11  Ivm

    Chapter 2. Architecture and technical overview 71 2.11 ivm ivm is a simplified hardware management solution that is part of the powervm implementation on the ps700, ps701, and ps702 blades. Power processor-based blades do not include an option for attachment to a hardware management console (hmc). I...

  • Page 86

    72 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction 2.12 operating system support the ibm power7 processor-based systems supports three families of operating systems: aix ibm i linux in addition, the virtual i/o server can be installed in special partitions that provide su...

  • Page 87

    Chapter 2. Architecture and technical overview 73 ibm aix version 5.3 aix version 5.3 with the 5300-12 technology level or later. A partition using aix version 5.3 executes in power6 or power6+ compatibility mode. Ibm periodically releases maintenance packages (service packs or technology levels) fo...

  • Page 88: 2.13  Ibm Energyscale

    74 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction for information about the features and external devices supported by linux, go to the following web page: http://www.Ibm.Com/systems/p/os/linux/ for information about suse linux enterprise server, go to the following web ...

  • Page 89

    Chapter 2. Architecture and technical overview 75 power saver mode power saver mode reduces the processor frequency and voltage by a fixed amount, reducing the energy consumption of the system and still delivering predictable performance. This percentage is predetermined to be within a safe operatin...

  • Page 90

    76 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction processor folding processor folding is a consolidation technique that dynamically adjusts, over the short-term, the number of processors available for dispatch to match the number of processors demanded by the workload. A...

  • Page 91: Virtualization

    © copyright ibm corp. 2010. All rights reserved. 77 chapter 3. Virtualization ibm advance power virtualization (powervm) is a feature use to consolidate workload to deliver cost savings and improve infrastructure responsiveness. As we look for ways to maximize the return on your it infrastructure in...

  • Page 92: 3.1  Power Hypervisor

    78 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction 3.1 power hypervisor combined with features designed into the power7 processors, the power hypervisor delivers functions that enable capabilities, including dedicated processor partitioning, micro-partitioning, virtual pr...

  • Page 93

    Chapter 3. Virtualization 79 physical memory assigned to partitions are in increments of lmb. The power hypervisor provides the following types of virtual i/o adapters: virtual scsi virtual ethernet virtual fibre channel virtual (tty) console virtual i/o adapters are defined by system administrators...

  • Page 94

    80 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction virtual fibre channel a virtual fibre channel adapter is a virtual adapter that provides client logical partitions with a fibre channel connection to a storage area network through the vios logical partition. The vios log...

  • Page 95

    Chapter 3. Virtualization 81 figure 3-1 connectivity between virtual fibre channels adapters and external san devices virtual serial adapters (tty) console virtual serial adapters provide a point-to-point connection from one logical partition to another, or from the hardware management console (hmc)...

  • Page 96: 3.2  Power Processor Modes

    82 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction 3.2 power processor modes although, strictly speaking, not a virtualization feature, power modes are described in this section because they affect certain virtualization features. On power system servers, partitions can b...

  • Page 97: 3.3  Powervm

    Chapter 3. Virtualization 83 table 3-2 differences between power6 and power7 mode 3.3 powervm the powervm platform is the family of technologies, capabilities and offerings that deliver industry-leading virtualization on the ibm power systems. It is the new umbrella branding term for powervm (logica...

  • Page 98

    84 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction technology, other advanced virtualization functions such as shared dedicated capacity can be exploited. Powervm enterprise edition the enterprise edition is suitable for large server deployments such as multi-server deplo...

  • Page 99

    Chapter 3. Virtualization 85 the powervm editions web site also contains useful information: http://publib.Boulder.Ibm.Com/infocenter/systems/scope/hw/index.Jsp?Topic=/arecu/a recukickoff.Htm 3.3.2 logical partitions logical partitions (lpars) and virtualization increase use of system resources and ...

  • Page 100

    86 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction using their entitlement, an uncapped partition can use additional processing units if its entitlement is not enough to satisfy its application processing demand. Weight the weight (preference) is in the case of an uncappe...

  • Page 101: Power Hypervisor

    Chapter 3. Virtualization 87 figure 3-3 concepts on dedicated and shared processor modes dedicated mode in dedicated mode, physical processors are assigned as a whole to partitions. The simultaneous multithreading feature in the power7 processor core allows the core to execute instructions from two ...

  • Page 102

    88 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction figure 3-4 shows how the dedicated shared processor mode can be configured. Figure 3-4 ivm console shows how to configure dedicated shared processor shared mode in shared mode, logical partitions use virtual processors to...

  • Page 103

    Chapter 3. Virtualization 89 figure 3-5 shows an overview of a vios configuration. Figure 3-5 architectural view of the vios because the vios is an operating system-based appliance server, redundancy for physical devices attached to the vios can be provided by using capabilities such as multipath i/...

  • Page 104

    90 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction figure 3-6 shows a configuration example of an sea with one physical and two virtual ethernet adapters. An sea can include up to 16 virtual ethernet adapters on the vios that share the same physical access. Figure 3-6 arc...

