How can we move a partition to another machine if the machine or the data-center on which the partition is hosted is totally unavailable ? This question is often asked by managers and technical people. Live Partition Mobility can’t answer to this question because the source machine needs to be running to initiate the mobility. I’m sure that most of you are implementing a manual solution based on a bunch of scripts recreating the partition profile by hand but this is hard to maintain and it’s not fully automatized and not supported by IBM. A solution to this problem is to setup your partitions as Remote Restart Capable partitions. This PowerVM feature is available since the release of VMcontrol (IBM Systems Director plugin). Unfortunately this powerful feature is not well documented but will probably in the next months or in the next year be a must have on your newly deployed AIX machines. One last word : with the new Power8 machines things are going to change about remote restart, the functionality will be easier to use and a lot of prerequisites are going to disappear. Just to be clear this post has been written using Power7+ 9117-MMD machines, the only thing you can’t do with these machines (compared to Power8 ones) is changing a current partition to be remote restart capable aware without having to delete and recreate its profile.
Pre-requesite
To create and use a remote restart partition on Power7+/Power8 machines you’ll need this prerequisites :
- A PowerVM enterprise license (Capability “PowerVM remote restart capable” to true, be careful there is another capability named “Remote restart capable” this was used by VMcontrol only, so double check the capability ok for you).
- A firmware 780 (or later all Power8 firmware are ok, all Power7 >= 780 are ok).
- Your source and destination machine are connected to the same Hardware Management Console, you can’t remote restart between two HMC at the moment.
- Minimum version of HMC is 8r8.0.0. Check you have the rrstartlpar command (not the rrlpar command used by VMcontrol only).
- Better than a long post check this video (don’t laugh at me, I’m trying to do my best but this is one of my first video …. hope it is good) :
What is a remote restart capable virtual machine ?
Better than a long text to explain you what is, check the picture below and follow each number from 1 to 4 to understand what is a remote restart partition :
Create the profile of you remote restart capable partition : Power7 vs Power8
A good reason to move to Power8 faster than you planed is that you can change a virtual machine to be remote restart capable without having to recreate the whole profile. I don’t know why at the time of writing this post but changing a non remote restart capable lpar to a remote restart capable lpar is only available on Power8 systems. If you are using a Power7 machine (like me in all the examples below) be carful to check this option while creating the machine. Keep in mind that if you forgot to check to option you will not be able to enable the remote restart capability afterwards and you unfortunately have to remove you profile and recreate it, sad but true … :
- Don’t forget to check the check box to allow the partition to be remote restart capable :
- After the partition is created you can notice in the I/O tab that all remote restart capable partition are not able to own any physical I/O adapter :
- You can check in the properties that the remote restart capable feature is activated :
- If you try to modify an existing profile on a Power7 machine you’ll get this error message. On a Power8 machine there will be not problem :
# chsyscfg -r lpar -m XXXX-9117-MMD-658B2AD -p test_lpar-i remote_restart_capable=1 An error occurred while changing the partition named test_lpar. The managed system does not support changing the remote restart capability of a partition. You must delete the partition and recreate it with the desired remote restart capability.
lssyscfg -r lpar -m source-machine -F name,remote_restart_capable [..] lpar1,1 lpar2,1 lpar3,1 remote-restart,1 [..]
