Vios - IBM BladeCenter PS703 Technical Overview And Introduction

Because several simultaneous micro-partition migrations are supported by PowerVM Live
Partition Mobility, it is conceivable to migrate the entire Shared-Processor Pool from one
server to another.

3.4.4 VIOS

The VIOS is part of all PowerVM Editions. The Virtual I/O partition allows the sharing of
physical resources between logical partitions to allow more efficient use. The VIOS owns the
physical resources (SCSI, Fibre Channel, network adapters, and optical devices) and allows
client partitions to share access to them, minimizing the number of physical adapters in the
system. The VIOS eliminates the requirement that every partition owns a dedicated network
adapter, disk adapter, and disk drive. The VIOS supports OpenSSH for secure remote logins.
It also provides a firewall for limiting access by ports, network services, and IP addresses.
Figure 3-10 shows an overview of a VIOS configuration utilizing virtual SCSI and virtual
Ethernet.
External Network
Physical
Disk
Physical
Disk
Figure 3-10 Architectural view of the VIOS
Because the VIOS is an operating system-based appliance server, redundancy for physical
devices attached to the VIOS can be provided by using capabilities such as Multipath I/O and
IEEE 802.3ad Link Aggregation.
Installation of the VIOS partition is performed from a special system backup DVD that is
provided to clients who order any PowerVM edition. This dedicated software is only for the
VIOS (and IVM in case it is used) and is only supported in special VIOS partitions. Three
major virtual devices are supported by the Virtual I/O Server:
Shared Ethernet Adapter
Virtual SCSI
Virtual Fibre Channel adapter
The Virtual Fibre Channel adapter is used with the NPIV feature, described in 3.4.9, "N_Port
ID Virtualization (NPIV)" on page 116.
Shared Ethernet Adapter
A Shared Ethernet Adapter (SEA) can be used to connect a physical Ethernet network to a
virtual Ethernet network. The SEA provides this access by connecting the internal Hypervisor
VLANs with the VLANs on the external switches. Because the SEA processes packets at
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IBM BladeCenter PS703 and PS704 Technical Overview and Introduction
Virtual I/O Server
Shared Ethernet
Adapter
Physical Ethernet Virtual Ethernet
Adapter Adapter
Physical Disk Virtual SCSI
Adapter Adapter
Virtual I/O Client 1
Hypervisor
Virtual Ethernet
Adapter
Virtual SCSI
Adapter
Virtual I/O Client 2
Virtual Ethernet
Adapter
Virtual SCSI
Adapter