I was reading the article "VIOS 101: Network" by Jaqui Lynch at
http://www.ibmsystemsmag.com/ibmi/administrator/systemsmanagement/vios-101-part3/?utm_campaign=ibm-enews&utm_medium=email&utm_source=ibmi-jul22-2015?&utm_content=exclusive3-headline
We have three Power 8's. Each comes with two 5287-"10 Gigabit
Ethernet-SFP+ SR PCI-E adapter".
Each Power 8 has two VIO servers. One 5287 is allocated to each VIOS
lpar. These VIOS lpars are all running ioslevel 2.2.3.4.
The firmware on each Power 8 is FW810.21 (108) aka 01SV810.
Two of the three Power 8's have an AIX lpar. oslevel -s shows
7100-03-03-1415
All Power 8's have multiple lpars of IBM i. They are running either
7.1.0-15142-TR10 or 7.2.0-15135-TR2.
Each location has a pair of Cisco Nexus 5548UP switches.
Currently I am only using one port of each of the 5287 cards.
And, probably due to earlier (hopefully since resolved) OS limitations,
and maybe earlier switch issues, the second VIOS lpar of each pair on each
Power 8 serves up the fiber connection and the first lpar serves up the CD
rom.
Screen shot from HMC for VIOS22:
Type ID Client
Server Fiber Channel 203 RACK2HST(3)
Server Fiber Channel 204 GDWEB2(4)
Server Fiber Channel 205 GDIHQ2(5)
Server Fiber Channel 206 GDISYS2(6)
Server Fiber Channel 207 MAILTWO(7)
Server Fiber Channel 208 TSMAIX2(8)
Our BP had us set this up so that the '203' means coming from lpar 2 to
lpar 03. Makes sense. lpar 3-7 (at least on this power 8) are IBM i.
I would like to increase this redundancy. Have each VIOS lpar talk to
both switches. From there, have each lpar of IBM i or AIX be able to
network through BOTH lpars of VIOS and use both switches. With the goal
being that if one lpar of VIOS, or one switch, goes down there will be no
communications disruptions.
Rob Berendt
midrange.com