  • Page 105

    Chapter 3. Virtualization 91 virtual scsi as discussed earlier virtual scsi is provided by the power hypervisor and allows secure communication between client partition (aix, linux, or ibm i) and the vios. The vios logical partition owns the physical resources and acts as server or, in scsi terms, t...

  • Page 106

    92 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction at the time of writing, virtual scsi supports fibre channel, parallel scsi, iscsi, sas, scsi raid devices, and optical devices (including dvd-ram and dvd-rom). Other protocols such as ssa and tape devices are not supporte...

  • Page 107

    Chapter 3. Virtualization 93 lx86 creates a virtual x86 environment in which the linux on intel applications can run. Currently, a virtual lx86 environment supports suse linux or red hat linux x86 distributions. The translator and the virtual environment run strictly within user space. No modificati...

  • Page 108

    94 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction the vios must be at release level 1.5.1.1or higher has to be installed both on the source and destination systems. The msp (mover service partition) attribute should be set to true on the vios. The source and the target v...

  • Page 109

    Chapter 3. Virtualization 95 3.3.6 active memory sharing active memory sharing is an ibm powervm advanced memory virtualization technology that provides system memory virtualization capabilities to ibm power systems, allowing multiple partitions to share a common pool of physical memory. The physica...

  • Page 110

    96 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction system requirements for active memory sharing to use the active memory sharing feature of ibm powervm, the following minimum system requirements for power7 processor based blade servers must be met: enterprise powervm edi...

  • Page 111

    Chapter 3. Virtualization 97 the following operating system levels are required for npiv on power7-based blades: aix v5.3 with technology level 12, or later aix v6.1 with technology level 5, or later vios 2.1.3.0, or later ibm i 6.1.1 ibm i 7.1 suse linux enterprise server 10 table 3-5 shows npiv co...

  • Page 112

    98 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction for additional information about npiv, see the following resources: powervm migration from physical to virtual storage, sg24-7825 http://www.Redbooks.Ibm.Com/abstracts/sg247825.Html ibm powervm virtualization managing and...

  • Page 113: Continuous Availability and

    © copyright ibm corp. 2010. All rights reserved. 99 chapter 4. Continuous availability and manageability this chapter provides information about ibm reliability, availability, and serviceability (ras) design and features. This set of technologies, implemented on ibm power systems servers, provides t...

  • Page 114: 4.1  Introduction

    100 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction 4.1 introduction each successive generation of ibm servers is designed to be more reliable than the previous server family. Power7 processor-based servers have new features to support new levels of virtualization, ease a...

  • Page 115: 4.3  Availability

    Chapter 4. Continuous availability and manageability 101 4.2.1 designed for reliability systems designed with fewer components and interconnects have fewer opportunities to fail. Simple design choices (such as integrating processor cores on a single power chip) can reduce the opportunity for system ...

  • Page 116

    102 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction the power7 family of systems continues to offer and introduce significant enhancements that can increase system availability, and to drive towards a high availability objective with hardware components that can perform t...

  • Page 117

    Chapter 4. Continuous availability and manageability 103 4.3.2 general detection and deallocation of failing components runtime correctable or recoverable errors are monitored to determine if there is a pattern of errors. If these components reach a predefined error limit, the service processor init...

  • Page 118

    104 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction the power hypervisor when a processor core reaches its predefined error limit. Then, the power hypervisor dynamically deconfigures the failing core and is called out for replacement. The entire process is transparent to ...

  • Page 119

    Chapter 4. Continuous availability and manageability 105 crc the bus transferring data between the processor and the memory uses crc error detection with a failed operation retry mechanism and the ability to retune bus parameters dynamically when a fault occurs. In addition, the memory bus has spare...

  • Page 120

    106 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction figure 4-1 shows a power7 chip as implemented on a ps701 blade with its memory interface comprised of one controller and four advanced memory buffers. Advanced memory buffer chips are exclusive to ibm. They help to incre...

  • Page 121

    Chapter 4. Continuous availability and manageability 107 if an uncorrectable error in memory is discovered, the logical memory block that is associated with the address with the uncorrectable error is marked for deallocation by the power hypervisor. This deallocation takes effect on a partition rebo...

  • Page 122

    108 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction 4.3.5 special uncorrectable error handling although rare, an uncorrectable data error can occur in memory or a cache. Ibm power processor-based systems attempt to limit, to the least possible disruption, the impact of an...

  • Page 123: 4.4  Serviceability

    Chapter 4. Continuous availability and manageability 109 components with an emphasis on product cost relative to high reliability. In certain cases, they might be more likely to encounter internal microcode errors, or many of the hardware errors described for the rest of the server. The traditional ...

  • Page 124

    110 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction 4.4.1 detecting the first and most crucial component of a solid serviceability strategy is the ability to detect errors accurately and effectively when they occur. Although not all errors are a guaranteed threat to syste...

