Important Partitioning Considerations With Dual-Slot And Multi-Adapter Configurations - IBM 8231-E2B Manual

v If you do not have a wrist strap, before removing the product from ESD packaging and installing or
replacing hardware, touch an unpainted metal surface of the system for a minimum of 5 seconds.
v Do not remove the device from the antistatic bag until you are ready to install the device in the
system.
v With the device still in its antistatic bag, touch it to the metal frame of the system.
v Grasp cards and boards by the edges. Avoid touching the components and gold-edge connectors on the
adapter.
v If you need to lay the device down while it is out of the antistatic bag, lay it on the antistatic bag.
Before picking it up again, touch the antistatic bag and the metal frame of the system at the same time.
v Handle the devices carefully to prevent permanent damage.
Important partitioning considerations with dual-slot and multi-adapter
configurations
Learn about partitioning considerations with dual-slot and multi-adapter configurations.
Logical partitions can own physical I/O resources. Physical I/O resources are assigned to logical
partitions at the slot level. Assigning a slot to a logical partition enables the operating system that runs in
the logical partition to control the functionality of the I/O resource and power for that slot. When the
operating system powers a slot on or off, the physical I/O resource is powered on or off.
In some I/O configurations, the functionality of an adapter or I/O resource depends on two or more
physical slots. For example, if you have a double-wide RAID adapter (FC 2053, 2054, or 2055) that take
up two adjacent adapter slots or two separate RAID adapters paired together, both physical slots must be
assigned to the same logical partition. For example, if you install the FC 2053, 2054, or 2055 adapter in
slot 2, then the adjacent slot 3 cannot be used to install another adapter even though the slot 3 is reported
as empty. It is important to understand the wanted configuration and function being provided before
completing the logical partitioning and activation of the resources involved.
There are two I/O configurations involving adapter pairs:
v Mult-initiator and high availability
v Auxiliary Write Cache
Multi-initiator and high availability
The terms multi-initiator and high availability (HA) refer to connecting multiple adapters (typically two
adapters) to a common set of disk expansion drawers for increasing availability. This configuration is also
referred to as Dual Storage IOA configuration. This type of connection is commonly done in either of the
following configurations:
Note: Some systems have SAS RAID adapters integrated onto the system boards and use a Cache RAID -
Dual IOA Enablement Card (FC 5662) to enable storage adapter Write Cache and Dual Storage IOA (HA
RAID Mode). For these configurations, installation of the Cache RAID - Dual IOA Enablement Card
places the two integrated adapters into a HA RAID configuration. There are no separate SAS cables
required to connect the two integrated SAS RAID adapters to each other.
HA two-system configuration
An HA two-system configuration provides a high-availability environment for system storage by enabling
two systems or partitions to have access to the same set of disks and disk arrays. This feature is typically
used with the IBMPowerHA
commercial computing environment that ensures that mission-critical applications can recover quickly
from hardware and software failures. The support for this configuration is operating system dependent.
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Power Systems: Managing PCI adapters for the IBM Power 710 Express or the IBM Power 730 Express
® ®
SystemMirror . The IBMPowerHA SystemMirror software provides a