Midrange Stuff, OS/400 Edition

Logical partitioning on the OS/400 server has opened up new possibilities for server consolidation and workload management since it was first brought to the platform in 1999. Today, companies can run virtual Linux servers, subdivide individual processors, and dynamically reallocate iSeries resources, such as processing power and memory, according to each partition's needs. However, the increased capabilities can make managing those partitions manually a time-consuming and error-prone task, which is why Help/Systems has developed a new product called Robot/LPAR.

While IBM provides facilities to set up and manage logical partitioning (LPAR) through iSeries Navigator (formerly Operations Navigator) and System Service Tools, it does not provide many options for the automation of those tasks on a day-to-day basis, says Tom Huntington, vice president of technical services for Help/Systems. Additionally, many companies are hesitant to allow their administrators to manually adjust their logical partitioning resource settings for fear of making a mistake and causing a disruption to a program, he says.

Help/Systems developed Robot/LPAR to automate the job of managing logical partitioning resource settings. The software combines elements of a performance monitoring tool with a performance tuning tool, specialized for a logical partitioning environment. With Robot/LPAR installed, there is no need to have an operator manually adjusting the resources available to each partition.

The utility is composed of two main components: LPAR Manager, which must run in the server's primary partition, and LPAR Explorer, the Java-based user interface where administrators can adjust how Robot/LPAR behaves. Robot/LPAR also installs small "listening" programs that send performance data from secondary partitions to the LPAR Manager in the primary partition, but all the processing is done in the primary partition.

Robot/LPAR has the capability to control three main resources, although the software gives users the option to control these three resources through a number of variables. The three main resources are the processing power (as a percentage of the processor or full dedicated processors), main memory, and interactive performance. Robot/LPAR's influence is confined to its capability to control how much of these three resources are allocated to each partition.

The utility controls access to these three resources through what Help/Systems calls "environments." These environments permit the user to set different priorities that tell Robot/LPAR how to manage the partitions. For example, the user could set up different environments for daytime, nighttime, certain days of the week, different departments, or subsidiaries in foreign countries. Only one environment can be active at any time, and the user can program the different environments to rotate on a certain schedule.

Users have the capability to configure each environment based on a variety of different attributes. The first three attributes are the resources themselves: number of processing units, interactive processing, and memory. In addition to these attributes, Robot/LPAR adds a number of other variables that let the user fine-tune the environment he's trying to achieve, including priority settings, resource allocation, how aggressive Robot/LPAR will be in tuning, and what actions are to be taken when threshold events take place.

Robot/LPAR Explorer, the product's Java interface, also gives users the capability to manually manage their logical partitioning resources, including the capability to manually move I/O processors and dedicated buses from one partition to another. The interface also allows users to move shared devices, such as tape drives, to different partitions. Other Robot/LPAR Explorer features include the capability to view resource allocation and unassigned resources; view hardware configurations; view usage statistics and the adjustments made based on those statistics, by partition or for all partitions; view and print iSeries reports; view events; and set up security.

Help/Systems built monitoring and reporting features into Robot/LPAR to help users analyze their LPAR systems and figure out how to best configure Robot/LPAR to gain optimal performance. The utility collects statistics that provide detailed information about resource usage, allocation, processing performance, and speed. Users can display graphs or print reports from these statistics to evaluate and analyze their partition and system performance, Help/Systems says.

Robot/LPAR, which started shipping November 8, is Help/Systems 17th product. It can interoperate with other Help/System utilities, including Robot/SCHEDULE, Robot/ALERT, Robot/AUTOTUNE, and Robot/NETWORK. Pricing for Robot/LPAR ranges from $4,500 to $40,000, based on the processor tier group. For more information, go to www.helpsystems.com.