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: PowerVM
VIOS 3.1 upgrade for everyone
I assume there are many installations which need to go to VIOS 3.1 by October 2020 due to end of support for VIOS 2.x. Because, I did not find any upgrade procedure for “dummies”, I decided to write one which I hope people find useful. I do not cover only the upgrade process itself, but also share some advises how to do it safely and recover in case of troubles. Upgrade Virtual I/O Server to 3.1 is completely different process than before. For instance, you are going to need an extra disk to perform the operation. Interested?
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.
Continue reading “New VIOS releases affect the Shared Ethernet Adapter (SEA) functionality”
IBM TechU Prague 2017 – finally as a speaker
Finally this is happening! After all these years I’ve been given an opportunity to speak, present, teach others about technologies where I find myself very confident and have experience which should be shared among the community. I will be a speaker at IBM Technical University
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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”
Create an LPAR with specific WWPNs
By the command below an LPAR can be created with specific WWPNs, of course if you use NPIV adapters. It can be useful for LPARS migration between servers. It is extremely dangerous command, therefore it should be used only by people who knows what is for. Continue reading “Create an LPAR with specific WWPNs”
How to create SEA without touching VIOS
In this post I will describe how to create a Shared Ethernet Adapter (SEA) from the new HMC Enhanced GUI interface where no single command in VIOS command line is required. Continue reading “How to create SEA without touching VIOS”
My few words about HMC Enhanced + interface
Those of you who run recent hardware, probably noticed the new HMC interface called Enhanced+ GUI available since the HMC Firmware 8.8.1 SP1. In this post I would like to share my point of view and give some advice for people who would like to use it. Continue reading “My few words about HMC Enhanced + interface”
SR-IOV for POWER8 enterprise models GA
Few hours ago IBM has released the firmware which enables the SR-IOV functionality on E870/E880 servers.
10Gbit adapters and virtual ethernet speed
Last few months months I’m struggling with a speed of a virtual Ethernet adapters. Just buying and configuring 10Gbit adapters in the Shared Ethernet Adapter (SEA) will not boost your network speed to the network heaven. I give you few examples how the speed/bandwidth change for a VLAN, depending from the configuration.
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