PAN Manager Technical Overview - Fujitsumanuals.ts.fujitsu.com/file/3643/bf200-400_pan-tech-ov-en.pdf · Chapter 2: PAN Manager ... Switch Blades ... PAN Manager Technical Overview

PAN Manager Technical Overview

For BladeFrame® BF400 S2 and BladeFrame® BF200

Document Number 430-SB0070

August 2010

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CopyrightCopyright © 2010 Egenera, Inc. All rights reserved.

This document, and the product described in it, is furnished under license and may only be used in accordance with the terms of such license. The content of this document is furnished for information purposes only and is subject to change without notice.

Egenera, Egenera stylized logos, BladeFrame, BladeLatch, BladeMate, BladePlane, cBlade, Control Blade, PAN Manager, pBlade, Processing Blade, sBlade, and Switch Blade are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Egenera, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries.

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Contents

Preface

Customer Support ...................................................................................................... ix

Document Conventions .............................................................................................. x

Chapter 1: PAN Architecture

PAN Physical Components ..................................................................................... 1-2Platform Components ....................................................................................... 1-2pBlade Features ................................................................................................ 1-3cBlade Features ................................................................................................ 1-4sBlade Features................................................................................................. 1-5

PAN Manager Software .......................................................................................... 1-5

Virtual Components ................................................................................................ 1-6

PAN Server Architecture (pServers) ....................................................................... 1-7Benefits of pServers ......................................................................................... 1-7Remote pBlade I/O ........................................................................................... 1-8Logical Components of pServers ..................................................................... 1-9

PAN Network Architecture ................................................................................... 1-10Benefits of Virtual Network Connections ...................................................... 1-10Virtual Network Components......................................................................... 1-11

LPAN Architecture ................................................................................................ 1-12LPANs ............................................................................................................ 1-12Resources........................................................................................................ 1-12Blade Pools ..................................................................................................... 1-13


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Component Number and Size Guidelines ............................................................. 1-14

Chapter 2: PAN Manager Software

User Interfaces ......................................................................................................... 2-2Graphical User Interface................................................................................... 2-2Command-Line Interface.................................................................................. 2-4PAN Manager Web Service (API) ................................................................... 2-5Windows pServer Console ............................................................................... 2-5

Software Versions ................................................................................................... 2-6

Monitors for PAN Hardware and Hosted Applications .......................................... 2-8PAN Manager System Event Monitoring......................................................... 2-8SNMP Support ................................................................................................. 2-9Storage Area Network I/O Monitoring............................................................. 2-9Application Health Monitoring ........................................................................ 2-9Third-Party System Management Tools......................................................... 2-10

Failover .................................................................................................................. 2-10PAN Manager Failover................................................................................... 2-10cBlade Failover............................................................................................... 2-10pBlade Failover .............................................................................................. 2-11Application Failover ....................................................................................... 2-11

Security Domains and Administrative Roles ........................................................ 2-11Security Domains ........................................................................................... 2-11Administrative Roles and Permissions ........................................................... 2-12

Disaster Recovery .................................................................................................. 2-13

Resource Configuration Collector ......................................................................... 2-15

Chapter 3: PAN Processing Resources

Creating LPANs ...................................................................................................... 3-2LPAN Resources .............................................................................................. 3-3

Contents

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The Maintenance LPAN................................................................................... 3-5

Creating Processor Pools ......................................................................................... 3-5

Building pServers .................................................................................................... 3-6

Chapter 4: PAN Networking Resources

Core Components .................................................................................................... 4-3

Creating vSwitches and Broadcast Domains ........................................................... 4-4

Internetworking ....................................................................................................... 4-5

Network Options ..................................................................................................... 4-6

Network and Application Considerations ............................................................... 4-8

Chapter 5: PAN Storage Resources

SAN Overview ........................................................................................................ 5-2Using PAN Manager to Configure and Display Storage Resources ................ 5-3Discovering Storage Devices ........................................................................... 5-4SAN Ports ......................................................................................................... 5-4

Multipath Overview ................................................................................................ 5-4Using Multipath................................................................................................ 5-5Benefits of Multipath........................................................................................ 5-5

Chapter 6: High-Availability Applications

Configuring High-Availability Applications ........................................................... 6-2

Using Application Resources .................................................................................. 6-3


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Chapter 7: Software Releases

Types of Software Releases .................................................................................... 7-2cBlade Software................................................................................................ 7-2pBlade Software ............................................................................................... 7-3Intelligent Platform Management System ....................................................... 7-4

Operating System Versions ..................................................................................... 7-5Supported Operating Systems .......................................................................... 7-6Guest Operating Systems ................................................................................. 7-7

Installation Options ................................................................................................. 7-7cBlade Software Installation............................................................................. 7-8pServer Software Installation .......................................................................... 7-8Hypervisor and Guest Installation .................................................................... 7-8Firmware Updates ............................................................................................ 7-9

Appendixes

Appendix A: BladeFrame Hardware Configuration

Hardware Components ........................................................................................... A-2

System Chassis ....................................................................................................... A-2System Chassis Specifications ........................................................................ A-4

BladePlane .............................................................................................................. A-5

Control Blades ........................................................................................................ A-6cBlade Configurations ..................................................................................... A-7cBlade Physical Specifications........................................................................ A-8

Switch Blades ...................................................................................................... A-10sBlade Physical Specifications ...................................................................... A-10cBlade Switches............................................................................................. A-11

Processing Blades ................................................................................................. A-11

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pBlade Physical Specifications...................................................................... A-12

Light Emitting Diode (LED) Indicators ............................................................... A-12

Power .................................................................................................................... A-13Basic and Redundant Power Input Modules ................................................. A-13Power Domains ............................................................................................. A-14Power Failure................................................................................................. A-16Power Specifications ..................................................................................... A-18

Cabling Requirements .......................................................................................... A-18

For More Information ........................................................................................... A-20

Appendix B: Glossary

Index


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Preface

Welcome to PAN Manager PM5.2_BF. PAN Manager Technical Overview is part of the PAN Manager documentation set. Its purpose is to describe the benefits and features of the Processing Area Network (PAN) architecture, PAN Manager software, and hardware platform.

Audience — PAN Manager Technical Overview is for PAN Administrators and LPAN Administrators.

Topics — Read this book to learn about the following:

• PAN architecture

• PAN Manager features

• PAN processing, networking, and storage resources

• High Availability (HA) applications

• Software releases

• Hardware platform components

Customer Support

For customer support regarding this product, please use the following contact information:


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Fujitsu Technology Solutions customer support

Document Conventions

Internet http://support.ts.fujitsu.com

Telephone See the Help Desk information at http://manuals.ts.fujitsu.com/primergyservers.html, under Contact.

Convention Description

> Directory-level delimiter used to navigate the left pane of the PAN Manager GUI.

Example: Resources > Ethernet Connections

Sans serif italics Variable text, such as a path, a filename, or an LPAN name.

Example: lpan -c lpanname

Sans serif Text that must be typed as shown.

Example: Type root at the login prompt.

Bold The name of a field or window element appearing in a GUI. It also highlights default values in PAN Manager man pages.

Example: In the Users page...

Italics Text that is emphasized.

Example: Do not connect the power.

[text] Text that is optional to a command.

{text} A set of choices, one of which is required.

| Separation of mutually exclusive choices in syntax lines.

Example: lpan [-aD | -rD]{switch | SCSI_ID} lpanname

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Note Information of importance or that may not fit in main text.

Caution Failure to heed a caution could result in loss of data.

Warning — Failure to heed a warning could result in physical harm to the user or the hardware.

Convention Description

!


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Chapter 1PAN Architecture

This chapter introduces you to the benefits and components of the Processing Area Network (PAN) architecture. A PAN is the processing equivalent of a storage area network (SAN), and provides the same proven economic benefits of common resources, modular deployment, and centralized management.

PAN Manager software enables administrators to increase, decrease, and reallocate processing resources through software, to accommodate varying demands on existing and new applications. PAN Manager does this by integrating processing, networking, management, and high-availability functionality that has traditionally been dispersed across server hardware, operating systems, and data networks.

This chapter covers the following topics:

• PAN Physical Components

• PAN Manager Software

• Virtual Components

• PAN Server Architecture (pServers)

• PAN Network Architecture

• LPAN Architecture

• Component Number and Size Guidelines


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PAN Physical Components

This section defines the physical components of a PAN.

For hardware requirements and specifications, see Appendix A, “BladeFrame Hardware Configuration”.

For the most up-to-date requirements, configurations, and specifications, see (http://support.ts.fujitsu.com) or contact Fujitsu Technology Solutions customer support.

Platform Components

A PAN organizes its processing resources in units called platforms. A platform consists of the following physical components:

• A set of diskless Processing Blades (pBlades), which provide the modular processing power for applications and services. The number of pBlades varies with the specific platform.

• A pair of redundant Control Blades (cBlades), which provide management and control functions, plus all external I/O for the platform.

• A pair of redundant Switch Blades (sBlades), which manage the packet switching among the pBlades and cBlades.

• (In the BladeFrame BF200 hardware platform, the switching mechanism is a switch card on the cBlade.)

• A fabric, which provides a high-speed internal network to connect all of the physical components.

• A fabric that provides a high-speed internal network to connect all of the physical components for out-of-band (OOB) management.

Together these elements provide a pool of processors that administrators can configure and deploy through software without physical intervention.

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The following figure shows how the basic PAN elements map to your hardware platform.

Figure 1.1 BladeFrame BF400 S2 and BladeFrame BF200 Platforms with PAN Elements

pBlade Features The Processing Blades (pBlades) provide the processing power for applications. The diskless pBlades function like conventional servers after they are configured with storage and network connections. The pBlades contain only processors and memory, and require no direct external connections.

The pBlades use a remote I/O architecture that connects them to network and storage resources external to the platform. All pBlade network and disk I/O flows through the high-speed fabric to the Ethernet Network Interface Cards (NICs) and host bus adapters (HBAs) on the cBlades, which interface with the IP network and external storage. The pBlades can communicate among themselves and with the cBlades at speeds greater than 1 Gbps.


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The pBlades run standard off-the-shelf versions of various operating systems to host your applications. See Chapter 7, “Software Releases” for a list of currently supported operating systems.

Because pBlades have no peripherals or console ports, administrators work remotely through Telnet, SSH clients, or the PAN Manager graphical user interface (GUI). Remote management includes powering, booting, and shutting down the pBlades.

cBlade Features The Control Blades (cBlades) manage pBlade I/O, storage and network, and the platform’s host management software, PAN Manager.

A platform provides redundant cBlades for inherent high-availability and load balances inbound and outbound traffic. In a failover scenario, the platform can operate with only one cBlade. In a normal platform configuration, PAN Manager recognizes one cBlade as the master, while the other cBlade (the slave) remains available for failover.

Each cBlade includes the following connections:

• 1 Gb Ethernet connections to the premises network (for use by pBlade applications)

• Fibre Channel connections (2 Gb) to the storage network (for use by pBlade applications)

• 1GigE connections to the secure management network (for use by PAN Manager)

• Internal 1GigE connections to each sBlade (for use by the fabric and virtualization extensions)

• DVD-ROM drives

The cBlades run the Red Hat operating system and PAN Manager software. The sole purpose of the cBlades is to manage the PAN; you should not install any customer applications there. For more

PAN Architecture

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information about PAN Manager, see Chapter 2, “PAN Manager Software”; for more information about the cBlade operating system software, see Chapter 7, “Software Releases”.

sBlade Features The Switch Blades (sBlades) provide the point-to-point connectivity among all pBlades and cBlades. A platform includes two sBlades that provide the physical switching layer for remote I/O and network traffic. The sBlade serves as the physical layer of the switched point-to-point architecture, and allows PAN Manager to create connections among pBlades dynamically.

Each pBlade and cBlade contains redundant fabric connections to the sBlades. If an sBlade failure occurs, and a blade cannot reach a specific sBlade, the sending blade will then send all traffic to the other sBlade. Under normal operating conditions, the redundant sBlades load balance incoming and outgoing traffic.

PAN Manager Software

You configure and manage the platforms and other PAN components with PAN Manager system management software. PAN Manager provides a single control point for allocating, configuring, and monitoring both physical and logical resources. PAN Manager includes both a command-line interface (CLI) and a browser-based graphical user interface (GUI).

PAN Manager provides the following features:

• Role-based user privileges

• Hardware and network configuration and management

• Hardware resource partitioning

• Application management and high-availability

• Load-balancing configuration and management


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• Reconfiguration and expansion of running servers

• Remote monitoring and server management

• Integration with leading enterprise management consoles

Note: Certain PAN Manager features have operating-system or hardware dependencies and might not be available on all pServer configurations.

For more information about PAN Manager features, see Chapter 2, “PAN Manager Software”.

Virtual Components

The PAN architecture removes the physical scaling and provisioning restraints of networking physical servers, and replaces them with more configurable virtualized objects. The virtual connections provide administrators with the flexibility to create, change, and remove I/O communication channels in response to changing business conditions.

The PAN architecture uses virtual components to implement features typically found in hardware. These components allow administrators to configure hardware in a familiar environment. Table 1.1 lists the conventional components and their virtual counterparts.

Table 1.1 Conventional and Virtual Components

Conventional Component PAN Virtual Component

Server pServer

Processor Virtual Blade (vBlade)

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For definitions of these virtual components, refer to the Glossary; for additional information about these components, see the appropriate section in this document.

PAN Server Architecture (pServers)

This section outlines the benefits of provisioning pServers instead of conventional servers, and the features of pServers.

Benefits of pServers

A pServer is a logical server that possesses all the resources of a conventional server, but is not tied to a specific pBlade. A pServer consists of the following components:

• Virtual processing resources

• Virtual network connections

• Networked disk storage

Network Interface Controller (NIC)

Virtual Ethernet (vEth) interface

Switch Virtual Switch (vSwitch)

Storage Disks and tapes

Media drive Virtual CD (VCD)

Boot device Egenera Virtualized Boot Services (EVBS)

Administrative Domain PAN and Logical PAN (LPAN) Security Domains

Conventional Component PAN Virtual Component


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A conventional server has these components in a single box. By contrast, a pServer consists of distributed virtual components that provide the same features.

By building customized pServers, administrators can more closely align processing power with their applications’ needs. The pServers allow administrators to isolate and define the appropriate amount of processing power, and storage and network resources, to provision an application.

