I have a p570 server (8 way) running 2 VIO servers which provide
resources to 20 virtual servers. What will happen if I have a memory
chip failure or CPU failure, even though I have 2 VIO servers?


Thanks!

Mag wrote:
> I have a p570 server (8 way) running 2 VIO servers which provide
> resources to 20 virtual servers. What will happen if I have a memory
> chip failure or CPU failure, even though I have 2 VIO servers?
>
>
> Thanks!
>

Depends on where your memory failure is. Your memory is assigned
directly to each LPAR. The LPAR that owns the bad chip is going to see
the hit. Dual VIO servers will not help you in this aspect, unless the
bad chip is in one of the VIO servers. If your 2 vio's are built
properly, one can continue serving resources while the other is down.
There is enough error checking built into IBM's hardware to detect these
types of failures preemptively. Nothing is 100%, though! :-)

>> I have a p570 server (8 way) running 2 VIO servers which provide
>> resources to 20 virtual servers. What will happen if I have a memory
>> chip failure or CPU failure, even though I have 2 VIO servers?

Good point to start is answer to the question, why do we do two VIO servers.
Answer might be to make it redundant in case of failure, this kind of
reasoning is based on hardware habit which says that better have two then
one then you are safer. In my opinion it doesn't apply to VIO Server.

For double configuration:
In my humble opinion the only good reason to have two VIO servers is to
enable concurrent maintenance change of configuration and restart of your
VIO server configuration. In certain cases it is convenient to make changes
on the first IO Server restart it, then image change on other and then
restart second, that way you do not lose constant access to data.
There is little more chance that you will survive hardware or software
failure (but just a little)
False feeling that we have everything doubled and we secured

Against double configuration:
Second VIO consumes resources of your server, people say that VIO should
have at least 0.5 of procesor that loss of at least 1000$ worth processor
power.
More software, more possible software failures (hardware or software
failure )
Configuration is much more complex and error prone

Only way to be fairly secure is to make failover cluster between two boxes.
Below that you have SPOF and you have to live with it.

Regards
Stan

It all depends how you have your resources allocated. If you're
running dual VIO servers and all CPU and memory is set to shared, then
you shouldn't really suffer assuming a clean failure.
However, if you have dedicated CPUs and memory going to your VIO
servers, then you will have a problem. I can't really think of a
reason why you WOULD have dedicated CPUs (as opposed to shared) going
to your VIOs.


On May 28, 4:21 pm, Mag <magaw...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I have a p570 server (8 way) running 2 VIO servers which provide
> resources to 20 virtual servers. What will happen if I have a memory
> chip failure or CPU failure, even though I have 2 VIO servers?
>
> Thanks!