Specifications

Chapter 7. Virtualization 277
򐂰 Shared storage pools
You can use VIOS 2.2 to create storage pools that can be accessed by VIOS
partitions that are deployed across multiple Power Systems servers.
Therefore, an assigned allocation of storage capacity can be efficiently
managed and shared.
The December 2011 Service Pack enhances capabilities by enabling four
systems to participate in a Shared Storage Pool configuration. This
configuration can improve efficiency, agility, scalability, flexibility, and
availability. Specifically, the Service Pack enables:
– Storage Mobility: A function that allows data to be moved to new storage
devices within Shared Storage Pools, while the virtual servers remain
active and available.
– VM Storage Snapshots/Rollback: A new function that allows multiple
point-in-time snapshots of individual virtual server storage. These
point-in-time copies can be used to quickly roll back a virtual server to a
particular snapshot image. This functionality can be used to capture a VM
image for cloning purposes or before applying maintenance.
򐂰 Thin provisioning
VIOS 2.2 supports highly efficient storage provisioning, where virtualized
workloads in VMs can have storage resources from a shared storage pool
dynamically added or released, as required.
򐂰 VIOS grouping
Multiple VIOS 2.2 partitions can use a common shared storage pool to more
efficiently use limited storage resources and simplify the management and
integration of storage subsystems.
򐂰 Network node balancing for redundant Shared Ethernet Adapters (SEAs)
(with the December 2011 Service Pack).
This feature is useful when multiple VLANs are being supported in a dual
VIOS environment. The implementation is based on a more granular
treatment of trunking, where there are different trunks defined for the SEAs on
each VIOS. Each trunk serves different VLANs, and each VIOS can be the
primary for a different trunk. This situation occurs with just one SEA definition
on each VIOS.