Processing power can be allocated in increments of pBlades or Virtual Blades (vBlades). A vBlade is a software partition of a pBlade that serves as an independent logical processing resource. Administrators can use vBlades for applications that need fewer processing resources than a full pBlade. An added benefit for pServers running on vBlades is live migration from one vBlade to another vBlade.

Because a pServer is configured and implemented through software, administrators can build pServers and their network connections through PAN Manager without any physical labor. pServers remain flexible and reconfigurable after they are implemented. Administrators can monitor and control pServers remotely, through a Telnet or SSH session or the browser-based GUI.

Remote pBlade I/O

The PAN architecture implements the I/O of the pBlades using a remote I/O connection that provides data storage, LAN, and inter-node access for the pServers. The term remote I/O refers to the fact that pServers have no local hard disk or other local device to process I/O, and depend on cBlade HBAs for storage connections. (The remote I/O channels carry data to and from pBlades through the cBlade storage interfaces.) Kernel-level features load balance the storage connections between the two cBlades and between storage connections on the same cBlade. These high-concurrency I/O channels work with any Fibre Channel-based (FCP or FCP-2) storage system.

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Logical Components of pServers

In a PAN, administrators manage servers with the following logical components:

• pServers — The aggregate of a processing resource (pBlade or vBlade), disk and tape resources, and internal and external network connections. The pServers have hardware, PAN Manager software, and cBlade dependencies.

• Logical disks — Disk arrays located in a SAN or Network Attached Storage (NAS), or Fibre Channel storage devices directly attached to the cBlades.

The term disks in PAN Manager represents the logical or physical devices, expressed as logical unit numbers (LUNs), that reside on external arrays.

• Logical tapes — Tape drives located in a SAN. The term tapes in PAN Manager represents the tape drives that reside on external storage devices.

Note: Tape devices are not supported on all pServer releases. Please see PAN Manager Release Notes for information on pServers that support tape devices.

• Virtual CD-ROM (VCD) — A Virtual CD-ROM drive created for each pServer. The VCD accesses ISO images that have been registered with the PAN. For more information about VCDs, see “The Maintenance LPAN” on page 3-5.

• vBlades — Software partitions of a pBlade that serve as independent logical processing resources. Administrators create and use vBlades for applications that need fewer processing resources than a full pBlade. A vBlade inherits the CPU architecture of its pBlade.

• Boot image — A boot program that emulates CD, SAN disk, and/or Preboot Execution Environment (PXE) boot devices.

For more information on pServers and their related components, see “Building pServers” on page 3-6.


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PAN Network Architecture

This section describes the components and features of the PAN network architecture.

Benefits of Virtual Network Connections

The PAN architecture allows administrators to network pServers and create broadcast domains without the physical restrictions of conventional networks. From an administrative perspective, the broadcast domains operate exactly the same as conventional broadcast domains, and connect to external networks seamlessly.

The core networking components of the PAN are the vEths (virtual Ethernet interfaces) and vSwitches (Virtual Switches). The vEths provide pServers with all the features of a physical NIC. The vSwitches are software switches, which connect the pServers and link the vSwitches’ broadcast domain to external networks. Together, the components create secure, private, and redundant communication channels to other pServers and external networks.

The PAN network architecture provides administrators with the following benefits:

• Increased actual in-rack densities — The PAN architecture removes many of the cabling issues that keep administrators from reaching vendor-advertised densities.

• Cable and hardware-free networks — Administrators can network pServers without cables and other network hardware.

• Nearly unlimited communication channels — Server-to-server connections are virtually unlimited for practical use, and scale into the thousands.

• One hundred percent network redundancy with low-latency and connection failover — PAN Manager software creates network connections and virtual components in redundant pairs. The connection pairs can load balance traffic for further efficiencies.

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• Gigabit Ethernet trunking — Administrators can create multiple private and secure network channels over a shared Gigabit network connection using Virtual Local Area Network identifiers (VLAN IDs).

Virtual Network Components

In a PAN, administrators manage network connections by using the following virtual components:

• vEths — Virtual Ethernet connections implemented through PAN Manager. Administrators create and use vEths to provide the same features found in an Ethernet NIC. To create network connections, Administrators use PAN Manager to connect the pServer’s vEths to vSwitches.

• create network connections.

• vSwitches — Virtual switches implemented in software that function in a manner similar to an Ethernet switch and that provide connectivity between pServers and broadcast domains. The vSwitches provide connections to Local Area Networks (LANs) that are internal or external (an uplink) to the PAN.

• Redundant Ethernet Interfaces (rEths) — A software entity comprised of two physical Ethernet connections that can load balance incoming and outgoing network traffic and failover between NICs. Each of the two physical Ethernet connections in the rEth resides on a separate cBlade.

A vSwitch uses an uplink to a rEth to send network traffic off the platform.

PAN Manager supports trunking to maximize the use of NICs. Using VLANs in uplinks to rEths allows administrators to send network traffic from multiple vSwitches over a single Gigabit NIC.

For more information on network components, see Chapter 4, “PAN Networking Resources”.


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LPAN Architecture

This section describes the components and benefits of Logical Processing Area Networks (LPANs).

LPANs Administrators can establish multiple LPANs in a single PAN to allocate physically distinct and secure resources to specific organizations within an enterprise. LPANs consist of isolated groups of internal (to the platform) and external hardware resources, and virtual resources. Administrators with PAN Administrator permissions (similar to root) can allocate these resources to a business entity. LPAN resources are in most cases private to a specific LPAN, although some LPAN resources can be shared. For more information on LPANs, see “Creating LPANs” on page 3-2.

Resources PAN Manager uses the term resources to represent components that the PAN Administrator can allocate to LPANs:

• pBlades

• vBlade partitions that belong to a pBlade

• Data storage

• vSwitches

• cBlade DVD-ROM drives

• Other media devices

An LPAN’s application resources can include the following:

• Executable resources

• Network resources

• SCSI file system resources

• Network file system resources

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• Application health monitors

• Failover policies

Blade Pools PAN Manager allows administrators to create pools of blades that have similar architecture and performance, and to associate pServers with the pools instead of with specific blades. Local pools contain blades that can be allocated to pServers in a specific LPAN. Global pools contain blades that can be allocated to pServers in more than one LPAN. Administrators can designate local pools as the primary or failover blades for pServers.

Pools simplify server management within an LPAN and allow administrators to better match their failover needs with the available processing resources. For instance, administrators can assign a local pool of two failover pBlades to handle pBlade failover for four pServers within an LPAN, rather than assign each pServer its own failover pBlade.

An administrator can establish a local or global pool of spare pBlades to provide for incremental capacity or hardware failover. Figure 1.2 shows two LPANs, each with a local pool of blades for running pServers. The LPANs share a global pool for incremental capacity and failover. For more information on blade pools, see “Creating Processor Pools” on page 3-5.


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Figure 1.2 LPANs with Local and Global Pools

Component Number and Size Guidelines

Table 1.2 outlines the maximum number of virtual and physical components that can be defined in a PAN or LPAN.

Depending on the component, either the PAN Manager software, the pServer driver software (“virtualization extensions”), or the storage array vendor enforces the maximum number.

LPANS

Sales

MarketingProdMktg

SalesFinance

PR

pServersPlatformpBlade 1

pBlade n

pBlade 2pBlade 3pBlade 4pBlade 5pBlade 6

.

.

.

pBlade 7pBlade 8pBlade 9

Global Pool

Local Pools

Failover

Sales

Mktg

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Table 1.2 Maximum Components per PAN and LPAN

Virtual or Physical Component

Maximum Per PAN Maximum Per LPAN

Maximum Per pServer

Maximum Per pBlade

LPAN 72 — — —

pServer 600 144 — —

vBlade — — — 32

Local Pool — 20 — —

Global Pool 20 — — —

Total Pools (Global + Local)

200 — — —

vSwitch 4000 — — —

vEth — — 31 —

Total SCSI Devices (Disks + Tapes)

For PAN Manager Releases lower than 4.0.1.5: 688

For PAN Manager Releases 4.0.1.5 through 5.1.n: 2000

For PAN Manager Releases 5.2 and higher: 2048

— — —

Device Mappings (Disks + Tapes + Media Drives + VCDs)

— — 256 —


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Chapter 2PAN Manager Software

PAN Manager software provides hardware and application configuration and management for the PAN, as well as administrative security. This chapter describes the user interfaces and features of PAN Manager software, and provides pointers to more specific information about PAN Manager features.

This chapter describes the following topics:

• User Interfaces

• Software Versions

• Monitors for PAN Hardware and Hosted Applications

• Failover

• Security Domains and Administrative Roles

• Disaster Recovery


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User Interfaces

PAN Manager offers administrators the option of using a browser-based GUI or a CLI for managing and monitoring all PAN operations. Administrators can perform tasks or monitor operations through either interface, and use the interfaces simultaneously. Administrators can access the cBlades and pServers through interfaces that support a Telnet or SSH session, and whose host has a valid network connection to the cBlade.

PAN Manager also supports the PAN Manager Web Service: an application programming interface (API) that allows users to have remote programmatic access to PAN Manager.

Graphical User Interface

PAN Manager provides administrators a browser-based graphical user interface that lets them configure and monitor hardware and applications. The GUI provides an intuitive and consistent view of the PAN and its components, and a logical path through the configuration processes (Figure 2.1).


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Figure 2.1 PAN Manager Graphical User Interface

The display consists of the following HTML frame sets that present content and navigation aids:

• Main Frame — The main area of interaction for the user.

• Navigation tree — A hierarchical view of the objects and areas of the system.

• Tabs — Provide various views in the Main Frame for the currently selected object or area (such as LPAN, pServer, or pBlade).

• The Events tab presents the recent system events related to this object.

• The Monitor tab shows detailed data of the object over time, such as disk/memory utilization and power usage.

• The Configuration tab presents interfaces for creating or deleting objects, or modifying their properties.

Navigation Tree Tabs Main Frame Control Panel Status Panel


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• The Jump To drop-down lists all of the siblings of the current object, such as other pServers in an LPAN if you are currently viewing a pServer. Choosing an item in this list displays that object and the Main Frame reloads.

• Control Panel — Allows you to change the state of the current object, by booting, rebooting, or shutting it down.

• Status Panel — A brief summary of the state and configuration of the current object or area.

Command-Line Interface

To configure and manage the PAN, PAN Manager provides a rich set of commands. Administrators use the CLI by logging into a cBlade using a client, such as Telnet or SSH. See Figure 2.2.

Figure 2.2 PAN Manager Command-Line Interface (CLI)

For the complete list of PAN Manager commands, see PAN Manager Command Reference or type help at the command prompt.


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PAN Manager Web Service (API)

The PAN Manager Web Service is an application programming interface (API) that allows users with the proper login credentials to have remote programmatic access to PAN Manager. This means you can manage a PAN with the API, command line interface (CLI), or graphical user interface (GUI).

The PAN Manager Web Service uses the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), which is based on the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and the Extensible Markup Language (XML), to communicate with your web service client. Because it uses SOAP, the PAN Manager Web Service provides a language-agnostic programming interface for managing the PAN. You can use any programming language that supports web services, such as Java or .NET (C#), to implement your web service client programs.

The PAN Manager Web Service provides access to most PAN Manager features. For details, refer to the PAN Manager Web Service API Reference.

Windows pServer Console

Administrators running Windows operating systems on their pServers have the option of using a virtual VGA (VVGA) console (Figure 2.3). This feature uses an ActiveX control and requires you to access the PAN Manager GUI using Microsoft Internet Explorer. Access to this feature is disabled for all other browsers.


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Figure 2.3 Virtual VGA Console (Windows Only)

Software Versions

PAN Manager provides administrators with a CLI command and an appropriate mechanism in the GUI to display version information for software installed on cBlades and pServers. This information is useful to Fujitsu Technology Solutions customer support when attempting to resolve customer questions.

Using PAN Manager, administrators can obtain from the cBlades and pServers version information about the following:

• Installation media

• Linux kernel running on the cBlades

• The operating system running on the pServer

• PAN Agent (PAN Manager)

• RPMs (software packages)

ps3

10.10.10.5 – ps3 / windohs


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Administrators can also obtain a complete software revision history related to PAN Manager and kernel-related software running on cBlades and pServers. In addition, PAN Manager displays a list of all software upgrades performed on cBlades and pServers since the initial installation.

Certain PAN Manager features are operating system-dependent. Operating System dependencies are clearly marked in the PAN Manager GUI with the clickable icon and resulting message box (Figure 2.4).

Figure 2.4 Operating System Dependency Icons and Messages


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Monitors for PAN Hardware and Hosted Applications

Administrators can use PAN Manager and other utilities to monitor all major components of the PAN.

PAN Manager System Event Monitoring

PAN Manager lets administrators manage the events for all major components in the system. PAN Manager returns event messages as human-readable strings that define the event, and in some cases the component status (Figure 2.5).

Figure 2.5 PAN Manager GUI Events Tab

Components that generate events include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Platforms

• PIM-R power sources (BladeFrame BF400 S2)

• All blades


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• pServers

• Users

• Applications

For a complete description of components, events, and the report content, as well as information about configuring the appropriate actions for each event, see PAN Manager Administrator’s Guide.

SNMP Support PAN Manager supports SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) Versions 1 and 2c, and includes SNMP agents to provide monitor and control access relative to their specific security domains. PAN Manager supports the following SNMP agents:

• SNMP PAN Agent — Provides monitor and control access to a PAN.

• SNMP LPAN Agent — Provides monitor and control access to an LPAN. Each LPAN has its own LPAN Agent.

Storage Area Network I/O Monitoring

PAN Manager uses the MON resource monitoring system to monitor the I/O between the cBlade and the SAN to which it is attached.

The Control Blade software provides SAN I/O performance statistics for the cBlade and specific HBAs on the cBlade. Statistics can apply to all configured LUNs (Logical Unit Numbers), sets of LUNs, or individual LUNs. For more information about SAN utilities, see PAN Manager SAN Integration Guide.

Application Health Monitoring

PAN Manager uses the MON resource monitoring system to monitor the health of applications under PAN Manager control.


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Third-Party System Management Tools

PAN Manager supports the Tivoli Management Framework through an application programming interface (API) for managing the platform and hosted applications. PAN Manager also supports HP OpenView as a third-party system management tool.

Failover

PAN Manager software manages all aspects of failover.

