Power

Hi

please we have high end Power 9 E980, we want change an obsolete card FSP (secondary) but the system ask us to shutdown all lpars. My question is that it can change card without shutdown.?

Thanks

Hi,

Having to replace a FSP is very rare.  So IBM does not make that operation possible without a power off.

You can do that FSP change without stopping any LPARs already, using Live Partition Mobility (LPM) to move the LPARs to alternative servers.

LPM has be around for move than a decade and it very reliable due to so much field testing and improvements.

I always say customers should not buy a POWER9 (note the spelling) server but they should buy six servers.

Then removing one server from a six pack is only a 16% reduction of CPU/RAM/IO.- you can find that capacity if you are not at a peak period.

If you think of the economics: a FSP replacement could technically be done live but that would take extra hardware, extra software and many man months of testing.
This adds up to many millions of dollars of investment and as it is rare, most customers would probably LPM and power off to be safe anyway.
It would also result in IBM having to charge more per server. Summary: it does not make any sense.

Hope this helps, cheers Nigel

Thank you