IBM BladeCenter PS703 Technical Overview And Introduction

Also see for BladeCenter PS703: Service guide

Contents

Chapter 3. Virtualization 113 Optimize the server. Consolidate workloads running on several small, under-used serversonto a single large server.System requirements for Partition MobilityBoth source and destination systems must have the PowerVM Enterprise Edition licensecode installed. The source partition must be a virtual client and should have only virtualdevices. If there are any physical devices in its allocation, they must be removed before thevalidation or migration is initiated. An NPIV device is considered virtual and is compatible withpartition migration.An SDMC-managed blade requires the mover service attribute be checked for the VIOSvirtual server. An IVM-managed blade has this attribute set by default. The source and thetarget VIOS can communicate over the network. The Virtual Asynchronous Services Interface(VASI) device provides communication between the mover service partition and the POWERHypervisor.To migrate partitions between POWER6 and POWER7 processor-based servers, PartitionMobility can take advantage of the POWER6 Compatibility Modes that are provided byPOWER7 processor-based servers. On the POWER7 processor-based server, the migratedpartition is then executing in POWER6 or POWER6+ Compatibility Mode.To move an active logical partition or virtual server from a POWER6 processor-based serverto a POWER7 processor-based server so that the logical partition can take advantage of theadditional capabilities available with the POWER7 processor following these steps:1. Set the preferred processor compatibility mode to the default mode. When you activate thelogical partition on the POWER6 processor-based server, it runs in the POWER6 mode.2. Move the logical partition to the POWER7 processor-based server. Both the current andpreferred modes remain unchanged for the logical partition until you restart the logicalpartition.3. Restart the logical partition on the POWER7 processor-based server. The hypervisorevaluates the configuration. Because the preferred mode is set to default and the logicalpartition now runs on a POWER7 processor-based server, the highest mode available isthe POWER7 mode. The hypervisor determines that the most fully featured modesupported by the operating environment installed in the logical partition is the POWER7mode and changes the current mode of the logical partition to the POWER7 mode.Now the current processor compatibility mode of the logical partition is the POWER7 modeand the logical partition runs on the POWER7 processor-based server.For more information about Live Partition Mobility and how to implement it, see IBMPowerVM Live Partition Mobility, SG24-7460, available from the following web page:http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg247460.htmlNote: When you move an active logical partition between servers with different processortypes (such as POWER 6 and POWER7), both current and preferred compatibility modesof the logical partition must be supported by the destination server.Tip: The “Migration combinations of processor compatibility modes for active PartitionMobility” web page offers presentations of the supported migrations:http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/powersys/v3r1m5/topic/p7hc3/iphc3pcmcombosact.htm