PAN Manager Failover

PAN Manager provides inherent high-availability through a second instance of the PAN Manager software running on the second cBlade. PAN Manager runs in a master/slave relationship. The instance of PAN Manager that starts first becomes the PAN master and performs all management functions described in this and other chapters. The PAN slave has the responsibility to assume the master’s responsibilities in case of failure.

In a PAN Manager failover sequence, all active PAN Agent client sessions fail, but the PAN slave assumes all active states. (PAN Manager failover does not impact I/O. All pServer I/O operations still complete or recover.) PAN Manager operations in progress at the time that the controlling instance failed may or may not be complete. Administrators need to determine which operations were left in an incomplete state, and then continue to recover those operations.

If any application’s high-availability operation (starting, stopping, moving, or failing over an application) has started, PAN Manager attempts to complete the operation.

cBlade Failover The cBlade failover sequence is an automated event: there is no need to manually migrate or start PAN Manager on the slave cBlade. If an event causes the master cBlade to fail, PAN Manager


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provides failover and migration of functionality from the master cBlade to the slave cBlade. For more information, see PAN Manager Administrator’s Guide.

pBlade Failover For information about pBlade failover, see Chapter 1, “Blade Pools”.

Application Failover

For information about application failover, see Chapter 6, “High-Availability Applications”.

Security Domains and Administrative Roles

PAN Manager uses security domains and administrative roles to manage the PAN. Together they allow administrators to allocate private and secure resources, and restrict access from unauthorized users.

Security Domains

PAN Manager supports and enforces security domains, which define strict boundaries and ownership of resources. The domains also include users and access permissions, and define the administrative topology of the system. PAN Manager defines the following security domains:

• PAN Domain — All objects and administrative permissions available in the PAN. This includes resources that are not platform components, such as disks.

• LPAN Domain — The objects (private and shared) and administrative roles in a specific LPAN. LPANs are a subset of the PAN domain and are created using PAN-level permissions. The PAN can contain one or more LPANs.


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Administrative Roles and Permissions

PAN Manager provides distinct and predefined administrative roles for each security domain. Administrators cannot alter the roles or their included permissions in any way. Each role comes with one or more permission types. The following are the roles and their permissions:

• Administrator role — Configuration, Control, and Monitor permissions

• Operator role — Control and Monitor permissions

• Monitor role — Monitor permissions

Permissions further define the following allowable actions:

• Configuration — The highest permission level. Adding, removing, and configuring specific resources for operating and configuring pServers. Configuration permissions also include Control and Monitor permissions.

• Control — Controlling previously configured objects. For example, administrators can boot or stop pServers. Control permissions also include Monitor permissions.

• Monitor — Monitoring objects in the system for health, operation status, and events.

PAN Manager provides each security domain with a full set of roles and permissions. The following table lists the administrative roles associated with each domain.

Table 2.1 Security Domains and Administrative Roles

Domain Administrative Role Permissions

PAN PAN Administrator Configuration

LPAN1 LPAN1 Administrator Configuration

LPAN1 Operator Control

LPAN1 Monitor Monitor


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Users who have the PAN Administrator role have root-like permissions that allow them to set up the PAN, create LPANs, and assign resources to LPANs.

Disaster Recovery

PAN Manager provides features that allow administrators to implement disaster recovery (DR) strategies for the PAN. Generically defined, disaster recovery encapsulates the policies and procedures designed to return some entity to an acceptable condition. For information about how to perform disaster recovery-related tasks in a PAN, see PAN Manager Administrator’s Guide.

The following list provides some details about disaster recovery:

• PAN Archives — Files that contain configuration information about a specific PAN. PAN Administrators can back up and export PAN archives on a periodic schedule to a cBlade or to an external SAN volume.

PAN archives can:

• Replace lost or corrupted PAN configurations

• Restore a destroyed or incapacitated cBlade onto another cBlade

• Retarget PAN configurations on a day/night schedule

LPAN2 LPAN2 Administrator Configuration

LPAN2 Operator Control

LPAN2 Monitor Monitor

Domain Administrative Role Permissions


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• Operations Associated With PAN Archives — PAN Administrators use PAN archives in the following ways:

• Scheduling Backups of a PAN Configuration — Schedule backups of a PAN configuration to a PAN archive. PAN Administrators can set up a time period to back up and export the PAN archive to a specific disk attached to a SAN or NAS.

• Saving a PAN Configuration — Save a currently running PAN configuration as a PAN archive. This operation is useful to PAN Administrators who want to import or export the PAN archive at a later time.

• Exporting a PAN Archive — Export a previously saved or imported PAN archive to an external location by specifying the full path to the location where the PAN archive should reside.

• Importing a PAN Archive — Import a previously saved PAN archive into the PAN Manager archive directory.

• Listing PAN Archives — List (using the CLI) one or all saved or imported PAN archives that reside in the PAN Manager archive directory.

• Validating a PAN Archive — Validate the PAN archive after the import operation is complete. This operation ensures that the imported archive is structurally correct and compatible with the current resources (pBlades, rEths, and disks).

• Swapping a PAN Archive — Swap a specified PAN archive with the currently running PAN configuration.

• Renaming a PAN Archive — Rename a PAN archive to ensure that the new name does not conflict with the names of any existing PAN archives.

• Applying a Resource Map to a PAN Archive (Optional) — Apply a resource map, which is an XML file that defines the mapping of resources from a PAN archive to the currently running PAN configuration. The resource map contains the following resources:


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– pBlades

– Disks and tapes

– Eths

• Merging the Current PAN Configuration with a PAN Archive — Merge the information in the current PAN configuration with the information in a PAN archive. This information includes management network addresses, registered boot images, registered root disk images, and other high-level information.

• Viewing a PAN Archive — View (using the GUI) a specific saved or imported PAN archive that resides in the PAN Manager archive directory.

• Deleting a PAN Archive — Delete a saved or imported PAN archive. After deleting a PAN archive, it no longer appears in the list of archives.

• Exporting and Importing Image Archives— Export and import image archives containing boot, root, media, and firmware images. Image archives are distinct from DR archives and can be stored on the cBlade disk, a PAN disk, or a raw SAN disk. Because executable images consume significant disk space, they are not included in DR archives.

For more information about these operations, see PAN Manager Administrator’s Guide.

Resource Configuration Collector

PAN Manager provides a chargeback feature called Resource Configuration Collector (RCC), which is turned on by default. This feature records pServer events (such as boot, reboot, and shutdown) and pServer configuration data in an XML log file so that administrators can track PAN usage.


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Note: RCC logs events only when PAN Manager is running. Even when enabled, RCC does not log events when PAN Manager is disabled, such as during software upgrades.

For more information about using RCC, see PAN Manager Administrator’s Guide.

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Chapter 3PAN Processing

Resources

The distributed components of the PAN allow administrators to structure the hardware, virtual components, and additional external resources into secure and separate entities called LPANs. LPANs also provide the means for administrators to share PAN resources among multiple business entities.

This chapter describes how to make use of these PAN resources:

• Creating LPANs

• Creating Processor Pools

• Building pServers


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Creating LPANs

A Logical Processing Area Network (LPAN) is a secure and logically isolated group of PAN resources, including pBlades, network connections, and storage. LPANs include resources and pServers that remain logically separate from the other resources of the PAN. Most LPAN resources are exclusive to an LPAN; however, some resources can be shared by pServers in other LPANs:

• DVD-ROM drives

• vSwitches

• Failover blades

The option of shared resources allows administrators access to system-wide resources and allows pServers to participate in larger networks that span LPANs. Only PAN Administrators can create resources, check for existing resources, or allocate resources to LPANs.

Note: Not all administrators can allocate, configure, or manage LPAN resources. (See “Administrative Roles and Permissions” on page 2-12.)

PAN Processing Resources

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LPAN Resources LPAN resources include the following:

• pBlades — Processing units that provide the processing power and memory for pServers.

• vBlades — A virtual blade is a partition of a pBlade that uses a subset of the pBlade’s processors and memory to establish a new independent processing resource.

vBlades include the following components:

• Hypervisor — Allows multiple guest operating systems, which can include different operating systems or multiple instances of the same operating system, to share one or more hardware processors.

• Host operating system — Used by the hypervisor to manage the guest operating systems running on the vBlade.

• Guest pServers — Provide the same services to applications as a traditional pServer running on a pBlade, except that they run on the hypervisor and a vBlade.

For more information about vBlades and their components, see PAN Manager Administrator’s Guide.

• Local blade pools — Groups of pBlades or vBlades with similar architecture and performance that can be allocated as primary or failover blades for pServers in the LPAN.

• Disk storage — Data storage that typically consists of external hard disk space on a SAN, NAS, or directly attached device.

PAN Manager supports two types of SCSI reservations:

• Reserve/release reservations restrict the use of a disk to one booted pServer at a time

• Persistent reservations allow multiple booted pServers to access the same disk at the same time. This type supports Veritas Cluster Server and Microsoft Cluster Server.

• Tape storage — Data storage that consists of external tape devices on a SAN.

• vSwitches — Software switches that provide the same functionality as hardware switches.


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• DVD-ROM drives — DVD-ROM drives on the cBlades are automatically allocated to each pServer running on a physical pBlade, although access is ultimately controlled by the PAN Administrator.

• Virtual CD (VCD) drives — A device that functions like a physical CD-ROM drive. After an ISO image file is registered in PAN Manager, a pServer can use it by “inserting” it in a VCD drive.

Note: ISO images registered in the PAN are visible and available to any pServer in the entire PAN.

Table 3.1 lists resources and their major properties. Administrators can configure some of these properties and their attributes through the PAN Manager GUI or CLI.

Table 3.1 Resource Properties

Resource Properties

pBlades Slot numberNumber of CPUsProcessor speedChip architectureMemory sizepServer assignment

Local pools Number of allocated bladesNumber of available bladesLink to global poolList of allocated pServersList of allocated blades

Disk and tape storage

SCSI IDManufacturerModelRevision numberDisk capacity (disk storage only)Partitions (disk storage only)pServer assignment


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The Maintenance LPAN

Each PAN contains a maintenance LPAN (.maint) for performing service operations on hardware, such as updating firmware on pBlades. The maintenance LPAN supports all the same resources and features of a standard LPAN, except for the following:

• Administrators cannot delete the maintenance LPAN.

• Administrators cannot move blades in or out of a maintenance LPAN but they can put blades in maintenance mode or remove them from maintenance mode.

For more information, see PAN Manager Administrator’s Guide.

Creating Processor Pools

Administrators can create local or global pools of blades to act as both primary and failover blades for pServers. Administrators can add idle blades to and remove idle blades from blade pools at any time.

PAN Manager provides two types of pools:

• Local pools allow pServers to access pBlades only within a single LPAN.

vSwitches NameUplinkVLAN connectionpServer assignments

DVD-ROM drives

cBlade hostpServer assignments

Resource Properties


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• Global pools allow pServers to access pBlades in any LPAN that has been authorized to access that global pool.

Building pServers

A pServer is a logical server that contains all the resources of a conventional server. Administrators build pServers using LPAN resources. This section describes the resources for building pServers:

• Selecting pBlades — Administrators can select a specific pBlade as the pServer’s primary or failover pBlade

• Selecting Blade Pools — When administrators select a local pool as the primary or failover blade for a pServer, PAN Manager assigns the pServer an available blade from the pool when the pServer boots or fails over.

• Selecting Disks and Tapes — After an administrator assigns a disk to a pServer, the pServer accesses the disk through multiple subpaths to ensure I/O redundancy.

Administrators can use Network Attached Storage (NAS) and Network File Systems (NFS) in conjunction with, or instead of, SAN disks.The pServer accesses the NFS just as a conventional server does.

For additional information about disks and tapes, see PAN Manager SAN Integration Guide.

• Configuring Network Connections — pServers connect to internal or uplinked vSwitches by means of Virtual Ethernet (vEth) interfaces. For more information on configuring network connections, see Chapter 4, “PAN Networking Resources”.

• Configuring Failover pBlades and Pools — Administrators can assign a specific failover pBlade to a pServer or allow PAN Manager to select a pBlade from a pool if the pServer’s primary pBlade fails.


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• Configuring Boot Options — Administrators with LPANs that contain more than one pServer need to define the boot options that configure the pServer boot order, optional pServers, and failure-to-boot options.The following are the PAN Manager boot options:

• Optional pServers — Specifying a pServer as optional allows the other pServers in the LPAN to boot, even if the optional pServer(s) cannot.

• Boot images — PAN Manager supports the following boot images (which administrators can custom build):

– EVBS — Provides CD, SAN disk, and PXE boot for all types of pServers. Administrators can specify the order of boot devices as an argument.

– Non-EVBS — Provides RAM disk boot for pServer installation, WinPE boot for Windows pServers, and TFTP boot for a specific pServer operating system. Administrators can set image boot arguments as well as user-defined boot arguments.

• Boot devices — Administrators can specify an EVBS boot image argument for a specific device (VCD, disk, vEth) from which a boot should be attempted (in sequential order).

• Boot arguments — Administrators can specify non-EVBS boot image arguments for the specific pServer and image.

• Hyperthreading Control — For pBlades that support it, Administrators can enable or disable this control. Linux-based pServers can also use boot arguments to control hyperthreading.


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Chapter 4PAN Networking

Resources

The PAN networking model emulates the functionality of a standard Layer 2 Ethernet network, while virtualizing much of the hardware, such as network ports and switches. This allows PAN administrators to network pServers and create broadcast domains without the physical restrictions of conventional networks.

This chapter describes the following aspects of PAN networking:

• Core Components

• Creating vSwitches and Broadcast Domains

• Internetworking

• Network Options

• Network and Application Considerations


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Figure 4.1 provides a high-level overview of PAN components.

Figure 4.1 PAN Networking Overview

PAN Networking Resources

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Core Components

The PAN provides all common components or functionality of conventional networks, such as Ethernet controllers, switches, and the ability to create routers. PAN Manager makes creating and configuring components an easy process, and allows administrators to create the following components and connections in larger numbers than found in conventional hardware:

• vEths — The pServers have vEths that provide all of the functionality of a physical network port using software. The vEths provide all pServer send and receive capability for internal and external network traffic. A vEth’s unconventional form (software rather than hardware) remains transparent to other entities, such as IP traffic and applications.

