Tuesday, July 14, 2009

AIX Performance Monitoring - lsps

AIX Performance Monitoring - lsps

lsps

Report statistics about paging space.

Example:

lsps -a

AIX Performance Monitoring - trcstop

AIX Performance Monitoring - Trcstop

Trcstop

The trcstop command will terminate the trace initiated by the netpmon command.

AIX Performance Monitoring - Netpmon

AIX Performance Monitoring - Netpmon

Netpmon

Performance statistics for CPU usage, network device-driver I/O, socket calls, and NFS I/O. For CPU usage, it estimates how much of this usage is due to network-related activities.

Example:
netpmon -o /tmp/netpmon.log -O all

AIX Performance Monitoring - Fileplace

AIX Performance Monitoring - Fileplace

Fileplace

Reports the placement of a file's blocks within a file system. Used to examine and assess the efficiency of a file's placement on disk.

Example:fileplace -pv /unix

AIX Performance Monitoring - Filemon

AIX Performance Monitoring - Filemon

Filemon

Performance statistics for files, logical/physical volumes and virtual memory segments.

AIX Performance Monitoring Commands

AIX Performance Monitoring Commands

vmstat

The vmstat command reports statistics about kernel threads, virtual memory, disks, traps and CPU activity. Reports generated by the vmstat command can be used to balance system load activity. These system-wide statistics (among all processors) are calculated as averages for values expressed as percentages, and as sums otherwise.


iostat

The iostat command is used for monitoring system input/output device loading by observing the time the physical disks are active in relation to their average transfer rates. The iostat command generates reports that can be used to change system configuration to better balance the input/output load between physical disks and adapters.

netstat

The netstat command symbolically displays the contents of various network-related data structures for active connections. The Interval parameter, specified in seconds, continuously displays information regarding packet traffic on the configured network interfaces. The Interval parameter takes no flags. The System parameter specifies the memory used by the current kernel. Unless you are looking at a dump file, the System parameter should be /unix.


topas

The topas command reports vital statistics about the activity on the local system in a character terminal. It requires the operating system version 4.3.3 or later with the perfagent.tools fileset installed on the system.

The program extracts and displays statistics from the system with a default interval of two seconds. On the operating system version 4.3.3, the output consists on two fixed part and one variable section.

ps

Process list with lots of options and details

Monday, July 13, 2009

Aix - Logical Partitioning - Create Partition through HMC - Contd

Aix - Logical Partitioning - Create Partition through HMC


Double click on Server and Partition

You will get the below screen. Under Servers and Partitions all the frames managed by that HMC exists .In the below snapshot you can see P570, P590
frames




Right click on the frame on which you are going to create a new LPAR



Click on Create-->logical partition

The following screen appears



Partition ID is automatically generated. Partition ID is a numeric value between 1 and 254

Partition Name is the server name (example “system” here). Partition environment must be AIX or Linux

Enter the partition name and click next



If you want to use workload partition group you can select “yes “.Here the LPAR we are going to build doesn’t uses any WLM so select No and click next



Each logical partition requires at least one partition profile. The profile name can contain up to 31 characters (string). For more information you can read a Partition profile concept which is explained in the beginning of the document.

Here we are giving profile name same as the partition name i.e. “system”.Click next

You will get memory selection window. Here we have to give the minimum, desired and maximum memory capacity for the partition.



• Desired memory: This is the requested amount of memory for the partition, and if available system will boot with this amount of memory.
• Maximum memory: The maximum represents the upper limit for memory.
• Minimum memory: This amount of memory is required for the partition to boot. The profile will fail to activate if the minimum memory is not met.

After entering the memory details click next.

The processor capacity in a frame is divided in to

1) Dedicated processors

2) Processor shared pool.

If we want to build an LPAR with dedicated processor, we have to select “dedicated “in the following screen. Processors assigned to a dedicated partition can not be used by any other partition while it is running.Here we are going to build a LPAR which is going to have shared processor. So we will select “shared” option




Clicking next will give you processors settings window as below



The Desired processing value is the amount of processing resources that the partition will require to boot Maximum processing value is the maximum amount of processing resources that the partition will get, even if there are manual attempts to assign the partition more processing power.Minimum processing units needed to start up the partition.


Click Advanced for Advanced processor settings




CAPPED & UNCAPPED

POWER5 partitions in the shared processing pool can have a sharing mode of capped or uncapped.
• A capped partition indicates that the logical partition will never exceed its assigned processing capacity.
• An uncapped partition means that the partition’s assigned current processing capacity may be exceeded, up to the partition’s maximum virtual processors settings, when the shared processing pool has any unused processing power.
• Uncapped weight is a number in the range of 0 through 255 that you set for each uncapped partition in the shared processing pool. Default weight is 128
• 255 being the highest priority and 0 being the lowest priority, i.e. a LPAR with higher uncapped weight will get priority to the processing pool Virtual processor settings are generated by default. Change the virtual processor settings according to specification. To know more about virtual processors please
read the explanation about virtual processors in the beginning of the document.

This screen did not come for dedicated Processor LPARs since processors allocated to an LPAR cannot be used by any other LPAR.

Select Uncapped and give virtual processor values.

Click next to get I/O selection window.




