Jon,
There is a whale of difference between "supported" and "works". Supported
means IBM has tested it completely and it will perform as described.
The huge disk units will make IBM i very slow due to the way IBM i does I/O
to the DASD units, hence it won't perform within specifications and
therefore is not supported. You'd hate it if they allowed you to use it
except in very narrow circumstances such as those that Larry pointed out
earlier.
Remember that if you experiment and find out something works, (or seems to)
then when you call IBM for help on your hardware or software warranty the
problem may in fact be generated by that unsupported equipment that may have
been rejected by IBM for a reason. IBM will tell you when you get to a
supported configuration to call them back, rightly so.
IBM i keeps its device drivers in LIC. When it recognizes a device it loads
the drivers needed for that device on to the interface card (SAS or Fibre)
and then the card is able to drive the device. The device drivers for the
item you hang on the system may not be there or if the one it chooses is not
really compatible then problems of unknown types occur. Remember the
"unexpected results may occur" phrase? It's there for a reason.
In the end if you pay the money to get one of these systems at least wait
until its off warranty to try hanging unsupported stuff on it, and
NEVER,EVER do it to a production system.
When Larry and I built the first of the "Franken Series" boxes at COMMON in
Indianapolis we had specific goals in mind and we achieved them. Those
boxes were never in a production role. So when I say what might work is
different than what's supported we come from a point of experimentation and
knowledge. BTW: we did find some stuff that simply did not work or did
work but would have blown up the system, so there are limits.
--
Jim Oberholtzer
Agile Technology Architects
-----Original Message-----
From: MIDRANGE-L [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
Jonathan Wilson
Sent: Thursday, February 16, 2017 7:20 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: IBM Power Systems enhances its server and I/O options
On Wed, 2017-02-15 at 21:58 +0000, Sue Baker wrote:
DrFranken <midrange@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote on Wed, 15 Feb 2017 21:13:10 GMT:
IBM also announced some new EXP12 drawers that hold these guys. Not
sure if they are supported for i though. Have to look.
The new EXP12SX drawers are not supported with i at this time.
None of the new LFF disks are supported either.
This raises a question in my mind. Does the I have "hardcoded" (for want of
a better term) acceptable disks? Or can it accept any disk that can be
connected to it just as long as the interface/protocol matches?
To expand. Are the cables/protocols/connectors/backplane industry standard
in that they use the SAS interface and the SAS command set?
Following that, if SAS, does the SAS also include the sata tunnelling
protocol so that it can accept sata disks?
That then leads on to the question, if the cables/interfaces are industry
standard... is it possible to "build your own" expansion box by running the
cables into an external drive draw and shoving a load of larger IBM LFF's or
commodity "near line" SAS's in there?
Obviously if the drives/interfaces are fibre channel then thats a whole
different ballgame (interposer cards ;-).
Now I realise that a person buying an I is likely to want all the advantages
that come with the box, such as reliability and the ability of the disk
system to keep the processor busy and a host of other "it just does"
features... but as a nerd with a home built multi-TiB media server running
linux who loves the technicalities, and nitty-gritty, of both hardware and
software the details and "I wonder if I could just..."
questions and answers fascinate me.
I guess the above also raises another question... pricing! Now I know
vaguely that I pricing (excluding hardware) is based on a number of factors
such as users, "OS" software stack, processor power, and so on; but does
disk storage also come into play in the "OS" pricing? If you can buy an I
for a given, but small, "workload" but have a massive data data storage
requirement does that affect the price? Could you buy/build a multi TiB
backend with an external fibre channel interface/card; linux; gluster; a
bunch of cheap satas; and attach to a lowly P05 (or whatever a small(ish) I
is called) and use all that lovely diskspace for no extra cost?
Jon
--
Sue
IBM Washington Systems Center - Power Systems Rochester, MN
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