Advanced Availability Functions, Transparent Sparing

Advanced Availability Functions

the processors in the takeover site to acquire processing power required to restart mission-critical production work- loads. GDPS-CBU management helps to minimize manual customer intervention and the potential for errors, which can help reduce the outage time for critical workloads from hours to minutes. Similarly, GDPS-CBU management can also automate the process of dynamically returning the reserved CPs when the temporary period has expired.

z990 Server Customer Initiated Upgrade (CIU)

Customer Initiated Upgrade (CIU) is the capability to initi- ate a processor and/or memory upgrade when spare PUs/ installed unused memory are available via the Web using IBM Resource Link. Customers will be able to download and apply the upgrade using functions on the Hardware Management Console via the Remote Support Facility.

This unique and important function for zSeries gives the customer greater control and ability in adding capacity to the system to meet resource requirements for unpredict- able e-business workloads and for applications which are difﬁ cult to size. CIU is a low-risk, well tested-and-tried function.

Transparent Sparing

z990 offers a 12 PU MCM with 2 PUs reserved as spares. In the case of processor failure, these spares are used for transparent sparing.

Enhanced Dynamic Memory Sparing

The z900 has enhanced this robust recovery design with 16 times more chips available for sparing. This will virtually eliminate the need to replace a memory card due to DRAM failure.

Enhanced Storage Protect Keys: z990 has enhanced the memory storage protect key design by adding a third key array to each memory card. The arrays are parity checked and employ a Triple Voting strategy to assure accuracy.

This will reduce the need for memory card replacement due to key array failure.

ESCON Port Sparing: The ESCON 16-port I/O card is delivered with one unused port dedicated for sparing in the event of a port failure on that card. Other unused ports are available for nondisruptive growth of ESCON channels.

Concurrent Maintenance

•Concurrent Service for I/O Cards: All the cards which plug into the new I/O Cage are able to be added and replaced concurrent with system operation. This virtually eliminates any need to schedule outage to service or upgrade the I/O subsystem on this cage.

•Upgrade for Coupling Links: z990 has concurrent main- tenance for the ISC-3 adapter card. Also, Coupling Links can be added concurrently. This eliminates a need for scheduled downtime in the demanding sysplex environ- ment.