• vSwitches — A vSwitch is the software equivalent of an unmanaged physical Layer 2 Ethernet switch, which is similar to an intelligent hub. A vSwitch connects two or more pServers in an LPAN and/or provides access to other LPANs or their external physical network. The vSwitches ensure that traffic cannot pass between pServers without a connection to the same vSwitch.

Administrators can create and remove vSwitches dynamically as the connectivity requirements of the PAN change.

vSwitches will not run out of ports: in a PAN, administrators can create up to 4000 vSwitches.

An unlimited number of pServer vEths can be connected to the vSwitches.

• vSwitch Uplinks — Uplinks on vSwitches perform the same function as uplinks on conventional switches, and connect vSwitches to external broadcast domains through the network ports in a rEth.


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PAN Manager provides complete failover support for vSwitches that have uplinks, by failing over the vSwitch and the network port in the rEth. The vSwitches that have uplinks also load balance traffic through the redundant instance.

• rEths — A redundant Ethernet interface consists of two physical network ports: one on each cBlade. A rEth provides redundant external network connectivity for load balancing and failover capability: the same functionality for a vSwitch that an uplink port provides to a traditional switch.

• Network Ports — The vSwitches use the network ports to send traffic off the platform.

Each network port on a cBlade has a matching port on the other cBlade. This is in addition to and separate from the 10/100 management ports found on each cBlade.

Creating vSwitches and Broadcast Domains

Each vSwitch creates and connects pServers to one, and only one, broadcast domain. Broadcast domains define the node membership and network boundaries of a network. A packet broadcast within a broadcast domain will reach all nodes within the domain. A packet cannot go outside a broadcast domain without the intervention of some other entity, such as a router. Membership in a broadcast domain essentially defines a pServer’s ability to send and receive packets within a network.

PAN broadcast domains support the same features, functionality, and security as conventional broadcast domains, including broadcasting and multicasting.

Creating and configuring a broadcast domain and the vEth and vSwitch components is functionally equivalent to creating physical networks with conventional hardware.


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The following list provides brief descriptions of creating vSwitches and broadcast domains:

• Creating and Allocating vSwitches — Administrators can allocate a vSwitch to a single LPAN or to multiple LPANs to allow pServers in separate LPANs to participate in the same broadcast domain.

• Connecting pServers to vSwitches — After creating a vSwitch, administrators simply add a vEth to the pServer and use it to connect to the vSwitch to establish network connectivity.

• Assigning MAC Addresses — Administrators provide an auto-generated or custom Media Access Control (MAC) address to a vEth to provide a data link or physical address for the vEth.

• Configuring Network Ports for VLAN Connectivity — To define connectivity to external hardware and networks, administrators need to configure network ports for the connection.

Internetworking

The PAN fully supports internetworking, or connecting separate broadcast domains through a router or firewall. Administrators can connect broadcast domains (internal and external to the PAN) using the same network components and similar procedures as for a conventional network:

• Routing Between Broadcast Domains — Administrators can configure a pServer as a router using Linux functionality, or use a router that is external to the PAN to route between subnets. Broadcast domains can contain multiple subnets, and each subnet can be further divided into smaller subnets.

• Firewalls — In addition to routers, administrators can set up firewalls and connect subnets in a similar manner.


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• IP Protocol — The PAN fully supports the IP protocol (IPv4) and standard Linux IP aliasing.

• Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) — The PAN fully supports DHCP for all pServers connected to a vSwitch that has an uplink.

• Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)— SNMP is a network management protocol used to manage host computers on a network, as well as the network infrastructure itself. SNMP agents store data about themselves in Management Information Bases (MIBs). The PAN supports SNMP by exporting (through SNMP agents) the MIBs that describe the following components that make up the PAN virtual network topology:

• vEths

• rEth connections

• vSwitches

For more information about how to use SNMP agents to display the network topology, see PAN Manager Administrator’s Guide.

Network Options

This section describes the options for configuring networks.

• Load-Balancing and Failover Policies — The external network connectivity of a PAN is implemented using the two network endpoints of which a rEth consists: one on each cBlade.

The pairing of Ethernet connections as rEths provides load-balancing and failover capability for PAN network connectivity.

Note: PAN Manager also provides application load-balancing and failover policies, described in Chapter 6, “High-Availability Applications”.


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Administrators can choose from the following load-balancing policies:

• Single Send/Receive (Pair) — All incoming and outgoing network traffic is sent and received over the network port of a single cBlade.

• Single Send/Receive (Static) — Both outgoing and incoming network traffic is statically assigned to each cBlade.

• Flow Control — To accommodate computing environments that configure the physical network to prevent the dropping of data packets, PAN Manager provides a mechanism called flow control. The following are the two types of flow control:

• pServer to external network flow control — All data packets transmitted from one or more vEths that reside on one or more pServers reach the network port(s) on the cBlade(s) without being dropped.

• pServer to pServer flow control — All data packets transmitted from the cBlade internal broadcast mechanism reach the vEths on one or more pServers without being dropped.

• Rate Control — PAN Manager provides a mechanism called rate control that allows administrators to control the rate of network traffic for each vEth that resides on a pServer.

The rate control feature provides either a rate limit or a rate setting, depending on the platform:

• The rate limit for a vEth is the upper bound of the network transfer rate. Administrators can set a rate limit for all vEths associated with a pServer.


• Optimizing rEths — To distribute evenly the pServer traffic leaving and entering the platform, we recommend setting pServers, cBlades, sBlades, and their network connections using the following principles:

• Split network port traffic between cBlade hosts.


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• Activate both network ports in a rEth, and balance the traffic.

• Network Port Packet Filtering — The network ports do not perform packet filtering. The platform relies on the external switch to perform a measure of packet filtering to permit only those packets addressed to a pBlade to pass through.

• Internal Shortcuts — The switching software on the sBlade determines whether pBlade-to-pBlade traffic is routed directly point-to-point through the fabric for performance, or whether it must be routed through a cBlade.

Network and Application Considerations

The following network and application considerations apply when consolidating conventional servers with pServers:

• High-Speed Internal Network — The high-speed interconnect within the platform provides server-to-server transfer rates that in most cases exceed cabled networks. In addition, there are inherent security advantages in keeping network traffic within the platform, and cost advantages in sharing the network components that the platform provides.

• Network Security — The PAN architecture is designed to ensure the highest level of security, both within the PAN and with connections to external network Layer 2 and Layer 3 devices. The PAN provides the same degree of broadcast domain isolation that conventional Ethernet networks provide. Features in the Linux kernel on the cBlade also guarantee that a networking channel between a pServer and a cBlade is private and secure.

In addition, the management Ethernet ports on the cBlade are designed to be connected to a very secure management network, separate and isolated from the pServer’s Virtual Ethernet (vEth) connections.

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Chapter 5PAN Storage Resources

A SAN consists of a communication infrastructure that provides physical connections and a management layer that organizes the connections, storage elements, and computer systems so that data transfer is secure and robust. The term SAN is usually (but not necessarily) identified with block I/O services, rather than file access services.

SAN storage is typically shared among more than one server and networked with high-speed Fibre Channel connections.

This chapter provides information on the following:

• SAN Overview

• Multipath Overview


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SAN Overview

The PAN architecture allows a PAN Administrator to allocate hardware resources to one or more Logical Processing Area Networks (LPANs). LPANs in turn allow administrators to allocate the necessary resources to create servers (pServers) and host applications.

A pServer combines a single pBlade or vBlade, an optional failover pBlade or vBlade, storage resources, a root file system, and network resources, all of which provide the capabilities of a conventional server.

For more information about PANs and LPANs, see PAN Manager Administrator’s Guide.

LPAN resources include:

• Processing Blades (pBlades)

• Virtual Ethernet (vEth) interfaces

• SAN storage

• Disk resources

• Tape resources (See PAN Manager SAN Integration Guide for additional information.)

PAN Storage Resources

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Figure 5.1 shows where the Fibre Channel SAN and PAN architectures meet.

Figure 5.1 Fibre Channel SAN and PAN Configuration

In the PAN environment, Control Blades function as I/O servers; pServers function as I/O clients.

Using PAN Manager to Configure and Display Storage Resources

An administrator uses PAN Manager to assign storage resources to a pServer (a logical server that combines all the resources of a conventional server). PAN Manager handles all device number translation, so that disks assigned to pServers are visible to administrators using PAN Manager, and private to the pServers.


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Discovering Storage Devices

The Control Blade (cBlade) software’s dynamic disk discovery feature automatically discovers logical unit numbers (LUNs) that are added to a storage array.

Disk resource discovery occurs automatically during the cBlade boot process.

You can use PAN Manager to initiate a disk scan.

We recommend that you add disk resources during off-hours, or other low traffic times, to minimize the I/O impact that the discovery process might have on the storage network.

SAN Ports Each hardware platform contains two Control Blades (cBlades), which manage the Processing Blades (pBlades) I/O and provide host management software.

Each system contains Ethernet ports for network management and Fibre Channel ports for connections to data storage networks.

Multipath Overview

Multipath is a feature that allows a server to access storage devices through multiple physical paths or connections. It allows for I/O load balancing across active ports, and provides failover capabilities for active/passive and primary/secondary LUNs. (For more information about pathing options, see PAN Manager SAN Integration Guide.)

Many data centers require uninterrupted access to data. Storage administrators in this environment design redundant SAN networks for high availability.

PAN Storage Resources

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The PAN architecture provides redundant I/O with no single point of failure from the pServer out to the network. Multipath software extends this I/O redundancy from the platform to the SAN.

Using Multipath The PAN architecture supports two types of multipath software. Each pServer must use one of the following types of multipath software:

• On the Control Blades — (always enabled) Generic multipath software, which is provided as part of the Control Blade software

• On the pServers — Either generic multipath software, or a third-party multipath software product

If you prefer to use third-party multipath software, you must disable generic multipath on the pServer by using PAN Manager to map all disk subpaths. Mapping all disk subpaths exports all device paths to the pServer, which are then managed by the third-party multipath software. For instructions for mapping all disk subpaths for a pServer, see the PAN Manager GUI Guide or the PAN Manager online help.

For details about how to configure multipath, contact Fujitsu Technology Solutions customer support or your authorized support vendor for assistance.

Benefits of Multipath

The multipath feature provides a number of benefits to a data center’s storage environment, including the following:

• Load balancing — Allows the individual I/O requests to be distributed among the available paths between the server and the storage devices.

Multipath software allows you to balance I/O across the host bus adapters (HBAs) on the cBlades, and across multiple target ports associated with a single HBA. (For more information about this type of load balancing, see PAN Manager SAN Integration Guide.)


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This distribution of I/O requests across multiple HBAs and HBA ports provides a more efficient transfer of the data than can be achieved through a single connection, and can result in more I/O operations per second between the cBlades and the storage devices.

• Redundancy — Multipath software retries I/O on all active paths before it returns an error to the pServer. This allows individual I/O requests to be attempted on more than one available I/O path in order to transfer the data successfully when a problem occurs on one or more connections.

• Failover — A standby operational mode for active/passive or primary/secondary LUNs. Multipath software is designed to attempt I/O on all active (or primary) paths, and in the case of a failure, use the associated passive (or secondary) path.

• Simple configuration — Multipath in the PAN requires little, if any, configuration. Storage administrators do not need to configure multipath on the pBlades because it is enabled by default. The multipath feature does not require commands that specify explicit paths to the different storage devices. Instead, the multipath functionality automatically determines these paths (including finding multiple paths that lead to the underlying physical devices).

PAN Manager can map multiple paths to the disks allocated to a pServer using the multipath driver. For more information, see the support website (http://support.ts.fujitsu.com) for the specific pServer Guide, which describes multipath driver support.

Note: Multiple paths are not supported for tapes. Tapes are restricted to a single path.

For platform-specific configuration issues, or for additional information about how to configure multipath, contact Fujitsu Technology Solutions customer support or your authorized support vendor for assistance.

http://support.egenera.com

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Chapter 6High-Availability

Applications

PAN Manager provides application configuration, management, and high-availability (HA) features for stand-alone applications and load-balancing services. To take advantage of the flexibility and inherent high-availability features of the PAN, Administrators can use PAN Manager to define failover policies, and assign other resources to stand-alone applications and load-balancing services.

Note: High-availability features are supported under Linux-based pServer operating systems. For information about support under other operating systems, see the pServer Guide for your particular pServer type.

This chapter provides the following information about configuring high-availability applications in a PAN:

• Configuring High-Availability Applications

• Using Application Resources


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Configuring High-Availability Applications

The PAN simplifies the process of configuring applications and application services, by providing all hardware and network resources for running applications, and by providing PAN Manager software to manage applications and load-balancing services.

The following list provides an overview for high-availability applications:

• PAN Manager Role in High Availability — After installing applications on a Linux pServer and placing the applications under PAN Manager control, administrators can use PAN Manager to manage and monitor them. (PAN Manager application control is not supported for Windows applications.)

• High Availability and Failover — Failover helps to ensure that one or more applications can quickly migrate from a primary pServer to a failover pServer after a hardware, operating system, or application failure.

• Load Balancing Services — A load-balancing service allows administrators to run multiple instances of the same application, all of which are accessible through the same IP address and port. PAN Manager load-balancing support is based on the Linux Virtual Server (LVS) package. (For more information about LVS, see the documentation included with the LVS package or refer to http://www.linuxvirtualserver.org.)

PAN Manager supports the following member selection policies:

• Round-robin — The load balancer forwards service requests by sending the request to the next member pServer in the list.

• Weighted round-robin — The Administrator creates a scheduling sequence among members of a load balancing service, based on the priority or weight that the Administrator assigns to each member pServer.

http://www.linuxvirtualserver.org

High-Availability Applications

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• Least connected — The load balancer tracks the number of connections on all member pServers in the load-balancing service, and directs service requests to the member that has the least number of current connections.

• Weighted least-connected — The load balancer sets this member forwarding policy based on the weight that the Administrator assigns to it, and its number of current connections.

For more information about configuring high-availability applications, see PAN Manager Administrator’s Guide.

Using Application Resources

Application resources are logical groupings of unique types of configuration information. Each resource type is a building block that serves a purpose, such as starting and stopping an application, or providing a disk, network connection, failover policy, or health monitor.

You can start or stop services (such as autostart, pServer failover, mon restart, mon failover, and mon give up) manually or automatically. If a failover or move occurs, PAN Manager uses failover policies to determine on which pServer a service attempts to run (Figure 6.1). After the service successfully starts, PAN Manager automatically starts the service’s health monitors.


