3 IVM, HMC, and SDMC support

Note: The SDMC does not support the Power 575, POWER5

technology-based systems and POWER5 technology-based I/O towers

connected to a POWER6 technology-based server.

This support plan is the same plan as the support plan for the Hardware

Management Console. For proper and supported function, the firmware level of

managed systems and of the Hardware Management Console always had to

match the Supported Code Combinations, as documented in the POWER code

matrix. The Supported Code Combinations are available at IBM Fix Central in the

Hardware Management Console section at the following address:

http://www.ibm.com/support/fixcentral



1.4 Systems Director Management Console structure

The SDMC is available as a software and a hardware appliance. The software

appliance will replace the Integrated Virtualization Manager. The hardware

appliance is required for management of midrange systems and high-end

systems. The SDMC releases can be used alongside the Hardware

Management Console during trials and deployment, which eases transition.

The SDMC virtual machine contains Linux as the base operating system. For the

software appliance, the client supplied virtualization options for different

hypervisors include Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization KVM or VMware

ESX/ESXi.

The SDMC is also available as follows:

Software appliance

– Replaces Integrated Virtualization Manager or HMC.

– Can be installed on either VMware or KVM.

– The client supplies the hardware.

Hardware appliance

– Replaces Hardware Management Console.

– Pre-installed system like an HMC.

– Hardware provided by IBM.

– Uses the RHEV-H hypervisor.



Chapter 1. Overview



7



The virtualization layer for the hardware appliance is fixed and cannot be

changed. Installation, backup to media, and restore from media is possible as it

is with the Hardware Management Console.

The hardware appliance is structured as shown in Figure 1-4.



SDMC Virtual Machine

Power Systems Manager

Appliance Management



Director Base



DB2



Tivoli

and

HA Func



Linux



RHEV-H



Figure 1-4 SDMC: Hardware appliance structure



Support for POWER processor based systems with either software or hardware

appliance depends on the type of Power Systems. See Table 1-2 on page 9 and

Table 1-3 on page 9 for a complete listing of which appliance is supported with

which system. Also, note the exception for the POWER 575, which is supported

with the Hardware Management Console only.



8



IBM Systems Director Management Console: Introduction and Overview



Table 1-2 POWER6 support by SDMC

POWER6 models



Machine types



SDMC



595



9119-FHA



HW APP Only



575



9125-F2A



HMC Only



570



9117-MMA



HW APP Only



570



9406-MMA



HW APP Only



560



8234-EMA



HW APP Only



550



8204-E8A



HW or SW APP



550



9409-M50



HW or SW APP



520



8203-E4A



HW or SW APP



520



8203-E4A



HW or SW APP



520-SB



8261-E4A



HW or SW APP



520



9408-M25



HW or SW APP



520



9407-M15



HW or SW APP



JS22



7998-61X



HW or SW APP



JS12



7998-60X



HW or SW APP



Table 1-3 POWER7 support by SDMC

POWER7 models



Machine types



SDMC



795



9119-FHB



HW APP Only



780



9179-MHB



HW APP Only



770



9117-MMB



HW APP Only



755



8236-E8C



HW or SW APP



750



8233-E8B



HW or SW APP



720



8202-E4B



HW or SW APP



740



8205-E6B



HW or SW APP



710/730



8231-E2B



HW or SW APP



PS701



8406-71Y



HW or SW APP



PS700



8406-70Y



HW or SW APP



Chapter 1. Overview



9



1.5 Terminology

Based on the integration into IBM Systems Director, a common terminology

replaces the Hardware Management Console and Integrated Virtualization

Manger specific terminology. Table 1-4 shows a mapping of terminology used on

the Hardware Management Console versus the terminology used in the SDMC.

Terminology might change slowly, so you might see and hear old terminology

mixed with new terminology for a period of time.

