Re: A few more questions about Linux LPARs, HMCs and other items

If you have anything newer than P7, VIOS is always included. PowerVM is not
optional anymore in the P8/P9 machines. You might have a bit of a licensing
problem regarding who is really entitled to use the SW on the HW if the
machine is used, but the machine was sold with PowerVM Enterprise as that
is the only way those machines are sold now.
The HMC knows how to autoconfigure a lot of stuff using VIOS. IBM i hosting
other LPARs on the other hand the HMC has no knowledge and you have to
manage the storage and network 100% from the i side.
I love my VIOS and automating with scripts (or now with the HMC) makes it
pretty easy to use.

Roberto

On Mon, 18 Jan 2021 at 12:59, Pete Helgren <pete@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Great! Just what I needed.....so the next question starts at the top.
You said:

"So the likely first step is to create a new profile for IBM i that does
not require all memory and all slots and all processors. This leaves
resources for other partitions."

YES! Exactly, except, how is that done? That was the missing piece for
me. There is a bunch of documentation on how to create/allocate the
other resources needed for an LPAR but it is that very first step of
creating/installing/whatever the IBM i environment where it doesn't own
everything. Can you point me to documentation on that very important
first step? Am I going to have to start from scratch and re-install the
whole nut to make that happen?

As an aside (future conversation): Is starting with VIOS a better way to
go? I am guessing that it ain't free, so that may be my sticking point,
but if it makes virtualization easier, it might be worth looking into....

Pete Helgren
www.petesworkshop.com
GIAC Secure Software Programmer-Java
AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
Twitter - Sys_i_Geek IBM_i_Geek

On 1/17/2021 9:58 PM, Larry "DrFranken" Bolhuis wrote:

OK So lots of questions here, hopefully some information.
First let's discuss the base machine.

Because you have IBM i as a base partition and I suspect you didn't
have HMC console listed it's probably that the current partition
profile for IBM i specifies 'all resources'. That way if you added a
card in an empty slot or added more memory for example, IBM i would
see it all right away.

So the likely first step is to create a new profile for IBM i that
does not require all memory and all slots and all processors. This
leaves resources for other partitions.

Sharing memory is straightforward. Simply don't allocate all of it to
IBM i, leave some for other partitions.

Sharing processor is simpler. You have four so let IBM i have the one
it's licensed for and allocate the other three to other partitions.

Sharing the network is also easy. Allocate (logically) another port or
two on your Ethernet card to a bridge that the other partitions will
use to access the internal network. You'll also need a new virtual
Ethernet card on the i profile with 'access external network' box
checked. Those two items will form the bridge - external to internal.

Sharing disk requires just a bit of effort. IBM i owns it all today
and you likely don't have any additional RAID cards or drawers full of
disk unless you have your disk on SAN. So you'll need to CRTNWSSTG to
create the virtual disks to share with your guest partitions. Also
CRTNWSD to describe the connection to those guest partitions and then
ADDNWSSTGL to tie the storage to the server. Of course to do that
you'll also need another addition to the IBM i profile which is the
virtual SCSI connection to the guest which will be used with the
CRTNWSD command.

Now that's the 50,000 ft flyover.

There is another complete plan where VIOS is installed and owns all
the disk and IBM i becomes a guest of VIOS. There are reasons for
either of these being better choices but that's an entire
presentation. :-)
- L



On 1/17/2021 5:46 PM, Pete Helgren wrote:

Pondering starting down the LPAR road now but I have a few conceptual
things I need to sort out first. I have had a couple of LPAR
experiences in the past but not with an HMC so I am a little
uncertain on how to proceed. A LONG time ago I used VPM to create a
Linux partition. As I remember it, it was a little un-intuitive but
it worked. On my JS12 blade, it was a whole lot easier. I used the
IVM in VIOS to carve up the available disk and CPU's. With the
vHMC, I really haven't used it to assign anything. The 9009 was
installed using the console so I didn't have to decide how much disk,
memory, etc was allocated to IBM i. So, like I said, I just need to
get my feet on the ground with concepts.

Some of the stuff I have read seemed more like using a VPM and yet
there are references that the HMC makes its more like the IVM. So,
I'll start with a few questions:

1) The 9009-41A I have has 4 cores, three of which are idle. Are
those cores available for non-IBM i workloads? Do I have to use the
$PEND MONEY command to activate them?

2) Was there an essential "first step" that I should have taken if I
was planning to run non-IBM i workloads along side the IBM i one?
Something tells me that everything should be virtualized to be able
to "slice and dice" the 9009 to different workloads. If so, does VIOS
need to be the underlying OS with everything on top of that?

Several folks suggested online resources to create the LPAR. There
just seems to be a few different approaches to how to handle the
hardware side of things. I can see where I could "steal" existing
resources from the IBM i side, but my hope was that I could utilize
the unused cores in in the Power9 and also, if necessary, allocate
disk to the other partitions. Not seeing a way to do that.

I saw posts from Michael Quigley, Patrik Schindler, Steve Pitcher,
and Jack Kingsley that filled in bits and pieces for Michael when he
was contemplating his Linux LPAR but it didn't completely fill in the
blanks for me. Answers to the first two questions will determine my
next step (and questions).

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