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HMC RAID 1 support
There is a high availability feature available for the hardware appliance HMC. The 7042-CR9,
by default, includes two HDDs with RAID 1 configured. RAID 1 is also offered on the
7042-CR6, 7042-CR7, 7042-CR8, and 7042-CR9 models (if the feature was removed from
the initial order) as an MES upgrade option.
RAID 1 uses data mirroring. Two physical drives are combined into an array, and the same
data is written to both drives. This combination makes the drives mirror images of each other.
If one of the drives experiences a failure, it is taken offline and the HMC continues operating
with the other drive.
HMC models
To use an existing HMC to manage any POWER8 processor-based server, the HMC must be
a model CR5 or later rack-mounted HMC, or model C08 or later deskside HMC. The latest
HMC model is the 7042-CR9.
Note: The 7042-CR9 ships with 16 GB of memory, and is expandable to 192 GB with an
upgrade feature. 16 GB is advised for large environments or where external utilities, such
as PowerVC and other third-party monitors, are to be implemented.
2.13.2 Virtual appliance HMC
The 5765-HMV virtual appliance HMC can be used to manage any of the systems that are
supported by the version 8 HMC. It provides hardware, service, and basic virtualization
management for your Power Systems servers. The virtual HMC runs as a virtual machine on
an x86 server virtualized either by VMware ESXi or Red Hat KVM.
It offers the same functionality as the hardware appliance HMC. However, the virtual
appliance HMC has the following differences from the hardware appliance HMC:
An activation engine that allows providing unique configuration during initial deployment.
Differences in the way the license acceptance dialog is presented.
Support for multiple virtual disks for additional data storage.
Formatting of physical media is not supported. This process is supported through a virtual
device attached to the VM.
Hardware requirements
At the time of writing, the following hardware is required:
x86 64-bit hardware with hardware virtualization assists (Intel VT-x or AMD-V)
Resources for the HMC virtual appliance VM: Four CPUs, 8 GB of memory, 160 GB of
disk space, and two network interfaces
Software requirements
At the time of writing, the following software is required:
Either VMware ESXi V5 or later, or Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.x with KVM
Chapter 2. Architecture and technical overview
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