$ lssyscfg -r prof -m s00ka9927558-9117-MMD-658B2AD --filter "lpar_names=temp3-b642c120-00000133" name=default_profile,lpar_name=temp3-b642c120-00000133,lpar_id=11,lpar_env=aixlinux,all_resources=0,min_mem=8192,desired_mem=8192,max_mem=8192,min_num_huge_pages=0,desired_num_huge_pages=0,max_num_huge_pages=0,mem_mode=ded,mem_expansion=0.0,hpt_ratio=1:128,proc_mode=shared,min_proc_units=2.0,desired_proc_units=2.0,max_proc_units=2.0,min_procs=4,desired_procs=4,max_procs=4,sharing_mode=uncap,uncap_weight=128,shared_proc_pool_id=0,shared_proc_pool_name=DefaultPool,affinity_group_id=none,io_slots=none,lpar_io_pool_ids=none,max_virtual_slots=64,"virtual_serial_adapters=0/server/1/any//any/1,1/server/1/any//any/1",virtual_scsi_adapters=3/client/2/s00ia9927560/32/0,virtual_eth_adapters=32/0/1659//0/0/vdct/facc157c3e20/all/0,virtual_eth_vsi_profiles=none,"virtual_fc_adapters=""2/client/1/s00ia9927559/32/c050760727c5007a,c050760727c5007b/0"",""4/client/1/s00ia9927559/35/c050760727c5007c,c050760727c5007d/0"",""5/client/2/s00ia9927560/34/c050760727c5007e,c050760727c5007f/0"",""6/client/2/s00ia9927560/35/c050760727c50080,c050760727c50081/0""",vtpm_adapters=none,hca_adapters=none,boot_mode=norm,conn_monitoring=1,auto_start=0,power_ctrl_lpar_ids=none,work_group_id=none,redundant_err_path_reporting=0,bsr_arrays=0,lpar_proc_compat_mode=default,electronic_err_reporting=null,sriov_eth_logical_ports=none
$ chsysstate -r lpar -o shutdown --immed -m source-server -n temp3-b642c120-00000133 $ rmsyscfg -r lpar -m source-server -n temp3-b642c120-00000133
mksyscfg -r lpar -m s00ka9927558-9117-MMD-658B2AD -i 'name=temp3-b642c120-00000133,profile_name=default_profile,remote_restart_capable=1,lpar_id=11,lpar_env=aixlinux,all_resources=0,min_mem=8192,desired_mem=8192,max_mem=8192,min_num_huge_pages=0,desired_num_huge_pages=0,max_num_huge_pages=0,mem_mode=ded,mem_expansion=0.0,hpt_ratio=1:128,proc_mode=shared,min_proc_units=2.0,desired_proc_units=2.0,max_proc_units=2.0,min_procs=4,desired_procs=4,max_procs=4,sharing_mode=uncap,uncap_weight=128,shared_proc_pool_name=DefaultPool,affinity_group_id=none,io_slots=none,lpar_io_pool_ids=none,max_virtual_slots=64,"virtual_serial_adapters=0/server/1/any//any/1,1/server/1/any//any/1",virtual_scsi_adapters=3/client/2/s00ia9927560/32/0,virtual_eth_adapters=32/0/1659//0/0/vdct/facc157c3e20/all/0,virtual_eth_vsi_profiles=none,"virtual_fc_adapters=""2/client/1/s00ia9927559/32/c050760727c5007a,c050760727c5007b/0"",""4/client/1/s00ia9927559/35/c050760727c5007c,c050760727c5007d/0"",""5/client/2/s00ia9927560/34/c050760727c5007e,c050760727c5007f/0"",""6/client/2/s00ia9927560/35/c050760727c50080,c050760727c50081/0""",vtpm_adapters=none,hca_adapters=none,boot_mode=norm,conn_monitoring=1,auto_start=0,power_ctrl_lpar_ids=none,work_group_id=none,redundant_err_path_reporting=0,bsr_arrays=0,lpar_proc_compat_mode=default,sriov_eth_logical_ports=none'
Creating a reserved storage device
The reserved storage device pool is used to store the configuration data of the remote restart partition. At the time of writing this post thoses devices are mandatory and as far as I know they are used just to store the configuration and not the state (memory state) of the virtual machines itself (maybe in the future, who knows ?) (You can’t create or boot any remote restart partition if you do not have a reserved storage device pool created, do this before doing anything else) :
- You have first to find on both Virtual I/O Server and on both machines (source and destination machine used for the remote restart operation) a bunch of devices. These ones have to be the same on all the Virtual I/O Server used for the remote restart operation. The lsmemdev command is used to find those devices :
