Just before I went to the great TechXchange event in Las Vegas IBM made a announcement for AIX 7.3 TL03 that will be available in December 2024 planned available date 12 December.
For those who joined my session 2091 last Wednesday 24 Oktober I mentioned already that there are also important improvements for LKU (Live Kernel Updates) or LU Live Update in TL03.
The PowerPoint is still available for download for those who are interested see reference links at the end of this blog:
I like to share more in detail what are the improvements and new features of LKU via this blog post.
Also a very good IBM friend of my Chris Gibson pointed me on the blog post of Vinod Kumar Boddukuri AIX LiveUpdate Architect.
New feature that will be available in TL03:
Dynamically modifying system resources using LKU with HMC profile
Why is this feature is great?
Use case: Did you ever run into the situation than your LPAR was sized wrong, and you hit the limits of you maximum shared processing units and maximum virtual processing units?
Or for memory maximum memory settings?
The only way to solve this problem is now shutdown your LPAR, modify the profile of your LPAR with new maximum / minimum settings. And then start you LPAR again with this new (modified saved) profile settings.
This is of course very annoying, shutting down you application or database server for just applying a new profile.
If you like to know more details how this works please read the blog post of Vinod Kumar boddukuri see reference link.
Short recap of his (excellent) blog:
-1 turn off automatic profile sync on HMC.
-2 change the profile max virtual processing units and or virtual processing units.
And or change the max memory size.
-3 Save the profile.
-4 In the liveupdate.data (nim resource or local on lpar) a new stanza field is introduced:
Under the stanza hmc: add the line clone_from_hmc_profile = yes
-5 run a normal LKU operation, initiated by NIM / manual geninstall -k or initiated trough Ansible.
-6 After a successful LKU operation remove the clone_from_hmc_profile = yes from the liveupdate.data file local on LPAR or nim resource.
-7 Enable the profile sync again after operation is finished.
Enhancements:
I Just highlighted the important things for LKU (LU).
For the complete list see reference link.
Live Kernel Update (LKU) enhancements:
-1 Overall AIX LKU performance is improved. The LKU blackout time, when applications are suspended, is reduced for workload environments with large amounts of system V shared memory.
Comments: this is great news for us as sysadmins as I showed during my session minimum freeze time in our environment is about 12 seconds, but we do not have large amounts of memory. I will test this as soon if TL03 is available and share my results.
-2 The AIX audit subsystem running in stream mode is now compatible with AIX LKU.
Comments: Also good news for those who using the AIX audit subsystem now we have to shut down the audit subsystem before a LKU operation.
-3 AIX IPSEC is now compatible with AIX LKU
Comments: Yes also great we now have to shut down ip_sec_v4 and ip_sec_v6 for ip filter rules, before using LKU, very nice to know that this is solved.
-4 AIX 7.3 TL3 introduces a tech preview for new infrastructure that enables live update of AIX libraries such as libc. Clients are encouraged to experiment with the new capability in non-production environments.
Comments: Very curious how this works, and will test this, and share the results.
New releases for Ansible including LKU:
Live Kernel Update (LKU) support for PowerVC
Please read for more details and facts about AIX 7.3 TL03 the following reference materials:
Reference links:
PowerPoint 2091 TechXchange session:
https://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src=https%3A%2F%2Fstatic.tools.ibm.com%2Fibm%2Ftechxchange24%2Fsess%2F1712393731307001FSLG%2FpresentationFile%2F2091%2520PPT%2520with%2520Animations%2520-%2520%2520AIX%2520patch%2520management%2520and%2520compliancy%2520without%2520downtime_1730216057727001lPVq.pptx&wdOrigin=BROWSELINK
Blog: Dynamically modifying system resources using LKU with HMC profile:
https://community.ibm.com/community/user/power/blogs/vinod-kumar-boddukuri/2024/10/29/dynamically-modifying-system-resources-using-lku-w
AIX 7.3 TL03 features and enhancements:
https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/announcements/aix-enhancements-4q-2024-aix-seee-private-cloud-ed-powerha
To be continued, can’t wait to test with those new features and enhancements of TL03.
Note: I will deploy TL03 with LKU of course!
Please feel free to give me feedback on this subject. As you know I like discussions about this subject. I will share my tests in upcoming blog that’s a promise.
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