P520 with AIX5.2 can be partitioned?

[chelldis]

We are about to purchase 2 new p520 servers with AIX5.2, 2 way processors and 2 Ultra 320 SCSI 4-pack enclosures.
We have a need to partition these servers in order to create 4 virtual servers. I'm really charmed by the advanced POWER virtualization, but according to documentation its running on AIX5.3 only which we dont use.
dynamic LPAR is an option since we do not need more then 2 partitions, BUT as I understood each partition will claim a whole processor aswell as one 4-pack enclosure.
Is this correct? and if so is there any other way to partition the system without losing an entire 4-pack to a partition?

chell

 

[p5wizard]

AIX52 DLPAR needs at least

1 processor
1 GB RAM (can be less than 1GB)
1 PCI slot containing a network adapter
1 PCI slot containing a disk adapter (could be an on-board adapter, doesn't have to be a real PCI slot)
1 disk in some sort of enclosure (could be a SAN disk)

with AIX53 you could setup virtual IO, but on a 2way p5 I'd think you won't have enough power to get by. 1 CPU for one VIO-server, 1 CPU shared by 2 other partitions...

so, yes you are correct...

HTH,

p5wizard

 

[hirschaj]

pwizard shared some great information but I wanted to make a slight adjustment to one of his numbers.

"1 CPU for one VIO-server" - While at USERblue I learned that .5 CPU is almost always more than sufficient for a VIO server. Very, very rarely did anyone see the need for more than .5. Not saying it can't happen, just saying .5 is probably a really good starting point.

And AIX 5.2 is slated for End of Support on September 1, 2007. So if I were you I would make every possible effort to get on 5.3 before giving into using 5.2 (unless you really like going through OS migrations). Pluse you can't use SMT on AIX 5.2 which is a huge benefit of going to 5.3.


Jim Hirschauer

http://www.aixexpert.com

 

[p5wizard]

Then again, you'd need 2 VIOS's (no single point of failure) at 0.5CPU each...

In any case the overhead of running VIOS and Virtual disk and network is just too high on a 2way box.


HTH,

p5wizard

 

[chelldis]

Thanks both for your insights
Now the reason we dont want to start using 5.3 yet is because we run a lot of custom applications which dont run on 5.3 (yet)
Its a first time for me to set up a system with LPAR, is there any online documentation you can recommend?

chell