Starting at the Top of the Hour V2 © IBM Corporation, 2020 1

7/7/2020

AIX User Meeting 1

Starting at the top of the hour V2 © IBM Corporation, 2020 1

AIX User Meeting 1 https://ibm.webex.com/meet/nag

Regular Sections in the following areas: 1. Recent News 2. AIX releases you should be running! 3. What you really need to know about ... 4. Interesting information sources 5. Questions: That we have answered in the last few weeks! 6. Can you help? Perhaps you know answers or techniques that IBM does not. 7. Fun facts or favourite features!

1 7/7/2020

AIX User Meeting 1 https://ibm.webex.com/meet/nag

Website https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/aix-user-meetings

No pre-announcements – Once Announced: YES No official statements Yes: Technical Techie Talk

Informal chat – these are Nigel’s opinions Will try leaving the microphones open - so you can ask questions - Unless we have too many people

Shorter 5 to 10 minute topics, with where to get more information © IBM Corporation, 2020 3

AIX njmon (& nmon) user meeting & user meeting

Aimed at hands-on AIX System admin, Aimed at AIX and Linux AIX operations & architects performance monitoring techies

We are going to keep this simple We are going to keep this simple - Just turn up - Just turn up - Next event: - Next event: - Monday 6th July 2020 - Monday 6th July 2020 - 3 pm BST - 4:30 pm BST (British Summer Time = UTC+1) (British Summer Time = UTC+1) - Browse to - Browse to https://ibm.webex.com/meet/nag https://ibm.webex.com/meet/nag - To be recorded for replay - To be recorded for replay

2 7/7/2020

AIX User Meeting 1 Recent News

1. Between POWER9 and POWER10 server ranges POWER10 not in 2020

2. History proves AIX and VIOS updates in Q4 each year So July is a low point for New Stuff . . . how-ever . . .

3. AIX joins the Ansible club – next 2 slide

AIX top page 1. http://ibm.biz/AIXoperationsystem or direct 2. https://www.ibm.com/it-infrastructure/power/os/aix

3 7/7/2020

AIX top page 1. http://ibm.biz/AIXoperationsystem or direct 2. https://www.ibm.com/it-infrastructure/power/os/aix

ibm.biz/AIXforum for questions & suggestions ibm.biz/AIXtoolbox for downloads ibm.biz/AIXtoolboxforum for questions & suggestions

4 7/7/2020

ibm.biz/AIXforum  AIX plus Ansible

Now Announced : AIX does Ansible and even runs it

1. New AIX modules are now in Ansible Galaxy - Carl Burnett • Public Open Source https://galaxy.ansible.com/ibm/power_aix

2. The Open Source Ansible RPM is on the AIX Open Source Toolbox

3. Red Hat Ansible Certified Content for IBM Power Systems - Carl Burnett • With Red Hat Full Support – for a fee. More details here: • https://www.ansible.com/integrations/infrastructure/ibm-power-systems

• Hopefully more next meeting . . .

AIX User Meeting 1 AIX releases you should be running

5 7/7/2020

AIX 5.3  no In Nigel’s Opinion 2020

AIX 6.1  no or moving off soon [performance limited: SMT=4] AIX 6.1 standard support stopped April 2017 at an additional fee Extended Support ends April 2020 at an additional fee Extended Support on POWER7 ends Sept 2020 ( 3 months) POWER7+ ends Dec 2021 (18 months) POWER8 ends April 2022 (22 months) AIX 7.1  TL5 only - latest is sp6 Extended support costs start next year 

Please Run AIX 7.2 TL2 (until Oct 2020) , TL3 or TL4 sp5 sp4 sp2

In Nigel’s Opinion 2020

VIOS 2.2.* = AIX 6 based 1 End-of-standard Support ~November 2020 2 Extended Support fee from then on (for ~18 months)

Upgrade to 3.1. 1 Upgrade Best Practice web page 2 https://ibm.com/support/pages/upgrading-vios-31 Please Run

