[locky]

There are 2 p5 systems, each has 1 storage controller with 2 hdisks, 2 FC cards, 1 dual ports ethernet controller
1. Can I configure dual VIO servers on one p5 system?
2. Can I configure dual VIO with each VIO on each p5 system?
thanks

[Administrator]

No and no.

Second question first: VIOS is only able to virtualize resources for LPARs residing on the same physical server because it is dependent upon the hypervisor. The VIOS is not a self contained server, but more like an appliance front end to the hypervisor.

Now for the first question. You don't have enough resources to have two VIO servers. My personal opinion is you don't even have enough for a single VIOS.

I would have 2 hdisks - each on a separate IO bus, two FC adapters and 2 dual port ethernet controllers (etherchannelled) for a single VIOS and twice that for two.

[locky]

Thanks Admin, So that meant I need purchase more IO adapters in order to setup 2 VIOS.

[Administrator]

Purely from a best practices point of view, yes. For production environments, you should always have dual VIOS otherwise maintenace on the VIOS will take down all LPARs using virtual resources.