Using Power7+ Features Under Aix - IBM Power7 Optimization And Tuning Manual

This type of installation sometimes takes a little effort on the part of the application, but it
allows you to get the most value from using WPARs. If there is a need to run the same version
of the software in several WPARs, this type of installation provides the
following benefits:
It increases administrative efficiency by reducing the number of application instances that
users must maintain. The administrator saves time in application-maintenance tasks, such
as applying fixes and performing backups and migrations.
It allows users to quickly deploy multiple instances of the same application, each in its own
secure and isolated environment. It can take only a matter of minutes to create and start a
WPAR to run a shared installation of the application.
By sharing one AIX or application image among multiple WPARs, the memory resource
usage is reduced because only one copy of the application image is in real memory.
For more information about WPAR, see WPAR concepts, available at:
http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/aix/v7r1/topic/com.ibm.aix.wpar/wpar-over
view.htm

4.1.2 Using POWER7+ features under AIX

When the AIX operating system runs on POWER7+ processors, it transparently uses the
POWER7+ on-chip encryption accelerators. For each of the uses that are described in this
section, there are no application visible changes or awareness required.
AIX encrypted file system (EFS)
Integrated with the AIX Journaled File System (JFS2) is the ability to create an encrypted file
system (EFS) where all data at rest in the file system is encrypted. When AIX EFS runs on
POWER7+, it uses the encryption accelerators, which can show up to a 40% advantage in file
system I/O-intensive operations. Applications do not need to be aware of this situation, but
application and workload deployments might be able to take advantage of higher levels of
security by using AIX EFS for sensitive data.
AIX Internet Protocol Security (IPSec)
When IPSec is enabled on AIX running on POWER7+, AIX transparently uses the POWER7+
encryption accelerators for all data in transit. The advantage that is provided by the
accelerators is more pronounced when jumbo frames (a maximum transmission unit (MTU) of
9000 bytes) are used. Applications do not need to be aware of this situation, but application
and workload deployments might be able to take advantage of higher levels of security by
enabling IPSec.
AIX /dev/random (random number generation)
AIX capitalizes on the on-chip random number generator on POWER7+. Applications that use
the AIX special files /dev/random or /dev/urandom transparently get the advantages of
stronger hardware-based random numbers. If an application is making high frequency usage
of random number generation, there may also be a performance advantage.
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Chapter 4. AIX