One of the most popular posts on my blog are these related to the HMC, functionality and management. Recently I’ve been invited by IBM research/development team to an adviser role in order to help with improvement the interface. Because at the same time, I realized there are multiple things which were already added with the latest Service Packs but I was not aware of them. I decided to write this post and share the tricks which you may not know.
Category: Hardware
New VIOS releases affect the Shared Ethernet Adapter (SEA) functionality
Long story short – how regular VIOS update ended with few weeks investigations completed with the serious VIOS bug and the APAR (IJ25390). The latest VIO releases contain a serious bug which may affect all VIOS/SEA client LPARs on IBM Power Servers.
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How to check LUN properties delivered to IBMi
Have you ever wonder if a LUN delivered from an external storage to your IBMi Lpar is thin provisioned,encrypted or provisioned thru SSD, you can do it from IBMi. Read below about hidden SST macro.
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How to prevent situation when server IPL may affect SAS controller
Last weekend I had a very unpleasant situation. A server reboot made an entire machine unusable. It was very difficult issue, costing an unplanned outage. Actually, we had all series of unfortunate events that day. I got aged by few years, but also learn there is always a solution, event in a hopeless situation. Read the entire story to avoid a similar problem. Continue reading “How to prevent situation when server IPL may affect SAS controller”
(Updated) Meltdown & Spectre performance impact on IBMi and IBM Power Systems
Not sure if there is anyone in IT world who has not heard about latest vulnerabilities in the modern chips. In this post I cover performance impact caused by fixes on IBM Power Systems and and IBM i OS.
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Demand for extra CPU capacity? Use a bug in POWER8 firmware
This week I discovered very weird bug in the POWER8 firmware. With this bug it is possible to use entire server capacity without paying processor activation to IBM. Continue reading “Demand for extra CPU capacity? Use a bug in POWER8 firmware”
How to automate update of Access Keys for POWER8
The other day, I’ve wrote about POWER8 ‘feature’ which requires from an administrator update of access keys in order to keep a server eligible for the firmware upgrade POWER8 – No hardware maintenance-no firmware upgrade . An administrator needs to enter these every few months, if a maintenance contract is re-signed every few months. This can be a headache, or something bigger if someone runs multiple servers. There is a secret HMC function, which can update the keys automatically.
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HP StoreOnce VTL and IBMi
Few weeks ago I had a chance to test VTL functionality on StoreOnce devices in conjunction with IBM i. HP StoreOnce is pretty new product and I know that a lot of people is waiting for some information ‘from the field’. This is my short summary.
POWER8 – No hardware maintenance-no firmware upgrade
Back in the day, downloading of a server firmware from IBM Fix Central website was limited only to users and serial numbers with valid IBM hardware maintenance contract. With POWER8 servers IBM put such a lock into the servers. Thus, if your hardware maintenance contract expired, you cannot install any newer firmware beyond this date. Continue reading “POWER8 – No hardware maintenance-no firmware upgrade”
IBM i lpar crashed duo to Dynamic Platform Optimizer
Dynamic Platform Optimizer is a hypervisor function which rearranges logical partition processors and memory on the system to improve the affinity between processors, and memory of logical partitions. In this post I will describe when to use this function and how to prevent IBM i Lpar from crash. Continue reading “IBM i lpar crashed duo to Dynamic Platform Optimizer”
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