  • Page 125

    Chapter 4. Continuous availability and manageability 111 fault monitoring the built-in self-test (bist) checks processor, cache, memory, and associated hardware required for proper booting of the operating system, when the system is powered on at the initial install or after a hardware configuration...

  • Page 126

    112 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction figure 4-2 shows a schematic of a fault isolation register implementation. Figure 4-2 schematic of a fir implementation fault isolation the service processor interprets error data captured by the ffdc checkers (saved in ...

  • Page 127

    Chapter 4. Continuous availability and manageability 113 boot-time diagnostic routines include the following elements: built-in self-tests (bists) for both logic components and arrays ensure the internal integrity of components. Because the service processor assists in performing these tests, the sy...

  • Page 128

    114 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction on power7 processor-based servers, hardware and software failures are recorded in the system log. An ela routine analyzes the error, forwards the event to the ivm service focal point (sfp) application running on the blad...

  • Page 129

    Chapter 4. Continuous availability and manageability 115 figure 4-3 ivm manage serviceable events window the first occurrence of each failure type is recorded in manage serviceable events. This task filters and maintains a history of duplicate reports from other logical partitions or the service pro...

  • Page 130

    116 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction 4.4.4 notifying the client after a power systems server has detected, diagnosed, and reported an error to an appropriate aggregation point, it notifies the client and, if necessary, the ibm support organization. Dependin...

  • Page 131

    Chapter 4. Continuous availability and manageability 117 4.4.5 locating and servicing parts requiring service the final component of a comprehensive design for serviceability is the ability to effectively locate and replace parts requiring service. Power processor-based systems use a combination of ...

  • Page 132

    118 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction light path the light path led feature is used for the ps700, ps701, and ps702 blades. In the light path led implementation, when a fault condition is detected on the power7 processor-based system, a fru led is illuminate...

  • Page 133

    Chapter 4. Continuous availability and manageability 119 service labels service providers use these labels to assist them in performing maintenance actions. Service labels are found in various formats and positions, and are intended to transmit readily available information to the servicer during th...

  • Page 134: 4.5  Manageability

    120 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction firmware updates for the amm, i/o modules, and blades can be obtained from the ibm fix central web page: http://www.Ibm.Com/support/fixcentral/ repair and verify system repair and verify (r&v) is a system used to guide a...

  • Page 135

    Chapter 4. Continuous availability and manageability 121 service processor the service processor is a controller running its own operating system. It is a component on the blade planar. The service processor operating system has specific programs and device drivers for the service processor hardware...

  • Page 136

    122 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction ivm service management (blades) the following functions are available through the ivm service management: electronic service agent or esa (for more information see 4.5.3, “electronic service agent tool” on page 124) serv...

  • Page 137

    Chapter 4. Continuous availability and manageability 123 figure 4-5 support for ibm bladecenter web page use the “product family” drop-down menu to select the appropriate blade type, and select go to retrieve the available firmware updates and the resources for keeping your system up to date. The cu...

  • Page 138

    124 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction 4.5.3 electronic service agent tool electronic service agent is a no-charge software tool that resides on a system to monitor events and periodically send service information to ibm support on a user-definable time table...

  • Page 139

    Chapter 4. Continuous availability and manageability 125 figure 4-7 ibm electronic services web site 4.5.4 bladecenter service advisor ibm bladecenter service advisor comes standard in all bladecenter chassis that have the amm. After being configured and activated, a service event on the bladecenter...

  • Page 140

    126 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction after gathering the information, the service advisor automatically initiates a call to ibm. Upon receipt of the information, ibm returns a service request id, which is placed in the call home activity log. Figure 4-8 sho...

  • Page 141

    Chapter 4. Continuous availability and manageability 127 on the event log page of the advanced management module web interface, you can select the display call home flag checkbox. If you select the checkbox, events are marked with a c for call home events and an n for events that are not called home...

  • Page 142

    128 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction.

  • Page 143: Abbreviations and Acronyms

    © copyright ibm corp. 2010. All rights reserved. 129 ac alternating current amd advanced micro devices amm advanced management module arp address resolution protocol asic application-specific integrated circuit asmi advanced system management interface bios basic input output system bist built-in se...

  • Page 144

    130 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction lun logical unit number mac media access control mes miscellaneous equipment specification mpi message passing interface msim multi-switch interconnect module msp mover service partition mtu maximum transmission unit nas...

  • Page 145: Related Publications

    © copyright ibm corp. 2010. All rights reserved. 131 related publications the publications listed in this section are considered particularly suitable for a more detailed discussion of the topics covered in this paper. Ibm redbooks for information about ordering these publications, see “how to get r...

  • Page 146: Online Resources

    132 ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 technical overview and introduction online resources this web site is also relevant as further information sources: ibm bladecenter ps700, ps701, and ps702 express home page http://ibm.Com/systems/bladecenter/hardware/servers/ps700series how to get redbook...

  • Page 148: Red

    ® redp-4655-00 international technical support organization building technical information based on practical experience ibm redbooks are developed by the ibm international technical support organization. Experts from ibm, customers and partners from around the world create timely technical informat...