Q: Can You Provide the URL for the Wiki?
Questions Log C:\FTSS\Webinars\2018-2-22 POWER9\QuestionsLog 2018_02_22 09_56.rtf
Q: Can you provide the URL for the Wiki?
A:
Q: do we have 24 cores SMT4 for Power9 with AIX?
A: POWER9 Scale-Out are fused cores only, so two 12 core chips in the S922 or S924 for AIX and IBMi and Linux.
Q: One question about Meltdown/Spectre : Is Power9 meltdown/spectre vulnerable ? Is Microcode fix needed ?
A: Yes, there are Server Firmare and OS fixes to apply.
A: S922 is available in 4c, 8c, 10c, 16c, and 20c options (16 and 20 core options need both sockets populated to get that many cores).
Q: Will IBM provide rPerf and CPW values for each machine?
A: rPerf and CPW numbers are supposed to be out next week
Q: Are the new slices fundamentally different from segregating the different types of units in the old architecture?
A: There are lots more components in the CPU core to run the threads, so higher concurrent threads = performance.
Q: Is there a built-in solution in P9 for Meltdown risk, or just the performance degraded with the firmware fix to avoid the vulnerability?
A: Meltdown/Sceptre happened far to late in the POWER9 design and manufacturing cycle to be fixed in the processor. It takes 6 years to get a new chip out the door.
Q: any benchmarks available for the meltdown/spectre-fixes, instead of depending on usage?
A: Nope and it is highly application dependant. No single number helps.
Q: what does WOF stand for?
A: Workload Optimized Frequency
Q: Maximum adaptor can take the benefit of Gen4? How IBm can take benefit of Gen4?
A: Most current adapters run at line speed with GEN3. So POWER9 will get most of the POWER8 adapters. Some like 100 Mb IB got faster with GEN4 but adding GEN4 now at the start of POWER9 we are future proofing for the next 3 years.
Q: Maximum adaptor can not take the benefit of PCI Gen4? How IBm can take benefit of Gen4?
A: At this time there are a limited number of PCIe Gen4 adapters, ex Infiniband, CAPI, etc.., but as more come avaialble, the POWER9 systems wil be able to leverage them
Q: Will running in Ultra mode shorten the life or lead to a shorter MTBF?
A: Nope - it still operates in the safe temperature envelope.
Q: What is the release date for S922 and S924?
A: Planned availability date is March 20th.
Q: When in Dynamic mode, can anyone view where you are performing ie ultra or nominal?
A: On AIX lparstat %nsp tells you the speed relative to Nominal GHz i.e. 115% is 15% overclocking 70% means clocking down to save electricity.
Q: smaller nvme drives available?
A: Not at this time
Q: Is power 9 available in IBM Softlayer?
A: Not that I am aware of.
Q: You said don't use NMVe for DB?
A: You certainly can use NVME for a database, as long as you understand its operational characteristics. NVME is an interesting technology, both fast data access, NVME as a mem extension, and NVME fabric for interconnect.
Q: For Ultra WOF, will it run on ALL cores at this frequency or to get to Ultra, does it shut down cores to obtain?
A: Yes and no, all CPUs can go faster but if the temperature rises to high they get clocked down a bit. If only some are overclocking and some near nominal or power saving then it can maintain the fast cores. No cores are getting switched off. Its all dynamic. They will also clock down if there is too much power draw, so you are more likely to run at Ultra frequencies if there are cores not being used, but doesn’t require that.
Q: can you LVM mirror across 1 NVMe in one slot and 1 NVMe in the other slot for best availability?
A: They just looks and operates like a disk. So yes.
Q: I thought the purpose of NVMe is to provide faster data access
A: Correct. They are something like 4 to 6 times faster than SSD - from reading on the WWW. Not tested it myself yet.
Q: Are images suitable fore copying to memory stick currenly available at ESS website. I thought all they had were ISO files for DVD..
A: You will see a chart later in the presentation that has the new information .
Q: On thNVMe, since its attached to the SAS adapter, are they still capable of being raided?
A: Umm!! no SAS in here. Its SAS or NVMe.
