Chapter 17. Integrated Bladecenter And System X Performance; Introduction - IBM 170 Servers Manual

Chapter 17. Integrated BladeCenter and System x Performance

This chapter provides a performance overview and recommendations for the Integrated xSeries Server
Integrated xSeries Adapter and the iSCSI host bus adapter. In addition, the chapter presents some performance
characteristics and impacts of these solutions on System i™

17.1 Introduction

The Internet SCSI Host Bus Adapter (iSCSI HBA), the Integrated xSeries® Server for iSeries™ (IXS),
and the Integrated xSeries Adapter (IXA) extend the utility of the System i solution by integrating x86
and AMD based servers with the System i platform. Selected models of Intel based servers may run
Windows® 2000 Server editions, Windows Server 2003 editions, Red Hat® Enterprise Linux®, or
SUSE® LINUX Enterprise Server. In addition, the iSCSI HBA allows System i models to integrate and
control IBM System x and IBM BladeCenter® model servers.
For more information about supported models, operating systems, and options, please see the "System i
integration with BladeCenter and System x" web page referenced at the end of this chapter. Also, see the
iSeries Information Center content titled "Integrated operating environments - Windows environment on
iSeries" for iSCSI and IXS/IXA concepts and operation details.
In the text following, the System i platform is often referred to as the "host" server. The IXS, IXA
attached server, or the iSCSI HBA attached server is referred to as the "guest" server.
V5R4 iSCSI Host Bus Adapter (iSCSI HBA)
The iSCSI host bus adapters (hardware type #573B Copper and #573C Fiber-optic) have been introduced
in V5R4. The iSCSI HBA supports 1Gbit Ethernet network connections, and provides i5/OS system
management and disk consolidation for guest System x and BladeCenter platforms.
The iSCSI HBA solution provides an extensive scalability range - from connecting up to 8 guest servers
through one iSCSI HBA for a lower cost connectivity, to allowing up to 4 iSCSI HBAs per individual
guest server for scalable bandwidth. For information about the numbers of supported adapters please see
the "System i integration with BladeCenter and System x" web page.
With the iSCSI HBA solution, no disks are installed on the guest servers. The host i5/OS server provides
disks, storage consolidation, guest server management, along with the tape, optical, and virtual ethernet
devices. Currently, only Windows 2003 Server editions, with SP1 or release 2, are supported with the
iSCSI solution.
The Integrated xSeries Adapter (IXA)
The Integrated xSeries Adapter (IXA - hardware type #2689-001 or #2689-002) is a PCI-based interface
card that installs inside selected models of System x, providing a High Speed Link (HSL) connection to a
host i5/OS system. The guest server provides the processors, memory, and Server Proven adapters, but no
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disks . IXA attached SMP servers support larger workloads, more users and greater flexibility to attach
devices than the IXS uni-processor models.
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The IBM System i and IBM System x product family names have replaced the IBM eSeries iSeries and xSeries
product family names. However, the IXS and IXA adapters retain the iSeries and xSeries brand labels.
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With the IXA - all the disk drives used by the guest server are under the control of the host server. The are no
disk drives in the guest server.
IBM i 6.1 Performance Capabilities Reference - January/April/October 2008
©
Copyright IBM Corp. 2008 Chapter 17 - Integrated BladeCenter and System x Performance
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