I/O resources can be dedicated to an LPAR or shared between LPARS.

One way of sharing I/O adapters is assigning the adapters to vio server and from there let LPARs share the adapter through Virtual LAN.

This can be accomplished by defining virtual adapters in the LPARs.

If we are using any dedicated IO resource we can select the corresponding IO resource in the above screen otherwise if you are using vio server then click next without any selection .

For the LPAR we are going to build we use VIO servers for IO resource so click next without any selection No need of adding any I/O pool for the LPAR we are going to build. Click next




We have to configure virtual I/O adapters for the LPAR we are building so Select option “yes”.

Click next




We will get Virtual adapters settings window






There are three types of virtual adapters we can configure

Virtual SCSI
Virtual Ethernet
Virtual Serial


First we will configure the virtual Ethernet adapters.

Virtual Ethernet adapter allows for high speed (1 gigabit) inter-partition
communications.

Select Ethernet Tab to configure Ethernet adapters and click on Create adapter
option.


We will get a virtual Ethernet adapter configuration window as below






The slot number refers to the position of the virtual Ethernet adapter on the virtual system bus.


Port virtual LAN ID is analogous to the current virtual LAN/Ethernet ID

Provide Slot number and Virtual LAN ID in the corresponding entry tabs. (For example here 2 is slot number and 1 is VLAN ID)

Select the corresponding VLAN ID in the System VLAN tab.

Click OK.

One virtual Ethernet adapter will get created and I t will showing in the contents as showed in the following screen.



Ethernet adapters marked as “Required” will be reserved for the exclusive use of this partition, and cannot be accidentally moved through dynamic LPAR.

A required resource is needed for the partition to start when the profile is activated.

Check “Required” on all Virtual Ethernet adapters and enter the number higher than the final VLAN number in Maximum virtual adapters field. Click next




The HMC by default gets power control partition, the ability to power the partition on and off.

If you have any specific power control partition you can add.

Click Next

Select SMS for boot modes & Click Next



Confirm the summary of the profile and configuration from the below screen






Click Finish.

It will start creating the partition. Following pop up shows LPAR creation is in
Process.






After the creation of partition it will be showing as not activated in the HMC with the profile created as shown below


Friday, July 10, 2009

Aix - Logical Partitioning - Create Partition through HMC

Aix - Logical Partitioning - Create Partition through HMC

Login in to HMC with HMC username and password you will get the following screen. You can log in to HMC via LDAP servers.



Before starting creating a new LPAR you have to take backup of HMC from the HMC menu items .Following snapshot helps you to understand the process.



There are two types of backups, Backup Critical Console Data and Save Upgrade Data.

• Backup Critical Console Data task is used to back up the HMC configuration and profile data to the formatted DVD-RAM media.

• Save Upgrade Data task is used to save the current HMC configuration in the special disk partition on the HMC we can take backup of HMC by logging in to LDAP servers by using HMC
Commands.

After Taking the HMC backup start creating LPAR



----- To contd in the next post

Aix - Logical Partitioning - System Profile

Aix - Logical Partitioning - System Profile

  • A system profile is an ordered list of partition profiles that is used by the Hardware Management Console (HMC) to start the logical partitions on a managed system in a specific configuration.
  • When you activate the system profile, the managed system attempts to activate each partition profile in the system profile in the order specified. A system profile helps you activate or change the managed system from one complete set of logical partition configurations to another.
  • It is possible for you to create a system profile whose partition profiles specify more resources than are available on the managed system. You can use the HMC to validate the system profile against the currently available system resources and against the total system resources. Validating your system profile ensures that your I/O devices and processing resources are not overcommitted and it increases the likelihood that the system profile can be activated. The validation process estimates the amount of memory needed to activate all of the partition profiles in the system profile. It is possible that a system profile can pass validation and yet not have enough memory to be activated.

AIX - Logical Partitioning - I/O device assignment

Aix - Logical Partitioning - I/O device assignment
  • I/O devices are assigned to partition profiles on a slot-by-slot basis. Most I/O devices can be assigned to a partition profile on the HMC as required or as desired.
  • If an I/O device is assigned to a partition profile as required, then the partition profile cannot be successfully activated if the I/O device is unavailable or is in use by another logical partition. Also, after the logical partition starts, you cannot use dynamic logical partitioning to remove the required I/O device from the running logical partition or move the required I/O device to another logical partition. This setting is suitable for devices that are required for the continuous operation of the logical partition (such as disk drives).
  • If an I/O device is assigned to a partition profile as desired, then the partition profile can be successfully activated if the I/O device is unavailable or is in use by another logical partition. The desired I/O device can also be reconfigured in the operating system or system software and removed from the running logical partition or moved to another logical partition using dynamic logical partitioning. This setting is suitable for devices that you want to share among
    multiple logical partitions (such as optical drives or tape drives). You can change the required or desired setting within any partition profile for any I/O device at any time. Changes to the required or desired setting for an I/O device take effect immediately, even if the logical partition is running. For example, you want to move a tape device from one running logical partition to
    another, and the I/O device is required in the active partition profile for the source logical partition. You can access the active partition profile for the source logical partition, set the tape device to be desired, and then reconfigure and move the tape device to the other logical partition without having to restart either logical partition.