IBM 86884RX Installation Guide - Page 12

x

IBM

^

xSeries 450 Planning and Installation Guide

Gerry McGettigan

is an Advanced Technical Support engineer in EMEA working

in Greenock, Scotland. Before joining ATS in the summer of 2002, he provided

pre-sale and post-sale technical training on high-end xSeries systems and

solutions as part of the xSeries Academy. He holds a Bachelor of Science in

Multimedia Technology from Glasgow Caledonian University and has been with

IBM for over five years. His area of expertise is xSeries systems and hardware.

Michael L. Nelson

is a Performance Consultant in IBM

^

Solutions

Engineering working in Raleigh. He was previously an architect for many of the

xSeries Web-based sizing tools. He is a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer on

both Windows NT 4.0 and 2000, a Lotus® Certified Professional, a Cisco

Certified Network Associate, a Citrix Certified Administrator, and an

IBM

^

Certified Expert for xSeries. He also holds a Bachelor of Arts

degree from Whittier College. He has five years of experience with Intel-based

server hardware, and has worked for IBM for six years. His areas of expertise

include xSeries hardware, Microsoft Windows, and Citrix.

Lubos Nikolini

is a Systems Engineer working for HT Computers a.s. in

Bratislava, Slovak Republic. He has six years of experience with Microsoft

operating systems, Intel-based hardware (including IBM xSeries and Netfinity®),

networking, and storage technologies. He is a Microsoft MCSE, Citrix CCEA and

a Compaq Proliant ASE. His areas of expertise include Active Directory

deployments, thin-client technology, and groupware solutions.

Jose Rodriguez Ruibal

is a Linux Specialist in the Advanced Technical Support

(ATS) Products and Solutions Support Center (PSSC) for EMEA in Montpellier,

France. Prior to joining the ATS team, he worked for Red Hat in Spain and for the

INRIA (National French Institute for Research in Computing and Robotics) in

Linux-related activities. He has four years of experience in Linux and UNIX-like

network operating systems. He holds a Bachelor’s degree with Honors in

Computer Science from the Universidad Antonio de Nebrija in Madrid, Spain,

and he is also Red Hat Certified Engineer. His areas of expertise include xSeries

hardware and storage, and Linux. He has also authored a white paper about

Oracle 9i RAC installation under Linux on xSeries x360 and x440 machines.

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 x450 product line	16
1.2 IBM XA-64 chipset	17
1.3 Extensible Firmware Interface	19
1.3.1 GUID Partition Table disk	21
1.3.2 EFI System Partition	22
1.3.3 EFI and legacy-free concept	24
1.4 Intel Itanium 2 processor	24
1.5 System assembly	27
1.5.1 Memory-board assembly	28
1.5.2 Processor-board assembly	29
1.6 IBM XceL4 Server Accelerator Cache	31
1.7 System memory	31
1.8 PCI subsystem	35
1.9 Redundancy	37
1.10 Light path diagnostics	39
1.11 Remote Supervisor Adapter	40
1.12 Operating system support	41
Chapter 2. Positioning	43
2.1 x450 application solutions	44
2.1.1 Database applications	44
2.1.2 Business logic	46
2.1.3 e-business and security transactions	47
2.1.4 In-house developed compute-intensive applications	48
2.1.5 Science and technology industries	49
2.2 Why choose x450?	49
Chapter 3. Planning	53
3.1 System hardware	54
3.1.1 Processors	54
3.1.2 Memory	55
3.1.3 PCI slot configuration	58
3.1.4 Broadcom Gigabit Ethernet controller	61
3.2 Cabling and connectivity	62
3.2.1 Remote Supervisor Adapter connectivity	64
3.2.2 Remote Expansion Enclosure	65
3.2.3 Serial connections	69
3.3 Storage considerations	70
3.3.1 xSeries storage solutions	70
3.3.2 Tape backup	75
3.4 Rack installation	76
3.5 Power considerations	77
3.6 Solution Assurance Review	78
Chapter 4. Installation	81
4.1 Using the Extensible Firmware Interface	82
4.1.1 The EFI shell	84
4.1.2 Flash update	94
4.1.3 Configuration and Setup utility	97
4.1.4 Diagnostic utility	98
4.1.5 Boot maintenance menu	99
4.2 Installing Windows Server 2003	100
4.2.1 Overall process	101
4.2.2 Microsoft Reserved Partition	102
4.2.3 Windows installation	103
4.2.4 Pre-installation phase	103
4.2.5 Starting the installation	104
4.2.6 Text-mode setup	105
4.2.7 GUI setup	107
4.2.8 Post-setup phase	107
4.3 Installing SuSE Linux Enterprise Server	112
4.3.1 Background	113
4.3.2 Linux IA-64 kernel overview	114
4.3.3 Choosing a Linux distribution	115
4.3.4 Installing SuSE Linux Enterprise Server	117
4.3.5 Linux boot process	121
4.3.6 Information about the installed system	122
4.3.7 Using the serial port for the Linux console	126
4.3.8 RXE-100 Expansion Enclosure	127
4.3.9 Upgrading drivers	128
Chapter 5. Management	131
5.1 The Remote Supervisor Adapter	132
5.1.1 The Remote Supervisor Adapter	133
5.1.2 Connecting via a Web browser	133
5.1.3 Configuring a static IP address	135
5.1.4 Connecting via the ASM interconnect	138
5.1.5 Installing the device driver	139
5.1.6 Configuring the remote control password	139
5.2 Management using the Remote Supervisor Adapter	140
5.2.1 Configuring which alerts to monitor	140
5.2.2 Configuring SNMP	141
5.2.3 Sending alerts directly to IBM Director	142
5.2.4 Creating a test event action plan in IBM Director	144
Related publications	149
IBM Redbooks	149
Referenced Web sites	149
How to get IBM Redbooks	151
IBM Redbooks collections	151
Index	153

IBM 86884RX Installation Guide - Page 12

Gerry McGettigan, Michael L. Nelson, Lubos Nikolini, Jose Rodriguez Ruibal

Page 12 highlights