WebSphere Extended Deployment, Version 6.0.x
             Operating Systems: AIX, HP-UX, Linux, Solaris, Windows, z/OS


On demand LPAR resource advantages

If the partitioning facility (WPF) enabled applications are running within a cluster consisting of LPAR capable machines, then it is possible to allocate additional central processing unit (CPU) resources to mitigate latency or higher demand scenarios without suffering even one partition subset outage. AIX/pSeries offers this support, and, for many customers this approach could be critical.

For example, if you are utilizing a blade center or Linux cluster, for example (many smaller footprint servers), and want to even out the load against the given cluster members, an outage for at least a subset of the endpoint partitions will occur. This outage occurs because the partitioning facility's ability to balance partitions dynamically between blades, either in mass or by selectively moving one partition at a time between application servers. However, this does result in a short term outage as the partition being moved needs to be taken offline (deactivated with a PartitionUnLoadEvent(...)) and then reactivated on another physical blade.

In the case of an LPAR capable machine, more resources can be provided to handle partitions that are receiving abnormally high number of transaction requests. Many of the IBM servers now allow administrators to actually contact the IBM Web site to purchase additional LPAR resources when heavy load situations occur.




Related concepts
General cluster and WPF management considerations
Concept topic    

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Last updated: Nov 30, 2007 4:03:08 PM EST
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