Q: The response on how to view what Dynamic mode and frequency came across garbled. Came across as "On AIX lparstat %nsp"
A: No it did not. The lparstat command outputs a percent nsp column (%nsp).
Q: Do you see embedded versions of P9 for other applications/increase its exposure to the market?
A: That is exactly what the OpenPOWER Consortium is there to do.
Q: Will rPerf be using Maximal or Nominal, Workload Optimized Frequency?
A: We are all waiting for the numbers.
Q: What are the different nominal clock speeds for the different core counts
A: GHz are coming up on a chart real soon now . . .
Q: What is S & L stand for again? H is for Hana got it!
A: S=Scale out, L=Linux only
Q: FYI: The Samsung Polaris controller in the higher-end commodity NVMe drives can do 384k IOPS. For the person asking about NVMe perf.?
A: Thanks - I think :-)
Q: Has the PVU rating been announced? I'm sure hoping the cores in the S924 will stay at 70.
A: Sorry, I have not seen PVUs yet.
Q: What is RDX Media bay ?
A: A disk drive used for backup
Q: So with LVM mirroring and both slots (4 x NVMe) populated, you can boot 2 separate LPARs...correct
A: You can boot four difference operating systems. Unlike hard disks the four NVMe devices can be assign to different LPARs.
Q: What does RDX stand for?
A: Wikipedia says Removable Disk Technology
Q: Any more detail on the "Embedded Analytics and Algorithms"?
A: If that question is about WOF then it is largely marketing hype!!
Q: Who uses the RDX Media bay?
A: Customer requiring a simple backup device - normally in a very small computer room without network or SAN backup.
Q: Is Power-AI supported on Power9?
A: Not yet, but coming in April
Q: Thank you for the clarification - I was expecting an option to lparstat and you meant the command by itself then look for
A: Ah! Ok my fault - I was watching it this morning and assuming everyone does :-)
Q: Can all existing Adapters go in all the Slots regardless of Slot type x8, x16, Gne3, Gen4?
A: Check the adapter placement guide - just like POWER9. Some high spped adapters need the faster or higher x8/x16 ratings.
Q: with the 12-core processor, can just 1 socket be populated, or must both be populated as was on the S824?
A: One or two socket sockets and field upgradable for the S924. I thought that was true for POWER8
Q: Can the NVMe Flash boot adapters be used for IBMi load source?
A: If load source directly = boot disk NO. IBM i does not support NVMe at this release. It wll come up on the IBM i slides. However, you could virtualize the NVMe disk through the VIOS and then boot IBM i from it.
Q: With the S824 using the 18 drive backplane, there was the additional 8 x 1.8" SSD bay slots. It wasn't clear, it doesn't look like that is available on the S924, just the 18 drive backplane.
A: No 1.8 inch disk drives (credit cards) in POWER9.
Q: I could not find the POWER9 Adapter Placement Guide. Is it available somewhere at this time?
A: Be patience on the documentation - it was only announce a week ago!
Q: back to the boot-option for multiple lpars. Will there be an option to boot from different images per nmve-card?
A: It works just like a disk drive.
Q: I'm sure he will provide this, will these servers run Linux BE? Thinking of SAP environments that maybe have RHEL 6.5 or SLES 11 or even RHEL 7.2 BE. They may want to host those while also moving forward with Linux LE.
A: Linux version and BE/LE supported will come up later.
Q: S824 gave you a total of 35 slots including EJ08. in order to get only 26 slots on S924, are we going to get a discount on the EMX0? Cos you have to buy the entire drawer but only be able to use half of it?
A: Very funny.
Q: Can the NVMe adapters be used as normal disks if required? Instead of boot device
A: yes
Q: with the 12-core processor, can just 1 socket be populated, or must both be populated as was on the S824?
A: Arh I did not notice the 12 cores - yes both sockes.
Q: Joe just answered the 12-core question...no single socket
A: Thanks for the correction - with lowernumbers of cores you can get 1 socket and field upgrade.
Q: How do you make the 4TB memory in the S924? When I calculate it I get only 2 TB?
