RE: Guest Partitions

[rob@xxxxxxxxx]

Jerry,

There should be no additional cost for OS and LPP's.  Some third party 
products want to know lpar number though, so be aware of that.

I can't imagine running a single physical disk machine.  I am not a disk 
arm fanatic, and I've even experienced better performance by dropping down 
to 1/7th of the previous number of disk arms.  Just faster drives.  But, 
still, a single disk arm machine makes me shudder.  Three with raid when 
coming from a true dog of a system.  But a 4 or more drive raid set fixes 
an issue that is platform independent with 3 drive raid sets.

Here's one of my smallest machines.  No compilers.  Just enough OS to run 
Domino.  Minimal use.  NO "traditional" applications.
                                                % of         Size in 
Description                                     Disk     1,000,000 bytes
User libraries                                 11.99           33518.60 
User directories                                8.15           22778.07 
Folders and documents                            .00                .11 
QSYS                                             .81            2256.35 
Other IBM libraries                             2.58            7217.56 
Licensed Internal Code                          1.58            4411.39 
Temporary space                                 6.44           18009.67 
Unused space                                   68.27          190912.48 
System internal objects                          .08             217.62 
Objects not in a library                         .00                .00 
TOTAL                                          99.90          279321.85 

In theory, this would fit on a 140GB drive.  It's using 280GB at only 
30+%full of guested disk space.
               Size    % 
Unit  Type      (M)  Used
   1  6B22   279622  32.3
But that "single" disk is one of 34 disks on the partition hosting it so 
that data is spread across 34 arms.

The biggest expense to do multiple partitions will be the need for an HMC. 
 However, twinax is not an option for a power 7.  That goofy brick option 
is gone.  So you're down to a Lan Console (single partion) or the HMC. 
Others have shaved costs by using their own screens and keyboards for the 
HMC - a KVM, if you have it, is nice.

That could be an expense for you.  Got a lot of twinax left you don't want 
to replace?  You may have to stay with Power 6 and throw money at buying a 
twinax controller.  Or bite the bullet now.

Rob Berendt