Sizing And Configuration - IBM I VIRTUALIZATION - READ ME FIRST 7-9-2010 Manual

16.4. Sizing and configuration

There are two main sources of sizing information when planning a configuration involving IBM i
directly accessing DS5100 or DS5300: the Disk Magic sizing tool and the Performance
Capabilities Reference manual mentioned in the previous chapter. It is recommended that they
be used jointly. While there is not yet a direct attachment model for IBM i with DS5100 or
DS5300 in Disk Magic, the existing VIOS model can still be used to determine the physical
storage configuration, such as number of physical drives, number and type of RAID arrays and
amount of cache. At the same time, the Performance Capabilities Reference manual offers some
excellent suggestions on the number of LUNs and paths to use based on the I/Os per second and
throughput required. Note that the optimal number of LUNs for IBM i direct attachment is
significantly higher than that for VIOS attachment; typically 64 or 128 in the direct case.
Configuration of IBM i direct attachment to DS5100 and DS5300 can be divided into two general
steps:
•
Storage and SAN configuration
•
Power server hardware and LPAR configuration
To configure the DS5100 or DS5300, use the Redbook Introduction to the IBM System Storage
DS5000 Series (SG24-7676), available at:
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg247676.html?Open, while following the best practices
and limitations outlined in the previous section of this document. When creating a host for direct
IBM i attachment on the storage subsystem, the host type should be "IBM i." To configure the
SAN fabric, follow the instructions from your FC switch manufacturer.
To create the IBM i LPAR and assign the FC adapter(s) to it, follow the instructions in the Logical
Partitioning Guide, available at:
http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/systems/scope/hw/topic/iphat/iphat.pdf.
16.5. Copy Services
IBM has conducted some basic functional testing of DS5100 and DS5300 Copy Services when
directly attached to IBM i. Below, you will find the resulting support statements. Note that using
Copy Services when directly attaching DS5100 and DS5300 involves manual steps in both the
DS Storage Manager GUI and IBM i. PowerHA for IBM i does not support DS5100 and DS5300
Copy Services when directly attaching to IBM i (or through VIOS).
FlashCopy and VolumeCopy:
•
FlashCopy and VolumeCopy are supported when directly attaching DS5100 and DS5300
to IBM i on POWER6 or later processor-based Power servers
•
As mentioned earlier, Power blades are not supported for direct IBM i attachment to
DS5100 and DS5300 in general
•
Full-system FlashCopy and VolumeCopy when the production IBM i logical partition
(LPAR) is powered off are supported
•
Full-system FlashCopy and VolumeCopy when the production IBM i LPAR is in restricted
state are supported
•
Full-system FlashCopy and VolumeCopy of the production IBM i logical partition (LPAR)
after using the IBM i 6.1 memory flush to disk (quiesce) function are not supported
•
Full-system FlashCopy and VolumeCopy when the production IBM i LPAR is running are
not supported
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