Re: Guest Partitions -- MIDRANGE-L

Jerry

I know I'm repeating myself, but sobeit!!

IASPs would accomplish the same goal of those auditors with less cost. You just need enough disk units. A guest LPAR might have the advantage that you are not restricted to full disk units - you can carve out space of any size you want.

IASPs do isolate test and production - one would not affect the other, unless you wrote it to do so somehow. In the case of one company I know of, they've long used library lists to manage a test environment. Our products generally want only one library, so IASPs make for a nice solution - a menu can have options for one or the other, which attach an ASP group based on your menu option.

Anyhow, it's new enough - V5R2 - not to be well-known, and the focus has largely been on HA with shared IASPs. Multiple environments on one LPAR is discussed but less than the other.

Oh - as to disks - I think the minimum number you can order now is 4. Or maybe 3, not sure. I'm told that RAID over 3 arms is better now, used to be a real problem, as Rob has mentioned.

HTH
Vern

On 3/17/2011 2:42 PM, Jerry C. Adams wrote:

Vern,

Now that you mention it, I had heard about having a hosted (client) 6.1
partition. I can see where that might be a good thing for a developer, such
as you, but all that I would be looking for is an environment in which I
could test securely (i.e., without screwing up production).

Auditors at my lost employer insisted that we have two machines so that
development and testing would not affect the production data/programs. And
that made it real nice because when my tests fell over (admittedly a rarity
.-) ), all I had to do was restore the test data. Naturally they lobbied
against the same developer being able to update production but, since I was
the only System i person in the company, they had to suck wind on that one!

Anyway, the thread is certainly giving me a lot of questions to ask the BP
next week. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the owners go for it. On
the plus side they're the ones who asked me to get pricing and specs.

Jerry C. Adams
IBM i Programmer/Analyst
All I remember about my wedding day in 1967 is that the Cubs lost a
doubleheader. -George Will
--
A&K Wholesale
Murfreesboro, TN
615-867-5070

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Vern Hamberg
Sent: Thursday, March 17, 2011 1:34 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: Guest Partitions

Jerry

We are also looking at some of this. I believe that is you have the keys
for 7.1, you can get them for a hosted 6.1 partition at no extra cost.

Another option for testing is independent ASPs - of course, your vendor
needs to support it - we do. It does require setting aside disk for that
ASP - but you'd do that for another LPAR, too. Difference is, I think
guest LPARs can use partial disk - IASPs need entire disk units. Now
VIOS can carve things up to smaller units, right?

Lots of options - exciting times in the world of IBM i!

Vern

On 3/17/2011 12:49 PM, Jerry C. Adams wrote:

So I wouldn't have to license IBM i for the client partition as, I think,

I

would under the "classic" LPAR scenario, right? That is, both partitions
(host and client) would use the same (single copy) of IBM i? When I
mentioned partitions to the BP he said that would add costs to the

proposal.

Right now (Model 250) we have two [2] 8.6 gig drives mirrored. The BP

said

the smallest disk available for the Power 7 is 146 gig. So I could just
"carve out" a network server device storage area in that same 146 gig

drive

without the need for additional disk drives?

If I don't need an additional IBM i license nor additional disk drives or
memory, this sounds like the way to go. In a small operation such as

ours,

I would not imagine that disk contention would be an issue.

Jerry C. Adams
IBM i Programmer/Analyst
This ain't a football game. We do this every day. -Earl Weaver
--
A&K Wholesale
Murfreesboro, TN
615-867-5070

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of DrFranken
Sent: Thursday, March 17, 2011 11:16 AM
To: midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Guest Partitions

Jerry,

This is *exactly one of the benefits of hosting i with i. In this
case it sounds as if you would have production owning all the disk
units. Some network server storage spaces are created on the production
partition to become the 'disk units' for the test/dev partition which is
hosted. The console is through the HMC. The optical drive is 'passed
through' to the client partition. Ethernet is through the Host Ethernet
Adapter. The two partitions appears as two separate machines, different
IP, Security, PTFs, Products loaded, etc. In short, perfect for what
you want.

- Larry

On 3/17/2011 10:19 AM, Jerry C. Adams wrote:

*This message was transferred with a trial version of CommuniGate(r) Pro*
I have a BP coming in next week to give us a proposal for a Power 7

system.

One of the questions that came up, when we were talking about our
needs/wants was partitioning so that, unlike today on our V5R1 machine, I
could have a test environment separate from production.

This morning remembered some mention of a guest partition capability when
6.1 was announced. I read some links that Rob provided but, admittedly,

I'm

still just a tad confused or unsatisfied. That is, the 6.1 technical
overview showed how to set up a client partition, but not how to use it

In a previous incarnation I had access to two [2] physical machines; one

for

production and one for development/testing. In 7.1 can/does this guest
(client) partition insulate the host partition (what would be in my case
Production) from updates made in the client? In the 2-box scenario I

ftped

libraries back and forth between the boxes; would that be the same
methodology for the client partition scenario? And when the client
partition is ended (the Redbook didn't go into whether this could be done

or

how, but I figured it could be), do the libraries/objects in the client

just

disappear automagically?

Except for migrating objects between host and client, and using IBM i and
disk space, I don't anticipate sharing resources. That is, such things

as

the tape drive, DVD drive, etc. But what the heck do I know. Anyway, I
just want to be able to set up a test environment that shields production
from my tests.

Jerry C. Adams

IBM i Programmer/Analyst

--

A&K Wholesale

Murfreesboro, TN

615-867-5070