A: 32 slots x 128G max DIMM = 4T
Q: You mentioned NVlink at 150 GB/s earlier. Was that for Water Cooled models only? I believe (if I recall correctly) the speed is limited to 100 GB/s for Air Cooled models
A: You are, of course, talking about the very different AC922 server and not Scale-Out
Q: Can it be managed by vHMC?
A: Yes
Q: So - where are the Visio Stencils?
A: Not available.
Q: Will the Enterprise edition launch this year?
A: Enterprise systems are scheduled for second half of the year.
Q: is the "peak memory bandwith" influenced with the amount of installed DIMMs or the running MHz rate?
A: Yes
Q: To add 1 external IO drawer do we need to install 2 adapters on the main system?
A: each IO drawer is split into 2 separate healves, each half is conneted to an optical-controller card in teh system unit. So, for each half drawer you need one PCIe optical connector adapter in the system unit.
Q: What is RDX docking station?
A: Removeable disk pack. Often used as a cheap'n'cheerful backup device.
Q: What is RDX docking station?
A: It's where the RDX drive sits if internal. Can also attach an external RDX docking station to USB adapter.
Q: Back to the memory speed and # of DIMMs to plug...how is max cpu-memory bandwidth obtained then...sounds like NOT with all DIMMs plugged...?
A: Performance numbers are not yet available.
Q: Joe mentioned about have all the lines populated...is that the factor...can more explanation be provided?
A: Performance number are not available.
Q: It seems that the best practice of populating all DIMM slots for max cpu-memory bandwidth does not apply on these S9xx machines...or am I confused?
A: DIMM clock rates go down a bit as the DIMM size gets larger, but the total CPU-Mem bandwidth is limited if you don't populate all memory slots, ie, if 1/2 the slots are populated, you only get 1/2 the memory conmtroller connections engaged.
Q: Which one is enterprise model? Maximum number of cores supported?
A: Enterprise models have not been announced yet. These are all scale out models
Q: So you can split the NVMe adapters across backplane? So one on each side. Like dual VIOS boot one from each.
A: Hi Shawn, I think that is possible.
Q: Strange question, but can someone order a rack-mount I/O Drawer WITH the TOWER version of the S914? We have a client requesting that. Is it possible?
A: Probably or purchase as two separate orders. Ask your IBMer to run eConfig.
Q: He many cores can we allocate on a S914 & S924 for IBM i
A: No limits that I am aware of.
Q: If we deconfigure the core, the power requirement of server goes down?
A: I would not skimp on the power supplies.
Q: many cores can we allocate on a S914 & S924 for IBM i
how many cores can we allocate on a S914 & S924 for IBM i. Do we still have the limitation of 4 IBM i cores on the S914?
A: There isn't a limit of 4 cores on the S914.
Q: Is the tower model available on all 3 core configurations of S914; 4-6-8 cores? Will there be an upgrade kit to convert a rack to a tower, later in the field if needed?
A: Recommended to get this right first time. Not heard of a separate conversion kit.
Q: If we deconfigure the core, the power requirement of server goes down?
A: Nominally - yes. Deconfigure via an ordering feture doesn't electrically disabel and turn the core off, it limits how many cores are active foryou to use.
Q: If we deconfigure the core, the power requirement of server goes down?
A: A core that is idling will use less power, but not zero
Q: For the previous question about how many cores to run IBM i - I wonder if that question was meant to reference the S822. When it first came out, it limited the VM size to 4 cores and using VIOS. Could that be what they were asking about?
A: The S922 will have the same limitation
Q: RDX - Backup device, can i run spectrum protect and take backup/archieve data?
A: RDX is only 2TB and disk can get to 100's of GB so it will not scale well as its just one drive per server.
Q: Is the frequency just shown for the 4-6-8 core also the Turbo frequency and NOT the nominal frequency? Surprised that the Turbo is 2.3 GHz which means the nominal is likely 2.0 to 2.1 GHz. I recall the S814 4-core at 3.0 GHz only bumped up to turbo around 150-200 MHz.
A: The servers have two GHz. First is the Dynaminc performance (Joe called this Turbo) and the higher number is Max Perfromance (Joe called this Ultra).
