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Table 3-1 Configured memory-to-default LMB size
Configurable memory in the system
Less than 4 GB
Greater than 4 GB up to 8 GB
Greater than 8 GB up to 16 GB
Greater than 16 GB up to 32 GB
Greater than 32 GB
Physical memory assigned to partitions are in increments of LMB.
The POWER Hypervisor provides the following types of virtual I/O adapters:
Virtual SCSI
Virtual Ethernet
Virtual Fibre Channel
Virtual (TTY) console
Virtual I/O adapters are defined by system administrators during logical partition definition.
Configuration information for the adapters is presented to the partition operating system.
Virtual SCSI
The POWER Hypervisor provides a virtual SCSI mechanism for virtualization of storage
devices. Virtual SCSI allows secure communications between a logical partition and the IO
Server (VIOS). The storage virtualization is accomplished by pairing two adapters: a virtual
SCSI server adapter on the VIOS, and a virtual SCSI client adapter on IBM i, Linux, or AIX
partitions. The combination of Virtual SCSI and VIOS provides the opportunity to share
physical disk adapters in a flexible and reliable manner.
Virtual Ethernet
The POWER Hypervisor provides an IEEE 802.1Q VLAN-style virtual Ethernet switch that
allows partitions on the same server to use fast and secure communication without any need
for physical connection.
Virtual Ethernet support starts with AIX Version 5.3, or the appropriate level of Linux
supporting virtual Ethernet devices (see 3.4.10, "Supported PowerVM features by operating
system" on page 117). The virtual Ethernet is part of the base system configuration.
Virtual Ethernet has the following major features:
The virtual Ethernet adapters can be used for both IPv4 and IPv6 communication and can
transmit packets up to 65408 bytes in size. Therefore, the maximum MTU for the
corresponding interface can be up to 65394 (65408 minus 14 for the header) in the
non-VLAN case and to 65390 (65408 minus 14, minus 4) if VLAN tagging is used.
The POWER Hypervisor presents itself to partitions as a virtual 802.1Q compliant switch.
The maximum number of VLANs is 4096. Virtual Ethernet adapters can be configured as
either untagged or tagged (following the IEEE 802.1Q VLAN standard).
An AIX partition supports 256 virtual Ethernet adapters for each logical partition. Besides
a default port VLAN ID, the number of additional VLAN ID values that can be assigned per
Virtual Ethernet adapter is 20, which implies that each Virtual Ethernet adapter can be
used to access 21 virtual networks.
Default logical memory block
16 MB
32 MB
64 MB
128 MB
256 MB
Chapter 3. Virtualization
93
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