IBM PowerVM

A user is required for the operation of the BVQ PowerVM Scanner who should at least have read-only (hmcviewer) access to the HMC.

Please create this user before configuring the BVQ Scanner. We recommend to name the user "bvq"

Please open the user properties dialogue and select "Allow remote access via the web"

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Enable performance data collection

BVQ can only collect performance statistics if "Data Collection" is enabled on the managed systems and all LPARs.

Adjust System settings

Enable "Performance Monitoring Data Collection for Managed Servers"

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To lower the system load and storage capacity usage on the HMC, we recommend to reduce the number of days to store performance data below the title "Performance Data Storage" to its minimum value of "1". BVQ takes over the role to store a longer history of that data.

Adjust LPAR settings

Switch on "Enable Performance Information Collection" on all LPARs

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You can check the state of the "Performance Collection" enablement per LPAR easily. Run the following script on the HMC to show all LPARs without enabled collection:

bvq@hmc3:~> for SYS in $(lssyscfg -r sys -F name); do lssyscfg -r lpar -m $SYS -F name,allow_perf_collection ; done | grep ",0"
rju_viot,0
IOS74DHP,0
HABS74D,0
HAQS74D,0
HAMS74D,0

BVQ Scanner configuration

To configure a PowerVM scanner in BVQ the following information is required:

• IP address or hostname of the HMC

• User and password of the HMC user for BVQ

Starting with BVQ 2023.H1: Redundant HMCs managing the same systems must be configured in the same PowerVM scanner. Otherwise, the managed systems will appear twice in BVQ. Define the most powerful HMC first, because the order of HMCs determines the order in which they are scanned by BVQ. Additional HMCs managing other systems should be configured in an additional PowerVM scanner.

Up to BVQ 2022.H2: Typically, two redundant HMCs manage the same IBM Power systems. Please ensure that only one scanner is created for one of the HMCs to avoid duplication in BVQ.

OS Agent for AIX & Linux

AIX and Linux are the first BVQ platforms where data is not pulled from the systems by the BVQ scanner. Instead, data is sent (pushed) from the OS on the LPARs to the BVQ Server by an BVQ OS Agent using SCP/SFTP. This means, an ssh-server on the BVQ Server is receiving data from the OS instances. Once an AIX or Linux BVQ Scanner is configured, the ssh-server is being started automatically and is listening on port 2222.

Important

Please ensure that port 2222 is not blocked by a firewall!

BVQ Scanner configuration

To configure an AIX or Linux BVQ scanner the following information is required:

• NAME - Name of the AIX or Linux scanner

• INSTANCE GROUP NAME - Select a name which is used to group all AIX or Linux Instances (=partitions) together that are running the BVQ OS Agent for AIX or Linux. The number of instances per instance group should not exceed 50.

• USERNAME - This user authorizes the SCP/SFTP transfer from the AIX or Linux Instances to the BVQ Server. It will be configured during the installation process

• SSH PUBLIC KEY - Optional. Leave empty if you want to use the default ssh key-pair included in bvq_agent.tar.gz. If you want to use a different ssh key-pair type, then enter the content of the public ssh key file here and adjust bvq_config.sh on the OS agent accordingly.
  Supported key types are:

  • ssh-rsa (default)

  • ecdsa-sha2

  • rsa-sha2-256

  • ssh-ed25519

OS Agent installation

The BVQ Agent for AIX or Linux RPM installation package is automatically generated once a new BVQ AIX or Linux scanner configuration is being created in the BVQ WebUI. After the "Save"-button is pressed, the RPM package is automatically generated and can be downloaded directly. Further installation instructions can be found in the scanner configuration page or the readme included in the RPM download package.

OS User requirements
OS

CustomResourceDefinition

Create a CustomResourceDefinition (CRD) to set up a k8s cluster as master grouping object (MGO) definition for BVQ

mgo-crd.yaml 

apiVersion: apiextensions.k8s.io/v1
kind: CustomResourceDefinition
metadata:
  name: mastergroupingobjects.bvq.sva
spec:
  group: bvq.sva
  versions:
    - name: v1
      

ClusterRole

Create a ClusterRole to get read-only (get, list, watch) access to the k8s cluster

ServiceAccount

Create a ServiceAccount for authentication

ClusterRoleBinding

Create a ClusterRoleBinding to bind the

BVQ Prometheus Server

To get performance and topology data a custom bvq-prometheus stack must be deployed in the k8s cluster via helm. This helm chart will install a bvq-prometheus server as a deployment with a 8GB persistent volume (configurable via values.yaml) and bvq-prometheus-node-erxprters as a DaemonSet (helm dependency).

See values.yaml and other configuration files in the bvq-prometheus-helm.zip file for further information about the bvq-prometheus configuration.

Execute the following steps to deploy the bvq-prometheus helm chart to the k8s cluster:

• Create a namespace (e.g. bvq-prometheus) for the prometheus stack:
  kubectl create namespace bvq-prometheus 

• Unzip helm files → bvq-prometheus-helm.zip

• For external communication an ingress for the bvq-prometheus server is needed. Edit prometheus.ingress.hosts  in values.yaml to set a proper ingress.

• Run helm dependency build / helm dependency update 

• Install the helm chart via helm install -n bvq-prometheus -f values.yaml bvq-prometheus ./ 

Gather information for BVQ Scanner configuration

BVQ scanners need the following information to be configured for each k8s cluster:

• API server IP address or DNS name (FQDN) - Default TCP port: 6443

• API Token of the bvqscan