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  3. July 2020

Re: IOPless machines and multiple CPUs

Moving to NVMe, that will happen much faster than you may expect. The
only thing holding it back in smaller environments is the V5000e does not
support it. You need a V5100e and there is a cost difference.

The other thing that may slow it down is upgrading the SAN network to 16 or
32GB from 8GB. Those switches are not cheap.

Oh, and you’ll be running VIOS since the V5100e cannot direct attach to IBM
i.

We already have customers doing it now.

As to the move to SSD that wave has crested. Now we don’t configure
anything but SSD unless there is a serious need for spinning disk.


On Sun, Jul 26, 2020 at 7:39 PM Steinmetz, Paul <PSteinmetz@xxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Next question.

NVME Flash storage is much faster than SSD.

How soon do you see people moving to Flash, I know some have already?



Paul



*From:* Jim Oberholtzer <midrangel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
*Sent:* Sunday, July 26, 2020 8:35 PM
*To:* Midrange Systems Technical Discussion <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

*Cc:* Steinmetz, Paul <PSteinmetz@xxxxxxxxxx>
*Subject:* Re: IOPless machines and multiple CPUs



For the host partition for certain that’s true. Might even work for the
guests.



Your systems while larger than most certainly is not “huge” where the
virtualization is a requirement for HA and redundancy. There are limits
in the IBM i hosted environment that do not exist in the external
storage/VIOS method. Pick the one that works for your environment.



As we move forward I’m betting hardware that has internal storage is going
to get more and more sparse. You can already see this trend with the I/O
options available today vs. several years ago.



In any case host the environment you need in the best way that works in
your situation. There is no wrong answer in that category.







On Sun, Jul 26, 2020 at 6:29 PM Steinmetz, Paul via MIDRANGE-L <
midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Jim,

Not sure where I read this, but IBM I internal disks (SSD) will out
perform VIOS.
VIOS adds overhead and an extra level for the I/O.
Our Production LPAR runs on our host P9, 18 arms, 100% SSD
Our R&D LPAR runs as a client off our Production LPAR, 70 Virtual arms,
100% SSD.
R&D performance matches production, better at times.

Paul


-----Original Message-----
From: MIDRANGE-L <midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Jim
Oberholtzer
Sent: Sunday, July 26, 2020 7:18 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: IOPless machines and multiple CPUs

True, VIOS come with PowerVM, and is about the same cost per core as
VMWare, or less.

That’s the software. Now get the fiber And Ethernet switches to support
the virtual environment and the cost goes up dramatically, so does the
complexity.

For true production workloads that have any sensitivity to I/O, or the
performance is critical, then VIOS is the way to go. Many IBM i workloads
are just fine with IBM i hosting, and that’s far less complex, simple to
set up, and easy to maintain.



Jim Oberholtzer
Agile Technology Architects



On Jul 26, 2020, at 12:01 PM, Roberto José Etcheverry Romero <
yggdrasil.raiker@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Configuring an LPAR with more cores than licensed ends up with a
message saying that you are over entitlement but it still uses those
cores.
One of the reasons I don't understand i hosting i is the economics of
the exercise. It is a lot more expensive to use IBM i to virtualize
storage/network than the almost free VIOS.
On a big machine you might need more than 2 entire cores for IO and
that gets expensive quickly.

Roberto

On Sun, 26 Jul 2020, 12:39 Patrik Schindler, <poc@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Hello,

imagine a newer POWER machine with, say, four CPUs. IBM i is licensed
to one CPU, so I guess when you give the LPAR more than one, it won't
be used for running "normal" code. Right?

Does anybody know (and provide evidence) if a second assigned CPU
will be used as "helper CPU" for I/O? Not exactly an IOP, since this
involves drivers and other stuff. My thinking stems from the z-world
where processors can be freely configured to specialized tasks (I/O,
running Linux, running Java, …). The number of CPUs often influences
licensing cost, which probably was one of the reasons to invent this
feature in the first place.

Thanks!

:wq! PoC

PGP-Key: DDD3 4ABF 6413 38DE - https://www.pocnet.net/poc-key.asc


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Jim Oberholtzer

Chief Technical Architect

Agile Technology Architects


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