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Figure 6.1 High Availability GUI Display

The following list provides an overview for application resources:

• Failover Policies — Failover policies determine which pServer(s) to which a high-availability service can move or fail over. There are two basic types of policies:

• Ordered (default) — Each pServer is chosen the same way for each service configured on it: the pServers are ordered from the lowest number (starting with 1) to the highest, with unordered pServers (order value of 0) last.

• Round-robin — The pServers are ordered and attempted in the same manner as an ordered policy. The next pServer in the list is then marked as the first one to try the next time the policy is used, for any service in the LPAN.

• Network Resources — Network resources allow administrators to configure an IP, netmask, and broadcast address on a pServer.

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• SCSI File System Resources — SCSI file system resources include both disks and tapes. If a service fails over with no PAN Agent available, the disk or tape is disabled and is not usable on the pServer again until that pServer has been rebooted.

• Network File System (NFS) Resources — NFS resources allow administrators to mount a network shared directory. This allows services to access storage not made available within the LPAN.

• Application Health Monitors — Health monitors are important for keeping HA services available. Health monitors periodically test the connection to the service. You can configure a health monitor to trigger a service restart, failover, or stop.

Health monitors can have multiple monitor instances: a local monitor running on the same pServer as the service, and one or more remote monitors running on other pServers in the LPAN.

• User-Defined Monitor Resources — User-defined monitor resources are a collection of attributes, such as event name, comparator type, and schedule interval, that allow users to create a set of health, status, or statistical monitors whose events you can use to enhance control over PAN Manager behaviors.

• Executable Resources — Executable resources start and stop various aspects of the application. The administrator can invoke them as needed after an application is started and before it is stopped.

• Application-Associated Environment Variables — PAN Manager provides environment variables to pass data to programs, removing the need for those programs to parse command line arguments.

• Disabling/Enabling Application Services on a pServer — A pServer user that possesses root permission on a pServer can disable any application services from running on the pServer.

• High-Availability Application Templates — These application templates are a set of resources (usually executable resource definitions) that are common to a particular type of application. Currently, PAN Manager provides one template,


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for VMware VM (Virtual Machine). Application templates are pre-installed in PAN Manager and cannot be modified in any way.


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Chapter 7Software Releases

This chapter describes the system software on the cBlades and pBlades that provides support for PAN Manager. This chapter consists of the following topics:

• Types of Software Releases

• Operating System Versions

• Installation Options


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Types of Software Releases

PAN software includes cBlade software, pBlade software, hypervisor software, and Intelligent Platform Management (IPM) system software. Figure 7.1 shows the major categories of PAN software and their subcomponents.

Figure 7.1 PAN Software

cBlade Software The cBlade software includes the operating system, virtualization extensions, and PAN Manager, BIOS, and firmware.

Operating System and Virtualization Extensions

The cBlades run the Red Hat operating system and PAN Manager, and provide a set of virtualization extensions that are installable on the pServers you configure.

Software Releases

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PAN Manager

PAN Manager software allows you to manage the following:

• Administrative roles and privileges

• Hardware resources

• Applications

• Hardware and application failover and failback

• Monitors and events

PAN Manager software provides a CLI and a GUI for system and application configuration and monitoring.

BIOS and Firmware

Fujitsu Technology Solutions provides proprietary BIOS and firmware in its hardware platforms. For information on firmware updates, see “Firmware Updates” on page 7-9.

pBlade Software The pBlade software can be pServer software or hypervisor software. The pServer software includes the operating system, virtualization extensions, PAN Agent, BIOS, and firmware. The hypervisor software includes all of the pServer components plus the hypervisor and guest pServers.

Operating System and Virtualization Extensions

Each pBlade can run an operating system plus a set of virtualization extensions applicable to that operating system. See Chapter 7, “Supported Operating Systems”.

Using the vBlades option, or creating an ESX pServer or XenServer pServer allows you to create one or more Virtual Machines (VMs) to which you can assign a subset of a pBlade’s processing resources. (Refer to the appropriate pServer guide for more information about a particular pServer type.)


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PAN Agent

The PAN Agent performs management functions on the pServer on behalf of PAN Manager. Specifically, the PAN Agent provides health and performance monitors, graceful startup and shutdown of pServers, application HA, and load-balancing clusters.

Note: In vBlade configurations, the PAN Agent does not run on the guest pServers, but does provide some control over the hypervisor. For more information, see PAN Manager Administrator’s Guide.

Virtual BIOS Firmware

Using PAN Manager, the administrator can configure the pServer’s firmware options to modify the following attributes when booted on a pBlade:

• Hyperthreading

• Memory Node Interleaving

• Virtualization Extensions

• Hardware Prefetch

You can use the CLI or GUI to display or modify a pServer’s default configurations.

Note: Not all blades support each of these features. Check the pBlade release notes to determine which hardware features your blade supports. Using PAN Manager to enable/disable a setting that is not supported on a pBlade has no effect on the pBlade.

Intelligent Platform Management System

The platform provides hardware event, monitoring, and management features through the Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI). IPMI provides an interconnect between the distributed components of the platform to send and gather system messages, and to power and boot blades. Management features include the following:

• Powering on and powering off blades remotely

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• Booting cBlades and pBlades remotely

• Monitoring and notifying of voltage, fan, temperature, and power status events

• Discovering pBlades

• Providing pBlade ID, processor, and memory information

• Locating a pBlade by slot number

The IPM system provides a message-based communication interface to send and receive event and monitoring information. The IPM system incorporates the following components:

• Intelligent Platform Management Bus (IPMB) — The bus that resides on the pBlades and cBlades to connect the major board components.

• Intelligent Chassis Management Bus (ICMB) — The bus within the BladePlane that connects the pBlades and cBlades. (The BladePlane, also known as the spine, is a component of the chassis, is made of high-speed serial fabric, and provides the physical network inside the platform.)

• Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) — The software interface to send and receive information through the IPMB and ICMB.

The IPM system uses messages to pass monitoring and event information along to management software. The flexibility of the system supports multiple hardware configurations and multiple communications channels simultaneously. PAN Manager allows administrators to monitor the IPM system events and notifications.

Operating System Versions

This section describes the operating systems that support PAN Manager and the pServers.


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Supported Operating Systems

Table 7.1 lists the operating systems supported at the time of this writing.

Table 7.1 Supported Operating Systems

cBlades/pServers Operating Systems

cBlades Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.5

pServers Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.1

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.0



SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 8



Microsoft Windows Server 2003

Microsoft Windows Server 2008

Sun Solaris 10

VMware ESX 3

XenServer 5

Guest pServers

For a complete list of supported vBlade pServer guests, see PAN Manager Administrator’s Guide.

For a complete list of guests supported by the ESX Server hypervisor, refer to your VMware documentation.

For a complete list of guests supported by the XenServer hypervisor, refer to your Citrix Systems documentation.

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Note: See the support website (http://support.ts.fujitsu.com) for the latest list of supported pServer operating systems. If you are using SAN tape devices, you need both a platform and pServer that explicitly support tape devices; see PAN Manager Release Notes for details.

On pServers, administrators have the flexibility to boot any of the supported operating systems. PAN Manager supports all operating system versions and places no PAN- or LPAN-level restrictions within an LPAN.

For more information:

• For compatibility and valid upgrade paths of cBlade operating systems, see PAN Manager Release Notes.

• For installation, compatibility, and valid upgrade paths of pServer operating systems, see the pServer Guide for the specific operating system.

Guest Operating Systems

The PAN Manager hypervisor option takes advantage of the integrated vBlade feature. For more information, see PAN Manager Administrator’s Guide.

The cBlade software provides full support for generic Layer 2 network switching, which supports the VMs that contain guest operating systems.

Contact Fujitsu Technology Solutions customer support to learn more about pServer support for guest operating systems.

Installation Options

This section describes the different options for installing the cBlade, pServer, and hypervisor and guest software. It also describes options for updating firmware.


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cBlade Software Installation

Fujitsu Technology Solutions customer support installs the cBlade software onto the cBlades on site.

pServer Software Installation

Administrators install the operating system(s) on the pServers using operating system vendor and Fujitsu Technology Solutions installation tools. Administrators can perform pServer installations from the following:

• Installation media — This option is ideally suited for administrators who have physical access to the cBlade to install the operating system from the installation media to the pServers.

• A network attached server (NAS) using a network file system (NFS) — This option is best for administrators who do not have physical access to the cBlade or who need to access the operating system installation software from different locations. The administrator copies the contents of the installation media to a server that is accessible, by means of NFS, from the cBlade. The administrator then installs the operating system from this server onto the pServers.

• An ISO image inserted in a VCD — For platforms that do not provide pServer access to physical DVD-ROM drives, this method provides a way of installing from virtual media in a virtual media drive.

Hypervisor and Guest Installation

PAN Manager provides support for the following hypervisors:

• the XenServer pServer. Obtain the hypervisor software from Citrix Systems, Inc., and the Virtualization Extensions software from Fujitsu Technology Solutions customer support. For installation instructions, refer to the XenServer pServer Guide.

• the ESX Server pServer. Obtain the hypervisor software from VMware, Inc., and the Virtualization Extensions software from Fujitsu Technology Solutions customer support. For installation instructions, refer to the ESX Server pServer Guide.

• the vBlades feature. To use this separately purchasable feature, obtain the hypervisor software from Fujitsu Technology Solutions customer support. For information on vBlade

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requirements, see PAN Manager Administrator’s Guide. For instructions on installing the vBlades option, see Installing the vBlades Media.

Firmware Updates

Contact Fujitsu Technology Solutions customer support for information on firmware updates.


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Appendixes

This part of the PAN Manager Technical Overview includes two appendixes:

• BladeFrame Hardware Configuration

• Glossary


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Appendix ABladeFrame Hardware

Configuration

This appendix contains information about various aspects of the BladeFrame BF400 S2 and BladeFrame BF200 systems and consists of the following topics:

• Hardware Components

• System Chassis

• BladePlane

• Control Blades

• Switch Blades

• Processing Blades

• Light Emitting Diode (LED) Indicators

• Power

• Cabling Requirements

• For More Information


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Hardware Components

The BladeFrame platforms are a collection of processors that supply the power needed by enterprise data centers, without the physical constraints of cables, physical space, and power requirements. The hardware architecture includes redundant hot-swappable components that simplify expansion and upgrades.

System Chassis

The hardware components are housed in an enclosed system chassis that hosts the infrastructure for administrators to populate and run the blades. The system chassis provides a secure environment for the resident blades, as well as maximum visibility and airflow. The chassis contains the built-in, prewired BladePlane that provides the physical connectivity for the pBlade I/O, network communication, and power distribution systems.

Figure A.1 shows the location of some of the BladeFrame components discussed in this chapter.

BladeFrame Hardware Configuration

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Figure A.1 BladeFrame Components

The BladeFrame BF400 S2 can be moved in an upright position through doorways and into and out of elevators/lifts worldwide.

The system chassis ships without blades, for ease of movement and installation. After installing the system chassis, administrators can quickly populate it by installing the blade components. The design of the system chassis provides efficiencies in the following areas:

• Footprint — Each chassis type is the size of a standard datacenter rack.

• Cabling — Administrators can redundantly connect a fully populated chassis to power, data storage, and network with a minimal number of cables.

• Blade cooling capacity — The louvered front of the chassis maximizes airflow throughout the system. Each blade module cools itself.


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• Component visibility — The quarter-panel glass door allows administrators to view the individual blades and read the light emitting diode (LED) displays and slot numbers, while keeping the blades in a clean secure environment.

• On-site administration — Administrators can connect a laptop computer to serial ports located on the front of each cBlade.

System Chassis Specifications

Table A.1 and Table A.2 show various specifications for the BladeFrame BF400 S2 and BladeFrame BF200 chassis, respectively.

Table A.1 BladeFrame BF400 S2 System Chassis Specifications

Table A.2 BladeFrame BF200 System Chassis Specifications

Component Specifications

Dimensions 23 in. wide, 82.5 in. high, 30 in. deep 58.42 cm wide, 209.55 cm high, 76.2 cm deep

Weight 1000 pounds / 454 Kilograms maximum for a fully configured system chassis

Blade configurations

Minimum: 2 cBlades, 1 pBlade, 2 sBlades

Maximum: 2 cBlades, 24 pBlades, 2 sBlades

Power cables See Table A.9.

Operating environment

Temperature: 41º F to 95º F(5º C to 35º C)Altitude: up to 6000 feet / 1829 meters above sea levelHumidity (non-condensing): 10-80%

Acoustics Computer room/data center compatible


Dimensions 17.5 in. wide, 22.75 in. high, 29 in. deep /44.45 cm wide, 57.79 cm high, 73.66 cm deep


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BladePlane

The system chassis includes the BladePlane (commonly referred to as the spine), which is composed of a high-speed serial fabric that provides the physical inner network of the system. The cBlades and pBlades (and on the BladeFrame BF400 S2, sBlades) connect to the BladePlane through blind-mate connections at the rear of the system chassis. The BladePlane provides the power distribution, blade identification mechanism, and ability to power blades on and off remotely.

The BladePlane also includes a message passing channel for the Intelligent Platform Management (IPM) system. PAN Manager software uses this channel to monitor and report hardware events.

System air flow direction is from front to back, with no air filters. The IPM system monitors fan rotation and ambient temperature, and reports any failures to the PAN Manager software.

Weight 256 pounds / 115.2 Kilograms maximum for a fully configured system chassis

Blade configurations

Minimum: 2 cBlades, 1 pBlade

Maximum: 2 cBlades, 6 pBlades

Power cables See Table A.10.

Operating environment

Temperature: 23º F to 95º F(-5º C to 35º C)Altitude: up to 6000 feet / 1829 meters above sea levelHumidity (noncondensing): 10-80%

Acoustics Computer room/data center compatible



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On the BladeFrame BF400 S2, the BladePlane is designed to provide increased fabric bandwidth: 8 Gbps to each cBlade slot and 2 Gbps to each pBlade slot.

Control Blades

The cBlades provide a centralized server to manage pBlade I/O and host management software. The cBlades also contain Ethernet ports and DVD-ROM drives. For cBlade locations, see Figure A.1 on page A-3.

The minimum system configuration provides redundant cBlades for inherent high-availability and the load balancing of inbound and outbound traffic. The cBlades are hot-swappable. In a failover scenario, the system can operate with only one cBlade.

