IBM BladeCenter PS703 Technical Overview And Introduction

Also see for BladeCenter PS703: Service guide

Contents

92 IBM BladeCenter PS703 and PS704 Technical Overview and Introduction3.2 POWER HypervisorCombined with features designed into the POWER7 processors, the POWER Hypervisordelivers functions that enable capabilities, including dedicated processor partitioning,micro-partitioning, virtual processors, IEEE VLAN compatible virtual switch, virtual SCSIadapters, virtual Fibre Channel adapters, and virtual consoles.The user interface into the POWER Hypervisor on POWER-based blades has traditionallybeen through the Integrated Virtualization Manager or IVM. Now a second method of systemsmanagement is available, the Systems Director Management Console or SDMC. The SDMCbrings additional capabilities to POWER6- and POWER7-based blades that brings themcloser to traditional rack-based POWER platforms. Additional details can be found inChapter 5, “Systems Director Management Console” on page 151.The POWER Hypervisor technology is integrated with all IBM POWER servers, including thePOWER7 processor-based blade servers. The hypervisor orchestrates and manages systemvirtualization, including creating logical partitions and dynamically moving resources acrossmultiple operating environments. The POWER Hypervisor is a basic component of thesystem firmware that is layered between the hardware and operating system. POWERHypervisor offers the following functions: Provides an abstraction layer between the physical hardware resources and the logicalpartitions using them Enforces partition integrity by providing a security layer between logical partitions Controls the dispatch of virtual processors to physical processors and saves and restoresall processor state information during a logical processor context switch Controls hardware I/O interrupt management facilities for logical partitions Provides virtual Ethernet switches between logical partitions that help to reduce the needfor physical Ethernet adapters for interpartition communication Monitors the service processor and performs a reset or reload if it detects the loss of theservice processor, notifying the operating system if the problem is not corrected Uses micro-partitioning to allow multiple instances of the operating system to run onPOWER5, POWER6, and POWER7 processor-based servers and POWER6 andPOWER7 processor-based bladesThe POWER Hypervisor is always installed and activated, regardless of system configuration.The POWER Hypervisor does not own any physical I/O devices; all physical I/O devices inthe system are owned by logical partitions or the Virtual I/O Server.Memory is required to support the resource assignment to the logical partitions on the server.The amount of memory required by the POWER Hypervisor firmware varies according toseveral factors. The following factors influence POWER Hypervisor memory requirements: Number of logical partitions Number of physical and virtual I/O devices used by the logical partitions Maximum memory values specified in the logical partition profilesThe minimum amount of physical memory to create a partition is the size of the system’slogical memory block (LMB). The default LMB size varies according to the amount of memoryconfigured in the system, as shown in Table 3-1 on page 93.Terminology note: The SDMC, being IBM Systems Director based, uses the term virtualserver. This term is used interchangeably with logical partitions or LPARs