IBM 8687 Installation Guide - Page 70

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IBM

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xSeries 440 Planning and Installation Guide

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Application integration

Application integration is the combining of multiple, similar applications, such

as Web servers, onto one consolidated server.

Application integration is also the combining of different application workload

types within a single server/system and migrating an application or data to a

new platform in order to collocate the application and data.

It reduces administration, operation, and facilities costs and increases

reliability and availability.

The main objective of application integration is to migrate applications from

one or several locations to a single location. Based on the consolidation

platform, this migration can take different forms:

–

The migration may not bring any additional costs beyond that of relocating

the application on a new server.

–

The migration may imply that application programs have to be recompiled

in order to run on the new platform.

–

The migration may imply that application programs have to be redesigned

and rewritten in order to run on the consolidation platform. As for physical

server consolidation, application integration has several cases.

–

Application integration is combining different application workload types

within a single server or system.

–

Distributed systems do not run identical applications and system software

and have to be integrated into a consolidation server running a different

operating system.

From another point of view, consolidation takes one of three basic approaches:

±

Logical

Logical consolidation brings all server resources to the same level so that

they can be viewed logically as a single unified environment.

In logical consolidation, actual systems are still distributed, while

administrative procedures and processes are standardized company-wide.

This kind of consolidation is relatively easy and safe to implement, but it

carries the least potential for significant returns. Cost savings come from

better asset management and opportunities to deploy high-quality, consistent

administrative practices across the enterprise.

±

Physical

Physical consolidation does pretty much what it says: systems are relocated

to a single server site. The number of servers you have to manage remains

the same, and cost savings come from better staff utilization, higher service

Section	Page
Front cover	1
Contents	5
Notices	9
Trademarks	10
Preface	11
The team that wrote this redbook	11
Become a published author	14
Comments welcome	14
Chapter 1. Technical description	15
1.1 The x440 product line	16
1.2 System partitioning	20
1.3 IBM XA-32 chipset	21
1.4 Processors	26
1.4.1 Intel Xeon Processor MP	27
1.4.2 Intel Xeon Processor DP	30
1.5 SMP Expansion Module	31
1.6 IBM XceL4 Server Accelerator Cache	33
1.7 System memory	33
1.8 PCI subsystem	37
1.9 Redundancy	38
1.10 Light Path Diagnostics	39
1.11 Remote Supervisor Adapter	41
1.12 Operating system support	42
1.13 IBM Director	44
Chapter 2. Positioning	49
2.1 xSeries 440 application solutions	50
2.1.1 Server consolidation	50
2.1.2 Enterprise applications	52
2.1.3 Infrastructure applications	54
2.1.4 Clustering	55
2.2 Why choose the x440	57
2.2.1 IBM XA-32 chipset	57
2.2.2 Intel Xeon MP and DP processors	58
2.2.3 XceL4 Server Accelerator Cache	60
2.2.4 High-performance memory subsystem	60
2.2.5 Active PCI-X	61
2.2.6 XpandOnDemand scalability	61
2.2.7 System Partition Manager	62
2.3 The benefits of system partitioning	63
2.4 Server consolidation	65
2.4.1 Types of server consolidation	65
2.4.2 Why consolidate servers	71
2.4.3 Benefits from server consolidation	71
Chapter 3. Planning	77
3.1 System hardware	78
3.1.1 Processors	78
3.1.2 Memory	79
3.1.3 PCI slot configuration	82
3.1.4 Broadcom Gigabit Ethernet controller	86
3.2 Cabling and connectivity	88
3.2.1 SMP Expansion Module connectivity	88
3.2.2 Remote Supervisor Adapter connectivity	91
3.2.3 Remote Expansion Enclosure	92
3.2.4 Serial connections	97
3.3 Storage considerations	97
3.3.1 xSeries storage solutions	98
3.3.2 Disk subsystem performance	102
3.3.3 Tape backup	103
3.4 Server partitioning and consolidation	104
3.5 Operating system considerations	104
3.5.1 Windows 2000 Datacenter Server	106
3.5.2 Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 Enterprise Edition	109
3.5.3 Microsoft Windows 2000 Server	110
3.5.4 Microsoft Windows .NET Server	111
3.5.5 Novell NetWare	111
3.5.6 Red Hat/SuSE Linux	111
3.5.7 VMware ESX Server	112
3.6 Application considerations	114
3.6.1 Scalability and performance considerations	114
3.6.2 SMP and server types	115
3.7 Rack installation	116
3.8 Power considerations	117
3.9 Solution Assurance Review	118
Chapter 4. Installation	121
4.1 System BIOS settings	122
4.1.1 Updating BIOS and firmware	122
4.1.2 Enabling memory mirroring	122
4.1.3 Enabling Hyper-Threading	123
4.2 Device drivers	125
4.3 Operating system installation	125
4.3.1 Microsoft Windows 2000 Server and Advanced Server	126
4.3.2 Red Hat Linux installation	133
4.3.3 NetWare installation	135
4.3.4 VMware ESX Server	142
4.4 Additional Information	142
Chapter 5. Management	143
5.1 Active PCI Manager	144
5.1.1 Using Active PCI Manager	146
5.1.2 Adding adapters to the system	150
5.1.3 Analyzing an existing configuration	158
5.2 System Partition Manager	164
5.3 Process Control	169
5.3.1 Process alias rules	170
5.3.2 Process execution rules	174
5.3.3 Group process execution rules	175
Abbreviations and acronyms	187
Related publications	189
IBM Redbooks	189
Referenced Web sites	189
How to get IBM Redbooks	192
IBM Redbooks collections	192
Index	193

IBM 8687 Installation Guide - Page 70

From another point of view, consolidation takes one of three basic approaches

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