vios1$ lspv | grep -iE "hdisk988|hdisk989|hdisk990" hdisk988 00ced82ce999d6f3 None hdisk989 00ced82ce999d960 None hdisk990 00ced82ce999dbec None vios2$ lspv | grep -iE "hdisk988|hdisk989|hdisk990" hdisk988 00ced82ce999d6f3 None hdisk989 00ced82ce999d960 None hdisk990 00ced82ce999dbec None vios3$ lspv | grep -iE "hdisk988|hdisk989|hdisk990" hdisk988 00ced82ce999d6f3 None hdisk989 00ced82ce999d960 None hdisk990 00ced82ce999dbec None vios4$ lspv | grep -iE "hdisk988|hdisk989|hdisk990" hdisk988 00ced82ce999d6f3 None hdisk989 00ced82ce999d960 None hdisk990 00ced82ce999dbec None
$ lsmemdev -r avail -m source-machine -p vios1,vios2 [..] device_name=hdisk988,redundant_device_name=hdisk988,size=61440,type=phys,phys_loc=U2C4E.001.DBJN916-P2-C1-T1-W500507680140F32C-L3E5000000000000,redundant_phys_loc=U2C4E.001.DBJN916-P2-C2-T1-W500507680140F32C-L3E5000000000000,redundant_capable=1 device_name=hdisk989,redundant_device_name=hdisk989,size=61440,type=phys,phys_loc=U2C4E.001.DBJN916-P2-C1-T1-W500507680140F32C-L3E6000000000000,redundant_phys_loc=U2C4E.001.DBJN916-P2-C2-T1-W500507680140F32C-L3E6000000000000,redundant_capable=1 device_name=hdisk990,redundant_device_name=hdisk990,size=61440,type=phys,phys_loc=U2C4E.001.DBJN916-P2-C1-T1-W500507680140F32C-L3E7000000000000,redundant_phys_loc=U2C4E.001.DBJN916-P2-C2-T1-W500507680140F32C-L3E7000000000000,redundant_capable=1 [..] $ lsmemdev -r avail -m dest-machine -p vios3,vios4 [..] device_name=hdisk988,redundant_device_name=hdisk988,size=61440,type=phys,phys_loc=U2C4E.001.DBJN914-P2-C2-T1-W500507680140F32C-L3E5000000000000,redundant_phys_loc=U2C4E.001.DBJN914-P2-C1-T1-W500507680140F32C-L3E5000000000000,redundant_capable=1 device_name=hdisk989,redundant_device_name=hdisk989,size=61440,type=phys,phys_loc=U2C4E.001.DBJN914-P2-C2-T1-W500507680140F32C-L3E6000000000000,redundant_phys_loc=U2C4E.001.DBJN914-P2-C1-T1-W500507680140F32C-L3E6000000000000,redundant_capable=1 device_name=hdisk990,redundant_device_name=hdisk990,size=61440,type=phys,phys_loc=U2C4E.001.DBJN914-P2-C2-T1-W500507680140F32C-L3E7000000000000,redundant_phys_loc=U2C4E.001.DBJN914-P2-C1-T1-W500507680140F32C-L3E7000000000000,redundant_capable=1 [..]
$ chhwres -r rspool -m source-machine -o a -a vios_names=\"vios1,vios2\" $ chhwres -r rspool -m source-machine -o a -p vios1 --rsubtype rsdev --device hdisk988 --manual $ chhwres -r rspool -m source-machine -o a -p vios1 --rsubtype rsdev --device hdisk989 --manual $ chhwres -r rspool -m source-machine -o a -p vios1 --rsubtype rsdev --device hdisk990 --manual $ lshwres -r rspool -m source-machine --rsubtype rsdev device_name=hdisk988,vios_name=vios1,vios_id=1,size=61440,type=phys,state=Inactive,phys_loc=U2C4E.001.DBJN916-P2-C1-T1-W500507680140F32C-L3E5000000000000,is_redundant=1,redundant_device_name=hdisk988,redundant_vios_name=vios2,redundant_vios_id=2,redundant_state=Inactive,redundant_phys_loc=U2C4E.001.DBJN916-P2-C2-T1-W500507680140F32C-L3E5000000000000,lpar_id=none,device_selection_type=manual device_name=hdisk989,vios_name=vios1,vios_id=1,size=61440,type=phys,state=Inactive,phys_loc=U2C4E.001.DBJN916-P2-C1-T1-W500507680140F32C-L3E6000000000000,is_redundant=1,redundant_device_name=hdisk989,redundant_vios_name=vios2,redundant_vios_id=2,redundant_state=Inactive,redundant_phys_loc=U2C4E.001.DBJN916-P2-C2-T1-W500507680140F32C-L3E6000000000000,lpar_id=none,device_selection_type=manual device_name=hdisk990,vios_name=vios1,vios_id=1,size=61440,type=phys,state=Inactive,phys_loc=U2C4E.001.DBJN916-P2-C1-T1-W500507680140F32C-L3E7000000000000,is_redundant=1,redundant_device_name=hdisk990,redundant_vios_name=vios2,redundant_vios_id=2,redundant_state=Inactive,redundant_phys_loc=U2C4E.001.DBJN916-P2-C2-T1-W500507680140F32C-L3E7000000000000,lpar_id=none,device_selection_type=manual $ lshwres -r rspool -m source-machine "vios_names=vios1,vios2","vios_ids=1,2"
Select a storage device for each remote restart partition before starting it :
After creating the reserved device storage pool you have for every partition to select a device from the storage pool. This device will be used to store the configuration data of the partition :
- You can see you cannot start the partition if no devices were selected !
