Intel AS/400 RISC Server, 170 Servers, 7xx Servers Integrated BladeCenter and System x Performance

Chapter 17. Integrated BladeCenter and System x Performance

This chapter provides a performance overview and recommendations for the Integrated xSeries Server4, the Integrated xSeries Adapter and the iSCSI host bus adapter. In addition, the chapter presents some performance characteristics and impacts of these solutions on System i™.

17.1 Introduction

The Internet SCSI Host Bus Adapter (iSCSI HBA), the Integrated xSeries® Server for iSeries™ (IXS), and the Integrated xSeries Adapter (IXA) extend the utility of the System i solution by integrating x86 and AMD based servers with the System i platform. Selected models of Intel based servers may run Windows® 2000 Server editions, Windows Server 2003 editions, Red Hat® Enterprise Linux®, or SUSE® LINUX Enterprise Server. In addition, the iSCSI HBA allows System i models to integrate and control IBM System x and IBM BladeCenter® model servers.

For more information about supported models, operating systems, and options, please see the “System i integration with BladeCenter and System x” web page referenced at the end of this chapter. Also, see the iSeries Information Center content titled “Integrated operating environments - Windows environment on iSeries” for iSCSI and IXS/IXA concepts and operation details.

In the text following, the System i platform is often referred to as the “host” server. The IXS, IXA attached server, or the iSCSI HBA attached server is referred to as the “guest” server.

V5R4 iSCSI Host Bus Adapter (iSCSI HBA)

The iSCSI host bus adapters (hardware type #573B Copper and #573C Fiber-optic) have been introduced in V5R4. The iSCSI HBA supports 1Gbit Ethernet network connections, and provides i5/OS system management and disk consolidation for guest System x and BladeCenter platforms.

The iSCSI HBA solution provides an extensive scalability range - from connecting up to 8 guest servers through one iSCSI HBA for a lower cost connectivity, to allowing up to 4 iSCSI HBAs per individual guest server for scalable bandwidth. For information about the numbers of supported adapters please see the “System i integration with BladeCenter and System x” web page.

With the iSCSI HBA solution, no disks are installed on the guest servers. The host i5/OS server provides disks, storage consolidation, guest server management, along with the tape, optical, and virtual ethernet devices. Currently, only Windows 2003 Server editions, with SP1 or release 2, are supported with the iSCSI solution.

The Integrated xSeries Adapter (IXA)

The Integrated xSeries Adapter (IXA - hardware type #2689-001 or #2689-002) is a PCI-based interface card that installs inside selected models of System x, providing a High Speed Link (HSL) connection to a host i5/OS system. The guest server provides the processors, memory, and Server Proven adapters, but no disks5. IXA attached SMP servers support larger workloads, more users and greater flexibility to attach devices than the IXS uni-processor models.

4The IBM System i and IBM System x product family names have replaced the IBM eSeries iSeries and xSeries product family names. However, the IXS and IXA adapters retain the iSeries and xSeries brand labels.

5With the IXA - all the disk drives used by the guest server are under the control of the host server. The are no disk drives in the guest server.

IBM i 6.1 Performance Capabilities Reference - January/April/October 2008
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