In a normal configuration, PAN Manager recognizes one cBlade as the master, while the other cBlade (the slave) remains available for failover. The default load-balancing policy for cBlade networking I/O is Pair mode, in which primary Ethernet interfaces on one cBlade handle all incoming and outgoing network traffic. Their counterpart (standby) Ethernet interfaces on the other cBlade remain ready to accept all I/O in case the active Ethernet interface fails.

Each cBlade can include one or more of the following:

• Gigabit Ethernet connections, either all fibre, or all copper, by means of small form factor pluggable modules (SFPs); (for network)

• Gigabit Fibre Channel connections (for data storage)

• 10/100/1000 (on cBlade EX) Ethernet connection (for management)

On the BladeFrame BF200, all external ports for the cBlades are located on the BladePlane.


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Different types of cBlades meet the needs of various implementations: the cBlade EX, which provides increased SAN fabric bandwidth and Ethernet network throughput, and the cBlade ES, which provides a combination of cBlade and sBlade features for the BladeFrame BF200.

The Ethernet ports of the cBlade EX (ETH1 through ETH4) can accept either copper or optical cables, depending on which small form factor pluggable modules (SFPs) are configured on these ports. (SFPs are not customer-replaceable; only Fujitsu Technology Solutions customer support, or your authorized support vendor, can replace them. SFPs are not hot-swappable: you must shut down the BladeFrame BF400 S2 to replace them.)

In addition, each cBlade EX contains a PCI-X expansion NIC that contains four copper-only 10/100/1000 Ethernet ports.

Note: Rolling upgrades from one cBlade type to another are not supported because both cBlades must have the same hardware configuration.

cBlade Configurations

Table A.3 shows the configuration specifications for the BladeFrame BF400 S2 (cBlade EX) and for the BladeFrame BF200 (cBlade ES).


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Table A.3 cBlade Configurations

cBlade Physical Specifications

Table A.4 shows the physical specifications for the cBlade EX; Table A.5 shows the physical specifications for the cBlade ES.

cBlade ProcessorsInterleavedECCMemory

Cache Configuration Options

cBlade EX 2-way Dual Core AMD Opteron,2.2 GHz

4 GB, DDR 400

1 MB L2

• One 10/100/1000BaseT Ethernet Management Port

• One serial port

• Four Fibre Channel data storage ports

• Four Copper Gigabit Ethernet ports in a Quad PCI-X adapter

and either:

• Four Gigabit Ethernet ports, using small form factor pluggable modules (SFPs) for fibre

or:

• Four Gigabit Ethernet ports, using small form factor pluggable modules (SFPs) for copper

cBlade ES 2-way SMP Intel Xeon 3.06 GHz

2GB 512 KB L2

1. Two Fibre Channel data storage connections

2. Two Gigabit Ethernet connections (either copper or fibre)

3. One 10/100 management port

4. One serial port (connections in front and rear)


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Table A.4 cBlade EX Specifications

Table A.5 cBlade ES Specifications

Components Specifications

Height 7.0 inches / 17.8 centimeters

Weight 44 pounds / 20 kilograms

Hard drive 137GB Ultra DMA EIDE disk

Console port Front-accessible: RS-232

Management interface ports

One front-accessible10/100/1000BaseT Ethernet port

Media drive 40X (1 per cBlade)

Power supply Independent of other blades

Cooling mechanism Self-contained front to back

Hot-pluggable Yes

LED states Standby Power, Recognized, Active, Selected

Components Specifications

Width (vertical mount)

2.1 inches / 5.3 centimeters

Weight 22 pounds / 9.9 kilograms

Hard drive 60GB Ultra DMA EIDE disk

Console port Front- and rear-accessible: RS-232

Management interface ports

Rear-accessible: serial, 10/100 Ethernet

Media drive 8X DVD, 24X CD (1 per cBlade)


Hot-pluggable Yes

LED states Standby Power, Recognized, Active, Selected


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Switch Blades

In the BladeFrame BF400 S2, sBlades provide the point-to-point connectivity among all pBlades and cBlades. (In the BladeFrame BF200, this capability is provided by switch cards that are incorporated into the control blades.)

sBlade Physical Specifications

A BladeFrame BF400 S2 includes two hot-swappable sBlades that provide the physical switching layer for remote I/O and network traffic. The sBlade serves as the physical layer of the switched point-to-point architecture, and allows PAN Manager to dynamically create connections among pServers.

Each pBlade and cBlade contains redundant host adapters for sBlade connections. If a host adapter or sBlade failure occurs, and a blade cannot reach a specific sBlade, the sending blade will then send all traffic to the other sBlade. Under normal operating conditions, the redundant sBlades load balance incoming and outgoing traffic.

The sBlade supports up to eight fabric connections to each cBlade.

Table A.6 shows the physical specifications for the sBlade.

Table A.6 sBlade Specifications

Component Specification


Weight 20 pounds / 9 kilograms



Hot-pluggable Yes

LED States Standby Power, Recognized, Active, Selected


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cBlade Switches In the BladeFrame BF200, each cBlade contains a switch component that provides the point-to-point connectivity among all pBlades and cBlades.

The cBlade switches provide the physical switching layer for remote I/O and network traffic. The cBlade switch serves as the physical layer of the switched point-to-point architecture, and allows PAN Manager to dynamically create connections among pServers.

Each pBlade and cBlade contains redundant host adapters for internal switch connections. If a host adapter or cBlade failure occurs, and a blade cannot reach a specific cBlade switch, the sending blade then sends all traffic to the other cBlade switch. Under normal operating conditions, the redundant cBlade switches load balance incoming and outgoing traffic.

Processing Blades

The pBlades are hot-swappable and provide the processing power for applications that are installed on pServers. For pBlade locations, see Figure A.1 on page A-3.

The pServers use a remote I/O architecture that connects them to storage resources external to the system. The pBlades rely on their physical BladePlane connections (through host adapters), as well as their software interfaces, to create these I/O connections. The same hardware and software components provide the network connections.

Because the pServers have no peripherals or console ports, administrators work remotely (through Telnet, SSH clients, or the PAN Manager GUI). Remote management includes powering, booting, and shutting down the pServers.


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The configuration of a pBlade is identified by the part number, which takes the form S26361-K1xxx-Vyyy and is found either on the BladeLatch handle, or on the product ID label on the top of the pBlade chassis.

pBlade Physical Specifications

Table A.7 describes the physical specifications for a pBlade. Refer to the Fujitsu Technology Solutions website (http://support.ts.fujitsu.com) for the most up-to-date pBlade physical specifications, or contact Fujitsu Technology Solutions customer support.

Table A.7 pBlade Physical Specifications

Light Emitting Diode (LED) Indicators

Each blade has a light emitting diode (LED) indicator to identify the blade’s current state. Each LED uses two colors (amber and blue) and two states (blinking and solid) to identify the state of a



Weight 25 to 30 pounds / 11.3 to 13.6 kilograms



Customer replaceable

Yes

Hot-pluggable Yes

LED States Standby, Recognized, Active, Selected




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blade. All functioning and powered blades display one of four states, and progressively move through the first three states in the order shown in the following table.

Table A.8 LED States

The definition of the four states can differ based on the hosting blade, and the states can change with specific management software instructions. For a complete discussion of the LED indicators and their state information, see READ THIS FIRST: PAN Manager Configuration Guide.

Power

Basic and Redundant Power Input Modules

On a BladeFrame BF400 S2, Power Input Modules (PIMs) provide both basic (PIM-B) and redundant (PIM-R) power sources and attach to the spine on the rear of the chassis. You can configure either four PIM-Bs or four PIM-Rs.

• PIM-B -- The basic PIM has no active hardware or firmware. It is a completely passive unit. Each PIM-B has a single attached power cable, so a system configured with PIM-Bs has four power cables.

Blade State LED Color and Action

Standby Amber, blinking

Recognized Amber, solid

Active Blue, solid

Selected Blue, blinking


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• PIM-R -- The redundant PIM provides the ability to attach independent power feeds to the platform. Each PIM-R has two attached power cables for the independent power sources, so a platform configured with PIM-Rs has eight power cables.

The PIM-R also provides support for intelligent managed power. On a platform that has four PIM-Rs configured, you can use PAN Manager to configure a preferred power cord, and soft limits on current and voltage. You can also monitor the input voltage for each line, input frequency (Hz), output power and current, and the status of any power settings you have configured.

Both versions of the PIM are available in 20- and 30-amp configurations for North American and Japanese customers and 16- and 24-amp configurations for International customers.

For information about power domains, see “Power Domains”.

Power Domains On a BladeFrame BF400 S2, the BladePlane distributes power to four distinct sets of blades: each set is a power domain. By contrast, on a BladeFrame BF200, all blades (cBlades and pBlades) reside in a single power domain.

Power requirements for smaller configurations vary by the configuration and number of pBlades; however, administrators need to plug in all power cords before populating the chassis.

The PAN Manager software (GUI and CLI) allows administrators to monitor power. See the PAN Manager Administrator’s Guide for more information about power monitoring.

BladeFrame BF400 S2 Power Domains

A platform on which four PIM-Bs are configured requires four power cords; a platform on which four PIM-Rs are configured requires eight power cords.


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The power requirements vary by the pBlade processor architecture and the total number of pBlades. Customers in the United States and Japan can order a system chassis that has a 20- or 30-amp BladePlane. International customers can order 16- or 24-amp BladePlanes.

Administrators of 20-Ampere systems can combine the A and C, and B and D power domains into single domains that require only one power cord each. This allows the full system to be powered by two cords, not counting any cords required by optional PIM-Rs.

The A and B power domains and cords each power a set of the following:

• One cBlade

• One sBlade

• Six pBlades

The C and D power domains and cords power six pBlades each.

The following figure shows the power domains and their physical layout.


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Figure A.2 BladeFrame BF400 S2 Power Domains

BladeFrame BF200 Power Domain

On a BladeFrame BF200, all blades (cBlades and pBlades) reside in a single power domain. The power requirements vary by the pBlade processor architecture (two or four processors) and total number of pBlades. Customers in the United States can order a system chassis with 20- or 30-Ampere BladePlanes. International customers can order 16-Ampere BladePlanes.

Power Failure This section describes the effect of a power failure to the BladeFrame BF400 S2 and BladeFrame BF200.


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BladeFrame BF400 S2 Power Failure with PIM-Bs

In the event of a power failure to one or more cords or power domains, the following policies take effect:

• cBlade — A power failure to a domain (A or B) that includes a cBlade, causes the cBlade to fail over to the remaining cBlade, which assumes all I/O and management functions. A failure to both the A and B power domains disables the platform.

• sBlade — A power failure to a domain (A or B) that includes an sBlade causes the sBlade to fail over to the remaining sBlade, which assumes all switching functionality. A failure to both the A and B power domains disables the platform.

• pBlade — A power failure to any domain with a running pBlade initiates a pBlade failover, and implements the failover policy of the affected pServers.

BladeFrame BF400 S2 Power Failure with PIM-Rs

This section describes the effect of a power failure on a platform with PIM-Rs installed. In the event of a power failure to one or more cords or power domains, the following policies take effect:

• cBlade — A power failure to a domain (A or B) that includes a cBlade causes the PIM-R to fail over to its alternate power cord. If the alternate power cord fails, the cBlade fails over to the remaining cBlade, which assumes all I/O and management functions. A failure to all power cords of the A and B power domains disables the BladeFrame BF400 S2.

• sBlade — A power failure to a domain (A or B) that includes an sBlade causes the PIM-R to fail over to its alternate power cord. If the alternate power cord fails, the sBlade fails over to the remaining sBlade, which assumes all switching functionality. A failure to all power cords of the A and B power domains disables the BladeFrame BF400 S2.


A-18 PM5.2_BF

• pBlade — A power failure to any domain with a running pBlade causes the PIM-R to fail over to its alternate power cord. If the alternate power cord fails, the pBlade initiates a pBlade failover, and implements the failover policy of the affected pServers.

BladeFrame BF200 Power Failure

The BladePlane distributes power to all blades using one power cord. If an AC power failure occurs on that cord, the entire system will lose power. To avoid this situation, follow these guidelines:

• Equip the platform with a static transfer switch (STS) that provides redundant power.

• Connect the alternate power source that is fed through the STS to a separate AC power source, preferably an uninterruptable power supply.

Power Specifications

The following are the power specifications for the AC power cords provided with each BladeFrame BF400 S2 and BladeFrame BF200:

• 200/240 volts (tolerance: 180-264 VAC)

• 50/60 Hz (tolerance: 47-63 Hz)

• Auto-ranging

• Single phase

• 20 or 30 Amperes, depending on models

Cabling Requirements

Step A.9 on page A-19 and Table A.10 show the minimum and maximum number of cables required when installing a BladeFrame BF400 S2 or BladeFrame BF200, respectively.


PM5.2_BF A-19

Table A.9 BladeFrame BF400 S2 Cabling Requirements

Table A.10 BladeFrame BF200 Cabling Requirements

ConnectionMin. # ofCables

Max. # ofCables

Notes

Power 4 8 30- and 16-Ampere spines assumed, with each of four power domains being serviced by a redundant Power Input Module (PIM-R) for redundancy. Without redundancy, using basic Power Input Modules (PIM-Bs), the 30- and 16-Ampere systems can be powered by four cables. (For details about configuring PIMs, see the PAN Manager Administrator’s Guide.)

10/100/1000 Ethernet Mgmt ports

2 2 Each cBlade EX contains one 10/100/1000 management port for administration from a secure network.

Gigabit Ethernet ports

8 8 Eight Ethernet cables per BladeFrame BF400 S2 assumes a standard configuration of four Gigabit Ethernet ports on each cBlade. The Gigabit Ethernet connections can be either fibre or copper, depending on which small form factor pluggable modules (SFPs) are configured on these ports. (SFPs are not customer-replaceable; only Fujitsu Technology Solutions customer support can replace them.)

10/100/1000 Ethernet Ports

8 8 Assumes the presence of one four port PCI-X expansion NIC on each cBlade.

Fibre Channel (SAN) ports

8 8 Assumes four Fibre Channel SAN ports on each cBlade.

Connection Min. Max. Notes

Power 2 2 Redundancy assumed, with the BladeFrame BF200 being serviced by a Static Transfer Switch (STS). Without redundancy, BladeFrame BF200 can be powered by one cable.