- To select the correct device size you first have to calculate the needed space for every partition using the using the lsrsdevsize command. This size around the size of max memory value set in the partition profile (don’t ask me why):
$ lsrsdevsize -m source-machine -p temp3-b642c120-00000133 size=8498
$ chsyscfg -r lpar -m source-machine -i "name=temp3-b642c120-00000133,primary_rs_vios_name=vios1,secondary_rs_vios_name=vios2,rs_device_name=hdisk988" $ lssyscfg -r lpar -m source-machine --filter "lpar_names=temp3-b642c120-00000133" -F primary_rs_vios_name,secondary_rs_vios_name,curr_rs_vios_name vios1,vios2,vios1 $ lshwres -r rspool -m source-machine --rsubtype rsdev device_name=hdisk988,vios_name=vios1,vios_id=1,size=61440,type=phys,state=Active,phys_loc=U2C4E.001.DBJN916-P2-C1-T1-W500507680140F32C-L3E5000000000000,is_redundant=1,redundant_device_name=hdisk988,redundant_vios_name=vios2,redundant_vios_id=2,redundant_state=Active,redundant_phys_loc=U2C4E.001.DBJN916-P2-C2-T1-W500507680140F32C-L3E5000000000000,lpar_name=temp3-b642c120-00000133,lpar_id=11,device_selection_type=manual
Launch the remote restart operation
All the remote restart operations are launched from the Hardware Management Console with the rrstartlpar command. At the time of writing this post there is not GUI function to remote restart a machine and you can only do it with the command line :
Validation
Like you can do it with a Live Partition Mobility move you can validate a remote restart operation before running it. You can only perform the remote restart operation if the machine on which the remote restart machine is hosted is shutdown or in error, so the validation is very useful and mandatory to check your remote restart machine are well configured without having to stop the source machine :
$ rrstartlpar -o validate -m source-machine -t dest-machine -p rrlpar $ rrstartlpar -o validate -m source-machine -t dest-machine -p rrlpar -d 5 $ rrstartlpar -o validate -m source-machine -t dest-machine -p rrlpar --redundantvios 2 -d 5 -v
Execution
As I said before the remote restart operation can only be performed if the source machine is in a particular state, the states that allows a remote restart operation are :
- Power Off.
- Error.
- Error – Dump in progress state.
So the only way to test a remote restart operation today is to shutdown your source machine :
- Shutdown the source machine :
$ chsysstate -m source-machine -r sys -o off --immed
$ rrstartlpar -o restart -m source-machine -t dest-machine -p rrlpar -d 5 -v HSCLA9CE The managed system is not in a valid state to support partition remote restart operations. $ rrstartlpar -o restart -m source-machine -t dest-machine -p rrlpar -d 5 -v Warnings: HSCLA32F The specified partition ID is no longer valid. The next available partition ID will be used.
Cleanup
When the source machine is ready to be up (after an outage for instance) just boot the machine and its Virtual I/O Server. After the machine is up you can notice that the rrlpar profile is still there and it can be a huge problem if somebody is trying to boot this machine because it is started on the other machine after the remote restart operation. To prevent such an error you have to cleanup your remote restart partition by using the rrstartlpar command again. Be careful not to check the option to boot the partitions after the machine is started :
- Restart the source machine and its Virtual I/O Servers :
$ chsysstate -m source-machine -r sys -o on $ chsysstate -r lpar -m source-machine -n vios1 -o on -f default_profile $ chsysstate -r lpar -m source-machine -n vios2 -o on -f default_profile
$ rrstartlpar -o cleanup -m source-machine -p rrlpar --retaindev -d 5 -v --force
Refresh the partition and profile data
During my test I encounter a problem. The configuration was not correctly synced between the device used in the reserved device storage pool and the current partition profile. I had to use a command named refdev (for refresh device) to synchronize the partition and profile data to the storage device.
$ refdev -m source-machine -p refdev -m sys1 -p temp3-b642c120-00000133 -v
What’s in the reserved storage device ?
