IBM BladeCenter PS703 Technical Overview And Introduction

Also see for BladeCenter PS703: Service guide

Contents

142 IBM BladeCenter PS703 and PS704 Technical Overview and IntroductionThe system unit can be in the following states: Standby (power off) Operating, ready to start partitions Operating with running logical partitionsThe service processor is used to monitor and manage the system hardware resources anddevices. The service processor checks the system for errors, and accepting AdvancedSystem Management Interface (ASMI) Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) network connections.The service processor provides the ability to view and manage the machine-wide settingsusing the ASMI and BladeCenter AMM, and enables complete system and partitionmanagement from IVM.The service processor Ethernet port can be enabled by the AMM to an external network andused to access the ASMI. The ASMI can be accessed through an HTTP server that isintegrated into the service processor operating environment. This port must also be enabledso that the SDMC can discover the PS703 and PS704 blades for management operations.Operating system service menuThe system diagnostics consist of stand-alone diagnostics that are loaded from the DVDdrive in the BladeCenter media tray, and online diagnostics that are available through theoperating system.Online diagnostics, when installed, are a part of the AIX or VIOS operating system on the diskor server. They can be booted in single-user mode (service mode), run in maintenance mode,or run concurrently (concurrent mode) with other applications. They have access to the AIXerror log and the AIX configuration data. The modes are as follows: Service modeThis mode requires a service mode boot of the system and enables the checking ofsystem devices and features. Service mode provides the most complete checkout of thesystem resources. All system resources, except the SCSI adapter and the disk drivesused for paging, can be tested. Concurrent modeThis mode enables the normal system functions to continue as selected resources arebeing checked. Because the system is running in normal operation, certain devices mightrequire additional actions by the user or diagnostic application before testing can be done. Maintenance modeThis mode enables the checking of most system resources. Maintenance mode providesthe same test coverage as service mode. The difference between the two modes is theway they are invoked. Maintenance mode requires that all activity on the operating systembe stopped. The shutdown -m command is used to stop all activity on the operating systemand put the operating system into maintenance mode.You can also access the system diagnostics from a Network Installation Management (NIM)server.Note: The ASMI implementation in the PS703 and PS704 blades does not provide foradministrator logins.