A-20 PM5.2_BF

For More Information

For the most up-to-date cBlade physical specifications, cBlade configurations, and pBlade configurations, see the Fujitsu Technology Solutions website (http://ts.fujitsu.com) or contact Fujitsu Technology Solutions customer support.

10/100 Ethernet Mgmt ports

2 2 Each cBlade requires one 10/100 management port for administration from a secure network.

Gigabit Ethernet ports

2 4 Redundant connection is assumed, for a minimum of two cables. The Gigabit Ethernet connections can be either fibre or copper, depending on the installation of SFP (small form-factor plugs).

Fibre Channel (SAN) ports

2 4 Redundant connection is assumed, for a minimum of two cables.

Connection Min. Max. Notes

http://www.egenera.com

PM5.2_BF B-1

Appendix BGlossary

A

Active/Active Application Failover

A failover scenario in which an application that is running on one server fails over to another server that is running the same application.

Active/Passive Application Failover

A failover scenario in which an application that is running on one server fails over to another server that is waiting to handle the failure.

Administrative Domain

A collection of physical and/or virtual resources that are owned and accessed using an administrative role. The two administrative domains include:

• The PAN — For which there is the Administrator role

• LPAN — Each LPAN has an Administrator, Operator, and Monitor role


B-2 PM5.2_BF

See also Administrative Role, LPAN, PAN.

Administrative Permission

A specific non-configurable set of actions that can be performed by an administrative role. The three administrative permissions are:

• Configuration — Can create, configure, assign, and remove resources

• Control — Can start and stop system components

• Monitor — Can view the status of system components

See also Administrative Role.

Administrative Role

A named set of administrative permissions assigned to a PAN Manager user within an administrative domain. The three administrative roles are:

• Administrator — Configuration, Control, and Monitor permissions

• Operator — Control and Monitor permissions

• Monitor — Monitor permission

See also Administrative Domain, Administrative Permission.

Application Template

A set of executable scripts that provide all the required PAN Manager resources for an application. The scripts execute PAN Manager commands when the template is extracted into an LPAN.

Glossary

PM5.2_BF B-3

B

BIOS Basic Input/Output System. A cBlade and pBlade firmware component that provides boot services for the operating system, and controls the keyboard, display, and serial communications. See also Firmware.

Blade A modular hardware component that provides a high-performance and efficient replacement for an entire server or system. A platform in a PAN provides three distinct types of blades: cBlades, sBlades, and pBlades. On Fujitsu Technology Solutions platforms, all blades are hot-pluggable and hot-swappable.

See also cBlade, pBlade, sBlade, Platform, vBlade.

Blade Pool A set of pBlades or vBlades designated for use as primary or failover blades for pServers. Administrators can use pools to group pBlades or vBlades that have a similar architecture (32-bit, 64-bit) and performance (2-way, 4-way). PAN Manager can dynamically assign a blade from a pre-configured pool to a pServer. See also Global Pool, Local Pool.

BladeFrame See Platform.

BladePlane A component of the chassis that is made of high-speed serial fabric and provides the physical network inside the platform for connecting pBlades, cBlades, and sBlades. The BladePlane is commonly known as the spine.

Blind-mate Connection

A hardware connection that binds the blades to the BladePlane. The connection contains a series of progressively larger pins on the blades and pin receivers for the pins on the BladePlane.


B-4 PM5.2_BF

BMC Baseboard Management Controller. A cBlade and pBlade firmware component that records significant platform events in the Hardware Event Log (HEL) and the System Event Log (SEL). See also Firmware.

Broadcast Domain A network domain defined by the member nodes and their ability to communicate with each other. Broadcast domains can include servers that are internal or external to the PAN.

C

cBlade Control Blade. A blade that handles system and internal network management and provides pServers with access to external storage, external networks, and DVD-ROM drives.

The cBlade provides network access with Ethernet and storage access with Fibre Channel connections. Each platform contains two cBlades.

The cBlade models include:

• cBlade EX — Contains a two-way dual core AMD processor, high-speed SAN fabric bandwidth, and high Ethernet network throughput.

• cBlade ES — Contains a two-way SMP Intel processor and a cBlade switch.

cBlade Switch A component in the cBlade ES that provides point-to-point connectivity among all pBlades and each cBlade ES in the BladeFrame BF200.

Chassis The physical housing unit that racks and protects the blades.

Glossary

PM5.2_BF B-5

CLI Command Line Interface. A PAN Manager interface in which you enter commands from a cBlade command prompt.

CMOS Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor. A cBlade and pBlade firmware component that stores the date, time, and system setup parameters. See also Firmware.

Console A CLI or GUI window that provides a management interface to a pServer. Administrators can also open a console to a cBlade, either locally by connecting a laptop directly to the platform, or remotely by using utilities such as ssh and Telnet.

Control Blade (cBlade)

See cBlade.

D

Device ID The PAN Manager name of a disk device or tape device, which is chosen by the administrator. A device ID can be any ID chosen by the administrator. See also Unit.

Disaster Recovery Archive

See PAN Archive.

Disks One or more storage disk arrays, which can consist of components that are directly attached to the cBlades, components of a Storage Area Network (SAN), or components of Network Attached Storage (NAS).


B-6 PM5.2_BF

Domain A Virtual Machine (VM) running under control of the hypervisor on a pBlade. The hypervisor supports two types of domains:

• The hypervisor management domain (dom0) is created automatically when the hypervisor boots and runs the host operating system, which has special privileges and manages the other domains.

• Guest or unprivileged domains, also known as domU, run a guest operating system. Each vBlade maps to a specific guest domain.

See also Hypervisor, vBlade, VM, Xen.

E

EVBS Egenera Virtualized Boot Services. A new generation of the Remote BIOS product that is based on the Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI), a preboot technology developed by Intel that is expected eventually to replace BIOS. EVBS provides a boot environment that includes boot device emulation of CD, Storage Area Network (SAN), and Preboot Execution Environment (PXE) for pServers. See also PXE.

F

Failover To change data traffic from using the primary instances of hardware, software, or application components to using the redundant instances of the same component when a failure occurs.

Glossary

PM5.2_BF B-7

Failover Policy A feature of PAN Manager that governs how application services can continue to be provided in the event of an application, pServer, or pBlade failure. The failover policy specifies which pServers run the application service, in which order they are selected, and whether the application should return to its original pServer when that pServer returns.

Fibre Channel A set of standards for a serial I/O bus that is capable of transferring data between two ports. Fibre Channel supports point to point, arbitrated loop, and switched topologies.

Firmware The software that is embedded in the hardware devices on the cBlades and pBlades.

See also BIOS, BMC, CMOS, FRU Data, Option ROM.

Flow Control A PAN Manager feature that ensures all Ethernet broadcast traffic passes through the cBlade with guaranteed delivery. See also pServer to External Network Flow Control, and pServer to pServer Flow Control.

FRU Data Field Replaceable Unit Data. A cBlade and pBlade firmware component that contains descriptive information about the blade, including its part number and serial number. See also Firmware.

G

Global Pool A pBlade pool that is used by the whole PAN and from which pBlades can be allocated to pServers running in that PAN. A global pool spans LPANs: pBlades in a global pool can be allocated to pServers running in any LPAN.


B-8 PM5.2_BF

You cannot add vBlades to a global pool.

See also Local Pool.

GRUB GRand Unified Bootloader. A boot loader package that follows the multi-boot specification. With GRUB, administrators can select, boot, and pass boot-time parameters to different kernel images.

GRUB is the boot loader used with Linux guest operating systems running on vBlades. See also Guest Operating System.

Guest Operating System

An instance of an operating system that runs in a Virtual Machine (VM), as supported either by the vBlades feature and its XenServer hypervisor software, or by VMware ESX Server host software.

With the vBlades feature, a pServer runs on a vBlade under the control of the hypervisor. The guest operating system is also known as domU (unprivileged domain). For vBlades whose underlying pBlade has Intel VT-x or AMD-V virtualization technology, an unmodified operating system can run as a guest operating system. For vBlades whose underlying pBlade does not have virtualization technology, you must use guest operating systems from Fujitsu Technology Solutions that have been specially modified for use with Xen.

See also Domain, Host Operating System, Hypervisor, Live Migration, Resume, Suspend.

GUI Graphical User Interface. The PAN Manager interface in which you configure, monitor, and control the PAN’s physical and virtual resources. You access the PAN Manager GUI using a supported Internet browser.

Glossary

PM5.2_BF B-9

H

Hardware Prefetch A firmware option for pServers that minimizes latency by using the hardware features of certain pBlades to bring data and instructions into higher-speed memory before the processor needs them. The hardware prefetch option can improve the performance of pServers running Oracle applications. See also Hyperthreading, Node Interleaving.

HBA Host Bus Adapter. The hardware components on each cBlade that provide redundant access to the SAN.

Health Monitor The feature of the MON resource monitoring system in PAN Manager that allows administrators to monitor the health of applications and to automatically initiate application failover.

High Availability The set of hardware and software features that maximize the amount of time applications can run. PAN Manager provides resources for enabling two high-availability services: high-availability applications and load balancers.

Host Operating System

The underlying software that provides support for Virtual Machines (VMs) and their guest operating systems.

See also Domain, Guest Operating System.

Hot-swappable A property of a system component that allows administrators to insert it into a running system and have the system recognize and use it without restarting, or to remove it from a running system without taking down the system.


B-10 PM5.2_BF

Hyperthreading A firmware option for pServers that uses the Hyper-Threading Technology feature of certain Intel pBlades to improve the performance of multithreaded applications. See also Hardware Prefetch, Node Interleaving.

Hypervisor A special type of pServer that allows multiple guest operating systems to share one or more hardware processors on a pBlade. The guests can be single instances of different operating systems or multiple instances of the same operating system.

The hypervisor can be:

• a native pServer on which the host software (such as Citrix Systems XenServer or VMware ESX Server) supports VMs.

• part of the separately purchased vBlades option that is based on Xen technology, in which guest operating systems use virtual device drivers to access the vBlade processing resource on a pBlade.

See also Guest Operating System, Host Operating System, vBlade, Xen.

I

IPMS Intelligent Platform Management System. A messaging system within the platform that, along with other components, allows administrators to monitor hardware and to power on and off hardware. Components of the system include:

• Intelligent Platform Management Bus (IPMB)

• Intelligent Chassis Management Bus (ICMB)

• Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI)

Glossary

PM5.2_BF B-11

ISO Image A bootable disk image of an ISO 9660 file system. Administrators register ISO images in the PAN, and can insert them into and eject them from Virtual CD (VCD) devices. An ISO image and VCD provide a convenient alternative to physical media and media drives. See also VCD.

K

Kernel The core module of an operating system, which includes the system drivers and which manages subsystems such as I/O and memory allocation.

L

Live Migration To move a running pServer from one vBlade to another vBlade without shutting down the pServer. See also vBlade.

Local Pool A set of processing resources used by a specific LPAN and from which pBlades or vBlades can be allocated to pServers running in that LPAN.

The blades in a local pool cannot be allocated to pServers running in other LPANs. Administrators can link a local pool to a global pool, so PAN Manager can attempt to allocate a blade from the global pool if it cannot allocate the blade from the local pool. See also Global Pool.

LPAN Logical Processing Area Network. A secure logically isolated group of PAN resources, including pBlades, network connections, and storage. See also Maintenance LPAN.


B-12 PM5.2_BF

LUN Logical Unit Number. The SCSI identifier of a logical storage unit within a target.

LVS Linux Virtual Server. A load-balancing package distributed with Red Hat Linux, which allows administrators to distribute the request load between multiple servers based on an administrator-defined policy.

M

MAC Address Media Access Control Address. On conventional systems, a hardware address that uniquely identifies a component in a network. In PAN Manager, each of a pServer’s Virtual Ethernet (vEth) interfaces has a MAC address.

Maintenance LPAN

An LPAN for performing maintenance operations on hardware, such as updating firmware. When administrators remove blades or pools of blades from service, PAN Manager adds them to the maintenance LPAN. When the blades are returned to active service, PAN Manager removes them from the maintenance LPAN. The maintenance LPAN supports the same resources and features as any other LPAN. The maintenance LPAN (.maint) cannot be deleted. See also LPAN.

Media Drive A physical or virtual drive for booting and installing from removable media, such as a DVD-ROM drive or Virtual CD (VCD) drive. See also VCD.

Migration See Live Migration.

Glossary

PM5.2_BF B-13

Multipath A configuration for a data center I/O server that allows one or more servers to access data storage devices through multiple physical paths or connections. In PAN platforms, the multipath configuration extends this I/O redundancy outside of the platform to the SAN fabric.

N

NIC Network Interface Controller. An adapter circuit board installed in each cBlade that provides a physical connection to an external network.

Node Interleaving A firmware option for pServers that use the hardware features of certain pBlades to interleave a single page of memory from each processor at a time. Enabling node interleaving can improve the performance of pServers that run applications that do not support non-uniform memory access (NUMA), which concatenates all the memory from each processor in a single block. See also Hardware Prefetch, Hyperthreading.

O

Option ROM Option Read-Only Memory. A pBlade firmware component that stores the network fabric device driver. See also Firmware.


B-14 PM5.2_BF

P

PAN Processing Area Network. A distributed set of physical and virtual resources, including processors, disks, tapes, and network connections. These resources are both internal and external to a platform, and are bound into servers (pServers) through software.

PAN Agent A software process on the pBlade that performs management functions on behalf of PAN Manager. The PAN Agent provides health and performance monitors as well as graceful startup and shutdown of pServers, and support for high availability and load-balancing services.

PAN Archive A disaster recovery file that contains configuration information about a specific PAN. A PAN archive that is imported and swapped becomes the currently running PAN configuration. See also Disaster Recovery Archive.


The software that manages a platform and its hardware and software resources. PAN Manager provides a GUI and CLI for administrators, and an API for PAN Manager application programmers.

pBlade Processing Blade. A component of a platform that provides processing and memory capabilities. Each pBlade is an independent processing module.

pBlade Pool See Blade Pool.

Glossary

PM5.2_BF B-15

PED Precise Error Daemon. A daemon on the cBlade that monitors the events and state changes occurring on the platform, filters out extraneous error conditions that are expected behavior, and sends notable errors to the system log file /var/log/messages on the cBlades.

