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Will OS/400 Shops Take LPAR-Based Server Consolidation to Heart?
by Dan Burger
Why should you care about logical partitions and server consolidation? Well, if you are running an iSeries or AS/400 with multiple OS/400 servers, the answer may be you could save a bundle of money on hardware and become more efficient at managing your OS/400 servers. The case for logical partitioning and server consolidation was presented last week during an iSeries Nation
Webcast presentation by IBM product marketing manager Amit Dave and his guest Van Rownd, vice president of information services at Railcar Management.
Since 1999, when IBM brought logical partitioning (LPAR) to iSeries and AS/400 servers, it has been lauded as the focal point of server consolidation strategies. With the introduction of V5R1 in the spring of 2001, the server consolidation benefit has taken on an even greater importance in iSeries marketing. It is, in fact, the current feature presentation on the iSeries Nation Web page. Implementations, however, have been few and far between during this past year. To say there is a trend in server consolidations, as IBM continues to do, is taking liberty with the word trend.
There are nonetheless OS/400 shops that have successfully implemented LPAR, and Railcar Management is one of them. During the 60-minute iSeries Nation Webcast, Rownd provided a brief insight into what LPAR-based server consolidation it has meant to his company.
Railcar Management serves as an ASP for rail companies. Among the services it provides are such things as processing payables and receivables, providing revenue and transportation management applications, providing core business applications, and handling software licensing and processing.
In 1999, Railcar Management was operating with a dozen AS/400 systems and 34 railroad clients. That year the company bought one AS/400 Model 720 with four LPARs, which resulted in the elimination of five AS/400 systems. During 2000, Railcar Management purchased an AS/400 Model 820 with four LPARs and removed five more AS/400s. Currently the company uses the two LPAR-enabled systems to support all of its customers.
Rownd says this was more than a server consolidation project. LPAR provides new opportunities for shared resources. Vision Solutions provides mirroring that allows redundancy primarily for disk files, as opposed to full redundancy of all system resources. The mirroring software is not only critical to the establishment of business continuity involving system upgrades, it is also instrumental in the establishment of disaster recovery programs with 24/7 systems availability and a reduction of planned and unplanned downtime.
It is worth noting that as this project progressed Railcar Management's railroad client list has grown to more than 500, and its data center personnel totals eight--four systems engineers and four network engineers.
The Railcar Management server consolidation project provides a classic example of a company using LPAR to optimize IT investments through consolidation of hardware, software, networks, data centers, and skills. For more information on this project, visit the iSeries Nation Web page. Membership privileges, which are free, will allow you a more detailed look at the project.
During the presentation, Dave highlighted the key advantages that accompany server consolidation. At the top of his list is low total cost of ownership over the lifetime of the system that is attributable to reduced staffing due to the capability to manage multiple systems and platforms, and the iSeries' reputation for unmatched high availability. Along with these strengths, Dave cites the capability to maintain application performance, throughput, and scalability as major contributors to this cause. The high-speed link (IXS cards and PASE environment) plus the I/O architecture are also compelling. Or at least they should be. Still this consolidation idea is slow to take hold.
It's too early to predict whether partitioning workloads on the iSeries will become a widespread practice. However, this capability certainly gives reason for calling the iSeries a "mini-mainframe." Some people like that moniker, others cringe at it. The fact is that mainframe, OS/400, and Unix servers (with the exception of IBM's pSeries) all have some form of logical or physical partitioning (or something in between) and all server vendors are using server consolidation on partitionable machines as a means of boosting server sales and the efficiency of data processing at midrange and enterprise shops.
The message that mainframe-like features have come to the midrange is one that IBM hopes iSeries Nation members will carry back to the decision-makers at their companies. Logical partitioning is available on the iSeries Model 270 using S-Star processors all the way up to the biggest Model 840 machines. With this so-called shared processor support--which allows a partition with as little as 1/100th of a processor on iSeries machines running V5R1--and the capability to schedule resource movement with Management Central feature of OS/400's Operations Navigator, real IT departments can find practical uses for partitioning, even if they are small companies that do not fit the profile of the big customers who only a few years ago were the only companies that could afford or understand sophisticated partitioning technology.
The management of LPARs is done through Operations Navigator and a graphical wizard that allows partitions to be configured, added and deleted. Partition management also includes the capability to not only move resources but to schedule movements based on business priorities. It also allows the consolidation of multiple applications while maintaining operational independence. The combination of these features builds a good case for consolidating Windows, Unix and Linux server farms on the iSeries--provided the applications can be ported, of course.
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