I’m a curious guy. After playing with remote restart I asked myself a question, what is really stored in the reserved device storage device assigned to the remote restart partition. Looking in the documentation on the internet does not answer to my question so I had to look on it on my own. By ‘dding” the reserved storage device assigned to a partition I realized that the profile is stored in xml format. Maybe this format is the same format that the one used by the HMC 8 templates library. For the moment and during my tests on Power7+ machine the state of the memory of the partition is not transferred to the destination machine, maybe because I had to shutdown the whole source machine to test. Maybe the memory state of the machine is transferred to the destination machine if this one is in error state or is dumping. I had not chance to test this :
root@vios1:/home/padmin# dd if=/dev/hdisk17 of=/tmp/hdisk17.out bs=1024 count=10 10+0 records in 10+0 records out root@vios1:/home/padmin# more hdisk17.out [..] AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA BwEAAAAAAACAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACgDIAZAAAQAEAAgAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA" Profile="H4sIAAAAA 98VjxbxEAhNaZEqpEptPS/iMJO4cTJBdHVj38zcYvu619fTGQlQVmxY0AUICSH4A5XYorJgA1I3sGMBCx5Vs4RNd2zgXI89tpNMxslIiRzPufec853zfefk/t/osMfRBYPZRbpuF9ueUTQsShxR1NSl9dvEEPPMMgnfvPnVk a2ixplLuOiVCHaUKn/yYMv/PY/ydTRuv016TbgOzdVv4w6+KM0vyheMX62jgq0L7hsCXtxBH6J814WoZqRh/96+4a+ff3Br8+o3uTE0pqJZA7vYoKKnOgYnNoSsoiPECp7KzHfELTQV/lnBAgt0/Fbfs4Wd1sV+ble7Lup/c be0LQj01FJpoVpecaNP15MhHxpcJP8al6b7fg8hxCnPY68t8LpFjn83/eKFhcffjqF8DRUshs0almioaFK0OfHaUKCue/1GcN0ndyfg9/fwsyzQ6SblellXK6RDDaIIwem6L4iXCiCfCuBZxltFz6G4eHed2EWD2sVVx6Mth eEOtnzSjQoVwLbo2+uEf3T/s2emPv3z4xA16eD0AC6oRN3FXNnYoA6U7y3OfFc1g5hOIiTQsVUHSusSc43QVluEX2wKdKJZq4q2YmJXEF7hhuqYJA0+inNx3YTDab2m6T7vEGpBlAaJnU0qjWofTkj+uT2Tv3Rl69prZx/9s thQTBMK42WK7XSzrizqFhPL5E6FeHGVhnSJQLlKKreab1l6z9MwF0C/jTi3OfmKCsoczcJGwITgy+f74Z4Lu2OU70SDyIdXg1+JAApBWZoAbLaEj4InyonZIDbjvZGwv3H5+tb7C5tPThQA9oUdsCN0HsnWoLxWLjPHAdJSp Ja45pBarVb3JDyUJOn3aemXcIqtUfgPi3wCuiw76tMh6mVtNVDHOB+BxqEUDWZGtPgPrFc9oBgBhhJzEdsEVI9zC1gr0JTexhwgThzIwYEG7lLbt3dcPyHQLKQqfGzVsSNzVSvenkDJU/lUoiXGRNrdxLy2soyhtcNX47INZ nHKOCjYfsoeR3kpm58GdYDVxipIZXDgSmhfCDCPlKZm4dZoVFORzEX0J6CLvK4py6N7Pz94yiXlPBAArd3zqIEtjXFZ4izJzQ44sCv7hh3bTnY5TbKdnOtHGtatTjrEynTuWFNXV3ouaUKIIKfDgE5XrrpWb/SHWyWCbXMM5 DkaHNzXVJws6csK57jnpToLopiQLZdgHJJh9wm+M+wbof7GzSRJBYvAAaV0RvE8ZlA5yxSob4fAiJiNNwwQAwu2y5/O881fvvz3HxgK70ZDwc1FS8JezBgKR0e/S4XR3ta8OwmdS56akXJITAmYBpElF5lZOdlXuO+8N0opU m0HeJTw76oiD8PS9QfRECUYqk0B1KGkZ+pRGQPUhPFEb12XIoe7u4WXuwdVqTAnZT8gyYrvAPlL/sYG4RkDmAx5HFZpFIVnAz9Lrlyh9tFIc4nZAColOLNGdFRKmE8GJd5zZx++zMiAoTOWNrJvBjODNo1UOGuXngzcHWjrn LgmkxjBXLj+6Fjy1DHFF0zV6lVH/p+VYO6pbZzYD9/ORFLouy6MwvlGuRz8Qz10ugawprAdtJ4GxWAOtmQjZXJ+Lg58T/fDy4K74bYWr9CyLIVdQiplHPLbjinZRu4BZuAENE6jxTP2zNkBVgfiWiFcv7f3xYjFqxs/7vb0P lpar_name="rrlpar" lpar_uuid="0D80582A44F64B43B2981D632743A6C8" lpar_uuid_gen_method="0"><SourceLparConfig additional_mac_addr_bases="" ame_capability="0" auto_start_e rmal" conn_monitoring="0" desired_proc_compat_mode="default" effective_proc_compat_mode="POWER7" hardware_mem_encryption="10" hardware_mem_expansion="5" keylock="normal "4" lpar_placement="0" lpar_power_mgmt="0" lpar_rr_dev_desc=" <cpage> <P>1</P> <S>51</S> <VIOS_descri 00010E0000000000003FB04214503IBMfcp</VIOS_descriptor> </cpage> " lpar_rr_status="6" lpar_tcc_slot_id="65535" lpar_vtpm_status="65535" mac_addres