Q: If we deconfigure the core, the power requirement of server goes down? Just to define sustained power consumption of system, I will not reduce/change the input power supply.
A: To a limited degree, yes, the power consumption may go down, as an idle core doesn't consume as much power as one runnig at full speed with work on it. How much of a reduction is something we'd have to dig into for a more complete answer.
Q: Is a Model L924 planned?
A: Not announced.
Q: HANA comes with AIX also in power 9?
A: The "H" servers are for SAP-HANA which is a Linux workload but you are allowed to use up to 25% for AIX. The machine wil be running PowerVM LPAR mode.
Q: S?
A: Scale out
Q: Slot C10 is by default for Network Adapter in P9. True?
A: eConfig throws in one simple Network adapter which you can change.
Q: Which HyperVisors are supported on Linix version?
A: PowerVM only at this release.
Q: Is that for AIX and OS400 only?
A: You can also run Linux on S models
Q: Can I run Xen Hypervisor? Or KVM?
A: Xen only runs on Intel
Q: samsung is on the way to deliver 32TB SSDs - any plan's to enable those on power-systems?
A: We don't discuss future plans on public events.
Q: If the requirements are changed, can be transformed a system from H to S to be able work with more AIX or IBMi?
A: Nope
Q: Sorry, what is S for?
A: S = Scale-Out E = Enterprise = big
Q: No need to respond as I'm a BP (you probably see who :) ) and we don't know if there are competitors on here who are watching Q&A but the low frequency, especially on the S914 is disconcerting. We are seeing this across the portfolio. I really hope the improved latencies due to architecture design, shortened and improved pipeline really make a big difference. Frequencies can only go so high given current manufacturing limitations, etc.... Just hope it really does!
A: With my quick test the POWER9 is very fast even at lower GHz
Q: Is any particular reason that 12 cores both socket populated (must) but 10 and 8 cores can go for single socket?
A: Not a technical reason.
Q: Funny, the L922 comes with fused cores? Of course, yes. That means they are not two SMT-4 cores, but a Fat fused core SMT-8 on L922. Do I have the correctly?
A: Slim cores are on the OpenPOWER POWER9 Servers.
Q: PCIe Gen3 cards are allowed in PCIe Gen4 slots?
A: Correct. GEN4 slot can run at GEN3 speeds.
Q: so S=Scale out, L=Linux Only, E = Enterprise(big), H= ?
A: Hana
Q: On the S814 you could initially request an RPQ for the 110V for the rack mount version. Can an RPQ be requested for this on the S914?
A: An RPQ can always be asked for ( R=Request ), no gurantee that it will be fulfilled.
Q: Why do you need USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports for?
A: Install OS or VIOS - but they are USB3.0 on the machine.
Q: What does DWPD tell me, if I have no idea of what IBM assumes to be the lifetime on an SSD ?
A: You need to know the warranty period on the drive.
Q: Will I/O drawer for S924 change to Gen3 mode from Gen2?
A: Not talking about future products on a public webinar. Nice try
Q: Is the 24-core 'small' chip bi-endian as well?
A: Yes, but itsnot in these Scale-Out servers
Q: In simple terms, what does "Cloud enabled" on these systems mean?
A: The eConfig defaults in the PowerVC package.
Q: 4 High Speed 25Gb/s ports, Can we use it between two socket of Power9 to increase SMP bandwidth?
A: not sure what you want to acco,mplish. Ports ( for open capi ) are not chip-connections, don't run in the the SMP fabric layer signalling or clock domainn of the system, and would require a SW and messaging protocol to pass messages between endn points. Much slower( latency ) than SMP interconnect fabric.
Q: Fuse 2 cores, I expect 1.8 to 2 x performance in comparison to Power8?
A: Not correct. The Fused Core is like a POWER8 core but faster. As Slim core is half a POWER9 fused core.
Q: In POWER9 can you still do 5.3 WPAR?
A: Only if you already have it on POWER8 - it is not sold any longer.
Q: Can PCIe2 Adapters work in Gen3 & Gen4 Adapter Slots in P9?
A: Good grief you will ask about floppy disks soon. I would have to check but I think so - check the adpater support list.