Persistent Reservation

An association between a set of SCSI initiator ports (that is, cBlade HBA ports) and a set of SCSI target ports (that is, SAN ports) that enables a pServer to control access to a disk device. SCSI-2 reservations control access between a single pServer and a disk (LUN). SCSI-3 reservations control access between pServers running as a Veritas or Microsoft cluster and one or more disks (LUNs) over any of the configured paths.

Platform The fundamental unit for organizing processing resources in a PAN. A platform consists of a set of pBlades, a redundant pair of cBlades, and a high-speed internal fabric or network connecting all the blades. Some platforms also have a redundant pair of sBlades, which offload I/O from the cBlades. Administrators can configure and deploy the platform's resources through software, without physical intervention.

Pool See Blade Pool.

Power Domain A set of blades that is powered through the BladePlane by a single power cord.

• Blades reside in four power domains on the BladeFrame BF400 S2: power domains A and B each consist of one cBlade, one sBlade, and up to six pBlades; power domains C and D each consist of up to six pBlades.

• All blades (cBlades and pBlades) on the BladeFrame BF200 reside in a single power domain (power domain A).


B-16 PM5.2_BF

Processing Area Network (PAN)

See PAN.

Processing Blade (pBlade)

See pBlade.

pServer The combination of a single pBlade or vBlade, an optional failover pBlade or vBlade, storage resources, a root file system, and network resources, all of which provide the capabilities of a conventional server.

See also Guest Operating System.

pServer to External Network Flow Control

A PAN Manager network resource configuration in which all data packets transmitted from one or more vEths that reside on one or more pServers is guaranteed to reach the cBlades’ NIC(s). See also Flow Control and pServer to pServer Flow Control.

pServer to pServer Flow Control

A PAN Manager network resource configuration in which all data packets transmitted from the internal broadcast mechanism of each cBlade is guaranteed to reach the vEths on one or more pServers. See also Flow Control and pServer to External Network Flow Control.

PXE Preboot Execution Environment. An environment provided with EVBS to bootstrap pServers from a vEth that connects to a remote PXE server. With PXE booting, administrators can use a variety of PXE-based provisioning and deployment tools for pServer installations. These tools automate the installation and configuration of operating systems and applications in the PAN. See also EVBS, vEth.

Glossary

PM5.2_BF B-17

R

Rate Control To limit, if necessary, the rate of network traffic for each vEth that resides on a pServer.

Redundant Ethernet (rEth)

See rEth Interface.

Resource Map An XML file that describes the mapping of resources from a PAN archive to the currently running PAN configuration.

Resource Mapping The operations associated with applying a PAN archive’s resource map to the currently running PAN configuration. Resource mapping occurs when the PAN archive is validated prior to or after the import operation occurs.

Resume To resume the execution of a pServer running on a vBlade at the same point where its execution was previously suspended. See also Suspend.

rEth Interface Redundant Ethernet interface. A software entity composed of two physical Ethernet interfaces, one on each cBlade. A rEth can dynamically balance incoming and outgoing network traffic. If one member of the rEth fails, the other member assumes all incoming and outgoing network traffic.

Pronunciation: “wreath” interface.

Root Disk Image The bootable image of a Linux pServer as installed on a PAN disk.


B-18 PM5.2_BF

S

SAN Storage Area Network. A network whose primary purpose is the transfer of data between computer systems and storage devices. A SAN consists of a communication infrastructure, which provides physical connections, and a management layer that organizes the connections, storage elements, and computer systems so that data transfer is secure and robust.

SAN storage is typically shared among more than one server and networked with high-speed Fibre Channel connections.

sBlade Switch Blade. A component in the platform that provides point-to-point network connectivity among all pBlades and cBlades.

SCSI Small Computer System Interface. The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) standard used by many computer and device manufacturers to transfer data. See also Persistent Reservation.

Security Domain See Administrative Domain.

SNMP Simple Network Management Protocol. A PAN Manager feature that supports the standard SNMP protocol to allow PAN Manager administrators to manage PAN entities. PAN Manager supports SNMP version 1 (SNMPv1) and SNMP version 2 (SNMPv2c).

Spine See BladePlane.

Glossary

PM5.2_BF B-19

STONITH Shoot The Other Node In The Head. The act of one cBlade disabling or shutting down the other. This feature ensures that a cBlade is shut down and cannot send conflicting information or write to data storage.

Suspend To suspend the execution and save the run-time state of a pServer on a vBlade. See also Resume.

Switch Blade (sBlade)

See sBlade.

Switched Point-to-Point Architecture

The internal network and I/O architecture of the platform. All node-to-node and node-to-storage traffic passes through each sBlade.

T

Trap A message sent from an SNMP agent to an SNMP manager to inform the manager of an event. PAN SNMP agents send traps for events, such as inserting and removing blades or booting and shutting down a pServer.

Trigger A numerical threshold value used by the statistical monitors of system processes on a pBlade, LPAN, or platform to define when an event occurs. For example, CPU utilization may be configured with a trigger of 80%. If the CPU utilization monitor exceeds 80%, a CPU utilization event is generated.

Trunking To partition a Gigabit Ethernet NIC into multiple private and secure channels.


B-20 PM5.2_BF

U

Unit The pServer disk identifier (X.0) for a disk, tape, CD, or Virtual CD (VCD) device. See also Device ID.

Uplink A connection from a networking device, such as a vSwitch, switch, or hub, to a network or broadcast domain, such as a rEth.

V

vBlade Virtual Blade. A software partition of a pBlade that splits the pBlade into independent logical processing resources. A vBlade inherits the CPU architecture from its pBlade, and you can use it in most contexts where you use a pBlade. An Administrator uses PAN Manager to create a vBlade. See also Hypervisor, pBlade.

VCD Virtual CD. A virtual media drive that is allocated to a pServer and can boot ISO images. Administrators can insert any ISO image that has been registered in the PAN into the VCD and eject it when finished. VCDs and ISO images provide a convenient alternative to physical media and media drives. See also ISO Image.

vEth Virtual Ethernet (pronunciation: “veeth”). A software Ethernet interface created using PAN Manager. A vEth interface functions like a physical NIC, and is the means by which a pServer connects to a vSwitch (and therefore, to a network).

Virtual Blade (vBlade)

See vBlade.

Glossary

PM5.2_BF B-21

Virtualization Hardware

Specific pBlade models that include Intel Virtualization Technology (VT-x). For vBlades whose underlying pBlade has this virtualization hardware, any unmodified operating system can run as a guest operating system. Otherwise, you must use guest operating systems from Fujitsu Technology Solutions that have been specially modified for use with Xen. See also Guest Operating System, vBlade, Xen.

VM Virtual Machine. One of multiple discrete execution environments on a single pServer, each of which runs an operating system.

See also Hypervisor, vBlade, Xen.

VMM Virtual Machine Monitor. See Hypervisor.

vSwitch Virtual Switch. A software switch created through PAN Manager. Administrators can network pServers by connecting two or more pServers to the same vSwitch.

X

Xen (pronunciation: “Zen”) An open-source virtual machine monitor that enables the execution of multiple guest operating systems on the same computer. PAN Manager integrates Xen technology in its hypervisor option and vBlade feature. Xen provides secure isolation, resource control, quality-of-service guarantees, and live migration of virtual machines (also known as guest operating systems). See also Guest Operating System, Host Operating System, Hypervisor, Live Migration, vBlade, Virtualization Hardware.


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PM5.2_BF Index-1

A

active ports 5-4active/passive LUNs 5-4administrative roles/permissions 2-12applications

health monitors 2-9, 6-5templates 6-5

applying resource maps 2-14assigning MAC addresses 4-5automatic disk discovery 5-4

B

benefits of multipath 5-5BIOS 7-3BladeFrame ES, specifications A-1BladeFrame EX

chassis A-2power requirements A-14specifications A-1

BladePlane 1-2, A-5block I/O services 5-1boot options 3-7broadcast domains 1-10, 4-4, 4-5

C

cabling A-18cache, cBlades A-7cBlades 1-2

configurations A-7description A-6failover 2-10operating system 7-6ports 1-4, A-6power failure A-17software 7-2, 7-8specifications A-8switches A-11

chargebacks 2-15chassis A-2, A-4CLI commands 2-4console 2-5, A-8Control Blades as I/O servers 5-3

D

datauninterrupted access to 5-4

data transfer 5-1deleting PAN archives 2-15

Index


Index-2 PM5.2_BF

DHCP configuration 4-6dimensions A-4disabling

generic multipath software 5-5disaster recovery 2-13discovery disk resource 5-4disk scan 5-4disks 1-9

application failover 6-5LPAN resources 3-3mapping 3-6maximum number 1-15

domains 2-11DVD-ROM drives 3-4dynamic disk discovery 5-4

E

environment variables 6-5Ethernet ports 1-4, 5-4, A-6, A-7, A-18events 2-8executable resources 6-5exporting PAN archives 2-14

F

failover 5-6applications 6-2cBlades 2-10configuring 3-6PAN Manager 2-10policies 6-2, 6-4

Fibre Channel HBAs 1-8Fibre Channel ports 1-4, 1-8, A-6, A-7,

A-18fibre channel ports 5-4firewalls 4-5

firmware 7-3flow control 4-7footprint dimensions A-4

G

generic multipath software 5-5Gigabit Ethernet ports 1-4, A-6, A-7,

A-18global pools 1-13, 1-15GUI for PAN Manager 2-2

H

hardware A-1hardware resources 5-2HBAs 1-3

Fibre Channel 1-8health monitors 6-5high availability 5-4

I

I/O clientspServers as 5-3

I/O load balancing 5-4I/O servers

Control Blades as 5-3image archive 2-15importing PAN archives 2-14installation options 7-7Intelligent Platform Management

Interface (IPMI) 7-4internetworking 4-5IP 4-6IPMI 7-4

Index

PM5.2_BF Index-3

IPMS 7-4

L

least connected policy 6-3LED indicators A-12listing PAN archives 2-14load balancing 5-5

policies 4-6local pools 1-13, 1-15, 3-3Logical Processing Area Networks

(LPANs) 5-2LPAN resources 5-2

Processing Blades 5-2SAN storage 5-2

tapes 5-2Virtual Ethernet (vEth) interfaces

5-2LPANs 1-12

administrative roles 2-12, 2-13description 3-2maximum number 1-15security domain 2-11SNMP agent 2-9

LUNsactive/passive 5-4primary/secondary 5-4

LVS package 6-2

M

MAC addresses 4-5management ports A-8map all disk subpaths 5-5mapping disks and tapes 3-6master identity 2-10memory, cBlades A-7

merging PAN archives 2-15MIBs 4-6monitoring

application health 2-9events 2-8health and status 6-5power and temperature 7-5SAN I/O 2-9third-party tools 2-10

multipathbenefits 5-5, 5-6benefits of

failover 5-6load balancing 5-5redundancy 5-6simple configuration 5-6

configuring 5-6generic 5-5

disabling 5-5on pBlade 5-5third-party 5-5using 5-5

multipath (overview) 5-4

N

networking 4-1NICs 4-4resources 6-4security 4-8

NFS resources 6-5NICs 1-10, 4-4

configuring for VLANs 4-5optimizing rEths 4-7packet filtering 4-8

no single point of failure 5-5


Index-4 PM5.2_BF

O

operating systemscBlades 7-2host and guest 3-3installation 7-8pBlades 7-3restrictions 2-7supported versions 7-5

ordered policy 6-4

P

PAN 1-1, 1-6administrative roles 2-12networking 4-1security domain 2-11size guidelines 1-14SNMP agent 2-9

PAN Administrator 5-2PAN Agent 7-4PAN and SAN architectures

confluence of 5-3PAN architecture 5-3PAN archives 2-13, 2-14PAN Manager 5-3, 7-3

definition 1-5description 2-1events 2-8failover 2-10GUI and CLI 2-2

pBlades 1-2description A-11failover 3-6I/O 1-8LPAN resources 3-3operating systems 7-6power failure A-17, A-18

selecting 3-6software installation 7-8

permissions 2-12PIMs A-13, A-14, A-18pools

description 3-5failover 3-6global 1-13local 1-13maximum number 1-15selecting 3-6

portsactive 5-4Ethernet 5-4Fiber Channel 1-8fibre channel 5-4

powercord specifications A-18domains A-14, A-18failure A-16monitoring 7-5

primary/secondary LUNs 5-4Processing Area Network (PAN) 5-2processors, cBlades A-7pServers 1-7, 1-9

boot options 3-7connecting to vSwitches 4-5description 3-6maximum number 1-15operating systems 7-6scripts 6-5software installation 7-8

pServers as I/O clients 5-3

R

rate control 4-7

Index

PM5.2_BF Index-5

RCC 2-15redundancy 5-6redundant I/O 5-5remote I/O 1-8remote management 1-8renaming PAN archives 2-14resource discovery 5-4resource maps 2-14restrictions 2-7rEths 1-11, 4-7round-robin policy 6-2, 6-4routing 4-5

S

SANoverview 5-2

SAN (defined) 5-1SAN architecture 5-3SAN I/O monitoring 2-9saving PAN configurations 2-14sBlades 1-2

description A-10power failure A-17specifications A-10

scheduling PAN archive backups 2-14security domains 2-11security, network 4-8Single Send/Receive policy 4-7slave identity 2-10SNMP 2-9, 4-6software versions 2-6specifications A-1storage resources, configuring and

displaying 5-3swapping

PAN archives 2-14

T

tapes 1-9application failover 6-5LPAN resources 3-3mapping 3-6maximum number 1-15

templates, HA applications 6-5trunking 1-11

U

uplinks 4-3using multipath 5-5

V

validating PAN archives 2-14vBlades 1-8, 1-9, 1-15, 3-3VBS 1-7VCD 1-9versions, of software 2-6vEths 1-10, 1-11, 4-3

maximum number 1-15viewing PAN archives 2-15virtual components 1-6, 1-14virtual VGA console 2-5virtualized boot services 1-7VLANs 1-11, 4-5vSwitches 1-10, 1-11, 4-3

connecting to pServers 4-5creating 4-5LPAN resources 3-3maximum number 1-15uplinks 4-3


Index-6 PM5.2_BF

W

weighted least-connected policy 6-3

weighted round-robin policy 6-2

Documents

PAN Manager Technical Overview - Fujitsumanuals.ts.fujitsu.com/file/3643/bf200-400_pan-tech-ov-en.pdf · Chapter 2: PAN Manager ... Switch Blades ... PAN Manager Technical Overview