x_virtual_slots="10" partition_type="rpa" processor_compatibility_mode="default" processor_mode="shared" shared_pool_util_authority="0" sharing_mode="uncapped" slb_mig_ ofile="1" time_reference="0" uncapped_weight="128"><VirtualScsiAdapter is_required="false" remote_lpar_id="2" src_vios_slot_number="4" virtual_slot_number="4"/><Virtual "false" remote_lpar_id="1" src_vios_slot_number="3" virtual_slot_number="3"/><Processors desired="4" max="8" min="1"/><VirtualFibreChannelAdapter/><VirtualEthernetAdapt " filter_mac_address="" is_ieee="0" is_required="false" mac_address="82776CE63602" mac_address_flags="0" qos_priority="0" qos_priority_control="false" virtual_slot_numb witch_id="1" vswitch_name="vdct"/><Memory desired="8192" hpt_ratio="7" max="16384" memory_mode="ded" min="256" mode="ded" psp_usage="3"><IoEntitledMem usage="auto"/></M desired="200" max="400" min="10"/></SourceLparConfig></SourceLparInfo></SourceInfo><FileInfo modification="0" version="1"/><SriovEthMappings><SriovEthVFInfo/></SriovEt VirtualFibreChannelAdapterInfo/></VfcMappings><ProcPools capacity="0"/><TargetInfo concurr_mig_in_prog="-1" max_msp_concur_mig_limit_dynamic="-1" max_msp_concur_mig_lim concur_mig_limit="-1" mpio_override="1" state="nonexitent" uuid_override="1" vlan_override="1" vsi_override="1"><ManagerInfo/><TargetMspInfo port_number="-1"/><TargetLp ar_name="rrlpar" processor_pool_id="-1" target_profile_name="mig3_9117_MMD_10C94CC141109224549"><SharedMemoryConfig pool_id="-1" primary_paging_vios_id="0"/></TargetLpa argetInfo><VlanMappings><VlanInfo description="VkVSU0lPTj0xClZJT19UWVBFPVZFVEgKVkxBTl9JRD0zMzMxClZTV0lUQ0g9dmRjdApCUklER0VEPXllcwo=" vlan_id="3331" vswitch_mode="VEB" v ibleTargetVios/></VlanInfo></VlanMappings><MspMappings><MspInfo/></MspMappings><VscsiMappings><VirtualScsiAdapterInfo description="PHYtc2NzaS1ob3N0PgoJPGdlbmVyYWxJbmZvP 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About the state of the source machine ?
You have to know this before using remote restart : at the time of writing this post the remote restart feature is still young and have to evolve before being usable in real life, I’m saying this because the FSP of the source machine has to be up to perform a remote restart operation. To be clear the remote restart feature does not answer to the total loss of one of your site. It’s just useful to restart partitions of a system with a problem that is not an FSP problem (problem with memory DIMM, problem with CPUs for instance). It can be used in your DRP exercises but not if your whole site is totally down which is -in my humble opinion- one of the key feature that remote restart needs to answer. Don’t be afraid read the conclusion ….
Conclusion
This post have been written using Power7+ machines, my goal was to give you an example of remote restart operations : a summary of what is is, how it work, and where and when to use it. I’m pretty sure that a lot of things are going to change about remote restart. First, on Power8 machines you don’t have to recreate the partitions to make them remote restart aware. Second, I know that changes are on the way for remote restart on Power8 machines, especially about reserved storage devices and about the state of the source machine. I’m sure this feature will have a bright future and used with PowerVC it can be a killer feature. Hope to see all this changes in a near future ;-). Once again I hope this post helps you.