Table 1-4 Side-by-side comparison of terminology

HMC terminology



SDMC terminology



Managed System



Server



Frame / BPA



Power Unit



LPAR / Logical Partition



Virtual Server



Users: hscpe, hscroot



pe, sysadmin



HMC Roles:

hmcsuperadmin

hmcoperator

hmcuser



Director Roles:

SMAdministrator

SMManager

SMUser



Partition mobility



Relocation



Remove connection



Remove a managed endpoint (MEP)



Server/Frame/LPAR states

For example, Operating (see Table 5-1 on

page 90 for additional information)



Director states,

for example, Started



1.6 Functional differences

The SDMC incorporates most functions of the Hardware Management Console.

This incorporation has been done through direct mapping of commands or by

replacing functions that are present already in IBM Systems Director. Some

functions are not available in the first release of the SDMC, notably the ability to

handle system plans.



10



IBM Systems Director Management Console: Introduction and Overview



The command-line interface has been mostly kept the same. On the SDMC, most

of the commands are just preceded by smcli. This new prefix might require

changes to existing scripts that use the Hardware Management Console.

Though the SDMC retains most of the features that were available in the HMC,

there are a few functional differences that exist between the SDMC and the HMC.

These differences are directed towards adapting to the IBM Systems Director

environment and also towards making the user interface simpler and more

intuitive.

This section describes the functional differences between the HMC and the

SDMC.



1.6.1 Enhanced virtualization management

Here are some of the key enhancements in virtualization management that are

available in the SDMC:

SDMC offers a simplistic IVM-like user interface for virtualization functions,

such as creating a Virtual Server.

The views of Virtual Server properties and dynamic logical partitioning are

combined to present a single view from where you can perform all Virtual

Server operations.

SDMC provides the ability to modify the resource assignment of your Virtual

Servers even when they are in the stopped state.

SDMC can now manage virtual slots automatically leading to an enhanced

VIOS management.



1.6.2 Users and roles

The concepts of users and roles in the SDMC remain the same as it was in the

HMC. The user interfaces for creating and managing users and roles have

changed in the SDMC. SDMC follows the IBM Systems Director way of creating

and managing users and roles. SDMC supports the usage of LDAP and

Kerberos servers. You can create users that use LDAP or Kerberos for

authentication. Resource roles in HMC are referred to as Groups in SDMC. Also,

the session timeout and the idle timeout settings are global and not configured

per user.



Chapter 1. Overview



11



1.6.3 Additional functions

The SDMC comes with the IBM Systems Director base management functions

which offers you additional capabilities to manage your heterogeneous and large

homogeneous infrastructure better. These capabilities include:

Automation manager

Status manager

Firmware and device microcode updates through the Update Manager

Call home support



1.6.4 User interface enhancements

SDMC provides you with an user interface that is tightly integrated with the

broader IBM Systems Director user interface. Most of the tasks in SDMC have

the same flow they had in HMC, with slight enhancements and adjustments

made to provide an IBM Systems Director look and feel. Some of the functions

have been enhanced for ease of use.



1.6.5 Redundancy model

The existing redundancy model available in HMC is available in the SDMC as

well. You can connect two SDMCs to a managed system, where an SDMC can

act as the redundant SDMC. You can also use an HMC for redundant

management. Apart from this redundancy model, IBM Systems Director provides

an active-passive availability model that is optional for the SDMC users. In this

model, two SDMC nodes can manage a single server, of which one node is used

(active) and the other is not used (passive) waiting for failover. The existing HMC

active-active redundancy model is available in addition to the active-passive

availability model provided by the IBM Systems Director.



1.6.6 Backup and restore

SDMC provides the capability to back up the whole virtual machine onto

removable media or a remote FTP server. You can restore using the backup file

from the removable media or from a remote FTP server. The restore will be full

image deployment and all existing files will be replaced from the backup. Unlike

the HMC, SDMC backs up the entire disk instead of individual files.

The backup function requires that the SDMC be temporarily shut down to

quiesce the disks, but it will be immediately restarted while the disk files are

copied to removable media or a remote FTP server. The restore function takes

under an hour to complete.