6 7/7/2020

AIX User Meeting 1 Interesting Topics

1. New POWER9 LPAR modes 2. Enabling POWER9 hardware based Gzip Acceleration

Details from my colleague in Advanced Technology: Gareth Coates Tricks of the Power Masters landing page: https://ibm.biz/PowerTricks = https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/1116939

1. New POWER9 LPAR modes https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/6243336 2. Enabling POWER9 hardware based Gzip Acceleration https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/6243342 © IBM Corporation, 2020 13

AIX User Meeting 1 Interesting information sources

Me  1. My njmon project: http://tinyurl.com/njmon 2. Twitter: @mr_nmon 3. YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/nigelargriffiths 4. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nigel-griffiths 5. AIXpert Blog: https://ibm.biz/AIXpertBlog 6. User Groups: https://ibm.biz/PowerVUG and http://ibm.biz/powersystemsvug

7. Gareth Twitter: @power_gaz 8. Gareth LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gareth-coates-3b58a1144 © IBM Corporation, 2020 14

7 7/7/2020

AIX User Meeting 1 Questions: Why does nmon online peak to over Entitlement but the nmon-analyser report very much lower values?

Hour by hour Minute by minute Second by second Sub Second by Sub second

8 7/7/2020

AIX User Meeting 1 Can you help? PLEASE!

Older Open Source RPM packages don’t mix with the new AIX Toolbox RPMS 1. Been told stop workloads 2. Remove all the older RPMs completely 3. Add Yum from the official YUM Bundle 4. Add the RPMs you removed but only from the AIX Toolbox 5. Life is good

Any one tried it or could try it?

Default install of AIX has some RPMs – anyone got a list?

AIX User Meeting 1 Fun facts or favourite features!

1. Did you know? cp and mv are the same program 2. I got them both improved ~10 years ago 3. Was doing 4KB I/O for copying = slow for large files 4. But computer memory has grown in last 25 years by a factor of 1 million 5. 1 MB buffer and I/O is no longer waste of resources

9 7/7/2020

Questions: How to raise AIX’s profile in 2020?

How to explain all the brilliant features of AIX to newbies?

How to remind the “old guys” who take a lot for granted!

10 7/7/2020

AIX Best Bits:2017 poll Top 8 features

Observations: Some are POWER hardware features that AIX fully exploits!

Had a few 1000 votes but in 2020 conferences cancelled!

AIX 32 Best Bits: https://ibm.biz/AIXpertBlog then find “AIX Best Bits” Intro & Results

AIX in Focus on YouTube

11 7/7/2020

LKU ??? Live Kernel Update

Own Own AIX in HW AIX in Own Series Series Focus Series Focus Series

AIX in AIX in AIX in AIX in Soon Focus AIX in AIX in Focus Focus Focus Focus Focus

AIX in AIX in Own AIX in AIX in HW Focus Focus Series Focus Focus Series

Own AIX in AIX in AIX in HW Soon Series Focus Focus Focus Series

12 7/7/2020

Project: AIX in Focus Missing Best Bits: - AME update Have HW (which AIX fully exploits) videos on - AIX Open Source Toolbox - PowerVM Series (Power Basics) - Advanced ‘o’ commands - PowerVC series - PowerSC - XIVE - Dynamic LPAR* - Simplified Remote Restart* - Scalability - Loads on performance/tuning + nmon* - Field Hardening AIX related topics Series - Shared Storage Pools - First Failure Data Capture - Workload Partitions (WPAR) - Enterprise Pools (don’t have one) Not covered - PowerHA (no skills) -Ideas Welcome

End of Message Next meeting: - Thank you for your time 3rd August 2020 This was an experiment! - Worth Repeating? At 4:30 pm BST today njmon & nmon Meeting Feedback + ideas welcome: [email protected] or @mr_nmon or LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nigel-griffiths

Volunteer speakers: 5 to 10 minutes!