[gileb]

Hi everybody,
We plan to user vio servers. We need some advices on how to implement thoses...
Do we need to create 2 vio servers (for redundancy). Is it really usefull ? has anybody experienced a broken vio server in real life ? I know it CAN occur....

Is it better to boot partitions on SAN when implementing those, than creating the differents Lvs (to map on rootvgs)? what are the pros and the cons ?

Thanks for your advices !

[cdelgadop]

Hi

You can find really usefull the following redbook:

IBM Redbooks | Advanced POWER Virtualization on IBM System p5: Introduction and Configuration

About your questions, i think wheter is usefull or net depends on the use you will do of your VIO clients. My customer uses just one VIO Server for development and quality VIO client enviroments so in case something wrong there's no direct impact on production systems. But if you're planning to configure production LPARs then it would be a nice idea to create redundant VIO Servers. I had configured such enviroments and it really works when the primary node goes down, but keep in mind that you have to test all situations carefully before going into production.

If you boot your LPARs from SAN then you're not using the VIOS partition, so you have at least one HBA assigned to each LPAR. This approach is good cause SAN disk provides performance and protection better than traditional internal disk solutions.

You can assign at least two HBA to your VIOS profile and using SAN zoning assign several LUN of 18GB or 36Gb that will play as rootvg disks for your client LPARs. I think this is better than using the Logical Volume because of the access throught LVM is slower than direct access to the disk.

Hope this helps

[gileb]

Thanks for your helpful reply. You just confirmed what i thought... We will start with the boot on SAN, and 2 vio server for production environments.

Thanks for all !