Re: Hardware support: VIOS service vs IBM i Service -- MIDRANGE-L

Couldn't agree more with Dr Franken! I had an issue with disk performance on a Power 7 740+ with external storage.
The SAN was upgraded and ended up having bad firmware. VIOS basically stalled opn disk traffic. Our backup went from 3.5 hrs on flash copy
To 12 hours. Through-put was horrible.
The VIOS guys said it was the IBM i. The IBM i guys said it was the VIOS upgrade.
We had a 3rd party vendor who had engineered the WWPN's and VIOS partitions before I was hired. He, along with IBM finally agreed
It was the VIOS upgrade. IBM corrected it and the fix was installed. Problem solved but it took 6 weeks to resolve.
The 3rd party VIOS guy was INVALUABLE helping to diagnose issues along with the AIX admin at the firm.

Very Respectfully,
Michael Mayer
IBM I on Power System Admin.
IT Operations.
The Florida Bar
651 E. Jefferson St
Tallahassee, Florida 32399-2300
mmayer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
https://www.floridabar.org
Office: 850.561.5761
Cell: 518.641.8906

1. Re: Hardware support: VIOS service vs IBM i Service
(Larry "DrFranken" Bolhuis)

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message: 1
date: Wed, 24 Mar 2021 09:20:24 -0400
from: "Larry \"DrFranken\" Bolhuis" <midrange@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
subject: Re: Hardware support: VIOS service vs IBM i Service

I have one customer who lost their entire system years ago due to IBM #FAIL with a system that had VIOS for hosting (Internal disk) of three IBM i partitions. Improper understanding of the configuration meant IBM couldn't find the failed disk that the HMC had reported and thus left without repairing it. When drive two failed some time later, bye bye.
They had gone into all three IBM i partitions and Service Tools reported all disks were good!

Some months later that SAME customer lost their entire system once again when a failed drive replacement procedure took out the RAID set containing the hosting storage. After this failure we rebuilt with IBM i hosting replacing VIOS. To them VIOS is indeed a 'four letter word.' At one point before throwing all the VIOS disks into the dumpster and making the call to host with IBM i, we were waiting on the phone with a tech and couldn't get him to respond. Turns out he had reached end of shift and just put us on hold and went home. Once we discovered he was gone, and national duty manager struggled to find someone to help us, that was the instant the IBM i tape came out of my bag and we began reconfiguring the system.

Your absolute best friend when you run VIOS is to 'know a guy' who who runs strong with the AIX. No joke here.

- L

On 3/24/2021 9:02 AM, Rob Berendt wrote:

I'm so used to when a disk drive needs replaced in IBM i you log on to the system, get into STRSST, step back and let the hardware repairman do his thing.

It's a whole different animal in VIOS.

First of all when you open the ticket with IBM they ask you the stupidest question: What operating systems are running under this?
Why is this a stupid question? Well if you tell them IBM i then they send someone out who knows IBM i and doesn't have a clue about VIOS. So when you start a putty session and get them into the vios console and they type in STRSST and get command not found you already know you can tack hours on to the call.

The next thing is that they assume the customer is all knowing and comfortable with VIOS and/or AIX and know how to unmirror disk drives and all sorts of stuff that were all set up for me. Since you are not you will have to open a software ticket also.

And Heaven help you if you are not at a version 3 of VIOS. You get a reply like, your choices are:

- Upgrade to a supported version of VIOS

- Contract with IBM Lab Services for a minimum of 40 hours at several hundred dollars an hour

- Sign an extended support contract for the expired version of VIOS

It doesn't help that you drove hours to a remote data center on Monday for an appointment you scheduled with the IBM hardware guy the week before. AND HE NEVER SHOWS NOR CALLS! The national duty manager had a tough time finding anyone in Indy and had to get back to me. Service man claims he was at a customer site with his phone in the car and doesn't know when he'll ever get out of there. Who leaves their phone in the car?!? The only time I can think of this is my son has to because the Navy really frowns upon anyone taking a phone into a secure area. He lost it for a few days while they scanned it to see if he took any pictures, etc.
So you drive back down on Tuesday.
I wonder if the NCAA having their tournaments in town had anything to do with this. Like did the serviceman score tickets?

Oh well, driving out of town allowed me to check out some shops on the way home and I scored a little powder to reload some rounds...

Rob Berendt
--
IBM Certified System Administrator - IBM i 6.1 Group Dekko Dept 1600
Mail to: 7310 Innovation Blvd, Suite 104
Ft. Wayne, IN 46818
Ship to: 7310 Innovation Blvd, Dock 9C
Ft. Wayne, IN 46818
http://www.dekko.com

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