Specifications

Chapter 5. Planning 119
򐂰 Memory
Your Power Systems compute node supports a wide spread of memory
configurations. The memory configuration depends on whether you have
internal disks installed, as described “Hard disk drives (HDDs) and solid-state
drives (SSDs)” on page 118). Mixing both types of memory is not
recommended. Active memory expansion (AME) is available on POWER7, as
is Active Memory Sharing (AMS) when using PowerVM Enterprise Edition.
AMS is described in detail in several Redbooks publications, two of which are
IBM PowerVM Virtualization Introduction and Configuration, SG24-7940 and
IBM PowerVM Virtualization Managing and Monitoring, SG24-7590.
򐂰 Processor
Several processor options are available for both the IBM Flex System p260
Compute Node and the IBM Flex System p460 Compute Node (described in
4.5.1, “Processor options for Power Systems compute nodes” on page 77).
Evaluate the processor quantity and speed options to determine what
processor configuration most closely matches your needs. IBM provides a
measurement (called rperf) that can be used to compare the relative
performance of POWER systems in absolute values. The charts can be found
at the following website:
http://www.ibm.com/systems/power/hardware/reports/system_perf.html
򐂰 Optical media
The IBM Flex System Enterprise Chassis and the Enterprise Chassis do not
provide CD-ROM or DVD-ROM devices as do the previous BladeCenter
chassis versions. If you require a local optical drive, use an external
USB drive.
5.1.2 Software planning
Determine the primary uses for your Power Systems compute node and how it is
set up. Will you be using full system partition, or a virtualized environment which
includes virtual servers (formerly named logical partitions, LPARs) and workload
partitions (WPARs)?
Operating system support
The IBM POWER7 processor-based systems support three families of operating
systems:
򐂰 AIX
򐂰 IBM i
򐂰 Linux