12



IBM Systems Director Management Console: Introduction and Overview



1.6.7 SDMC considerations

Here is the list of limitations for SDMC when compared with the HMC:

The system plans feature is not available in SDMC.

Replication of user data, groups data, LDAP or Kerberos configuration data,

and outbound connectivity configuration data is not supported in SDMC.

Management of POWER5™ technology-based systems is not supported.

There is no modem or VPN support for the Call Home function.

Capturing of log information using the pedbg command is less granular.

Disconnecting and reconnecting to old sessions of SDMC is not possible.



Chapter 1. Overview



13



14



IBM Systems Director Management Console: Introduction and Overview



2



Chapter 2.



Installation

In this chapter, we describe the installation of the IBM Systems Director

Management Console (SDMC). We describe in detail the requirements for the

hardware and software installation, the installation of the hardware and software

appliance itself, and the setup wizard.



© Copyright IBM Corp. 2011. All rights reserved.



15



2.1 Prerequisites

This section lists the requirements and pre-requisites for the hardware and

software appliance. The hardware appliance is required for all midrange and

high-end systems (POWER6 technology based 550 server and higher, and

POWER7 technology-based 750 servers and higher).



2.1.1 Hardware appliance

The hardware appliance comes preloaded on IBM x86 hardware (7042-CR6).

The hardware appliance consists of a virtual image (guest) that resides on a Red

Hat linux (host), as shown in Figure 1-4 on page 8. The host hypervisor is

transparent and does not require user interaction. The requirements for both the

host and the guest are defined in Table 2-1.

Table 2-1 Hardware appliance requirements

Host configuration



4-core CPU (Intel® Nehalem architecture)

8 GB RAM

Two 500 GB disks (with RAID 0)

Two network interface cards (NIC) minimum



Guest configuration



Four virtual CPUs

6 GB RAM

500 GB disk

Two to four network interface cards (NIC)



2.1.2 Software appliance

The software appliance is only supported on IBM x86 hardware. The software

appliance also consists of a host/guest system; the hardware requirements are

listed in Table 2-2. The CPU and memory parameters for the guest configuration

(the virtual machine) should be reserved for use of the software appliance; the

parameters for the host configuration (the hardware) are used for both the

hypervisor and software appliance together and should meet the minimum

requirements.

Table 2-2 Software appliance hardware requirements

Host configuration



16



4-core CPU (Intel Nehalem architecture or better)

8 GB RAM

500 GB of disk space

Between one and four Ethernet adapters



IBM Systems Director Management Console: Introduction and Overview



Guest configuration



Four virtual CPUs

6 GB RAM

500 GB disk (can be thin-provisioned)

Between one and four Ethernet adapters



Recommendation: Although the disks in the guest configuration can be thin

provisioned, we do not recommend it. There is no guarantee that the disk

space is there when it is needed, which would cause problems.

The supported host operating systems and hypervisors are:

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5.5 with KVM (kvm-83-164.el5) or later.

Requires at least one network bridge.

VMware ESXi 4.01or later.

VMware ESX 4 or later.

The VMWare hypervisor requires another machine to be configured with either:

Windows® XP with VMware Virtual Infrastructure Client or VMware OVF Tool

installed

Linux (preferably Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL 5.5)) with VMware OVF

Tool installed

For the system firmware levels, POWER servers require 7.3.0 of the POWER

firmware to support SDMC with one exception: POWER6 technology-based

POWER processor-based blades firmware requires level 3.5.7.



2.2 Installation of the hardware appliance

The hardware appliance is required for midrange and high-end Power Systems,

but can also manage low-end systems. The hardware appliance comes

pre-installed on the IBM x86 hardware (a 7042-CR6). Set up and configure the

system with the setup wizard, as shown in 2.4, “Setup wizard” on page 28.

The hardware appliance consists of a virtual image that resides on a Red Hat

Linux configured host system (see Figure 1-4 on page 8). Login to the host

system or access the hypervisor are not permitted. All communications will be

done through a special channel from guest to host.



Chapter 2. Installation



17