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AIX Internals & Performance IV: I/O Management - Part 2

(Specialized I/O)
Course code QV474 ERC 1.1

IBM Systems Software Education

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Trademarks
IBM, the IBM logo, and ibm.com are trademarks or registered trademarks of International
Business Machines Corp., registered in many jurisdictions worldwide.
The following are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation, registered in
many jurisdictions worldwide:
AIX 6™ AIX® DB2®
DS8000® Express® FlashSystem™
GPFS™ IBM FlashSystem® Power Systems™
Power® PowerHA® PowerSC™
PowerVM® POWER6® POWER7+™
POWER7® POWER8® PurePower System™
SystemMirror® Systems Director
VMControl™
Intel is a trademark or registered trademark of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the
United States and other countries.
Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in the United States, other countries, or
both.
Java™ and all Java-based trademarks and logos are trademarks or registered trademarks
of Oracle and/or its affiliates.
VMware and the VMware "boxes" logo and design, Virtual SMP and VMotion are registered
trademarks or trademarks (the "Marks") of VMware, Inc. in the United States and/or other
jurisdictions.
Other product and service names might be trademarks of IBM or other companies.

May 2013 edition

The information contained in this document has not been submitted to any formal IBM test and is distributed on an “as is” basis without
any warranty either express or implied. The use of this information or the implementation of any of these techniques is a customer
responsibility and depends on the customer’s ability to evaluate and integrate them into the customer’s operational environment. While
each item may have been reviewed by IBM for accuracy in a specific situation, there is no guarantee that the same or similar results will
result elsewhere. Customers attempting to adapt these techniques to their own environments do so at their own risk.

© Copyright International Business Machines Corporation 2013.

This document may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the prior written permission of IBM.
Note to U.S. Government Users — Documentation related to restricted rights — Use, duplication or disclosure is subject to restrictions
set forth in GSA ADP Schedule Contract with IBM Corp.
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TOC Contents
Trademarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii

Course description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix

Agenda . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi

Unit 1. I/O Internals Framework. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1-1

Unit objectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1-2
Big picture POWER7 system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1-3
Partition resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1-4
AIX anatomy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1-5
Kernel components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1-7
Interrupt handler environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1-8
Kernel extensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1-9
Kernel I/O layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1-10
I/O interfaces and types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1-11
I/O interfaces: Blocking I/O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1-12
I/O interfaces: Asynchronous I/O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1-13
I/O types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1-14
Using trace to examine kernel functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1-15
Trace hook calls and reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1-16
Examples of trace hook IDs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1-17
Trace disclaimer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1-18
Checkpoint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1-19
Exercise introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1-20
Unit summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1-21

Unit 2. Possible Disk I/O Configurations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-1

Unit objectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-2
Disk storage resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-3
Disk I/O without using Virtual I/O Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-5
Virtual I/O Server introduced . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-6
Virtual Storage considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-7
Disk I/O traffic with Virtual I/O Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-8
NPIV over virtual Fibre Channel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-9
Shared Storage Pool introduced . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-10
VIOS performance considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-11
Storage queue depth performance considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-12
Multiple path I/O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-13
PCM device driver performance considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-15
MPIO scenario with a single VIOS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-16
MPIO scenario with dual VIOS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-17
MPIO scenario with dual VIOS and NPIV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-18
Important topics to consider when tuning disk I/O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-19

© Copyright IBM Corp. 2013 Contents iii

Course materials may not be reproduced in whole or in part
without the prior written permission of IBM.
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Checkpoint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2-20
Exercise introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2-21
Unit summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2-22

Unit 3. Conventional I/O Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3-1

Unit objectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3-2
Conventional I/O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3-3
File system cache and VMM I/O queue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3-4
Conventional read: Buffer cache miss . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3-5
Trace of a read: Buffer cache miss (1 of 21) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3-6
Trace of a read: Buffer cache miss (2 of 21) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3-7
Trace of a read: Buffer cache miss (3 of 21) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3-8
Trace of a read: Buffer cache miss (4 of 21) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3-9
Trace of a read: Buffer cache miss (5 of 21) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3-10
Trace of a read: Buffer cache miss (6 of 21) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3-11
Trace of a read: Buffer cache miss (7 of 21) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3-12
Trace of a read: Buffer cache miss (8 of 21) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3-13
Trace of a read: Buffer cache miss (9 of 21) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3-14
Trace of a read: Buffer cache miss (10 of 21) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3-15
Trace of a read: Buffer cache miss (11 of 21) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3-16
Trace of a read: Buffer cache miss (12 of 21) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3-17
Trace of a read: Buffer cache miss (13 of 21) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3-18
Trace of a read: Buffer cache miss (14 of 21) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3-19
Trace of a read: Buffer cache miss (15 of 21) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3-20
Trace of a read: Buffer cache miss (16 of 21) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3-21
Trace of a read: Buffer cache miss (17 of 21) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3-22
Trace of a read: Buffer cache miss (18 of 21) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3-23
Trace of a read: Buffer cache miss (19 of 21) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3-24
Trace of a read: Buffer cache miss (20 of 21) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3-25
Trace of a read: Buffer cache miss (21 of 21) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3-26
Conventional read: Buffer cache hit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3-27
Trace of a read: Buffer cache hit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3-28
Conventional write . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3-29
Trace of a write (1 of 5) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3-30
Trace of a write (2 of 5) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3-31
Trace of a write (3 of 5) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3-32
Trace of a write (4 of 5) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3-33
Trace of a write (5 of 5) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3-34
Conventional write with file not in cache . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3-35
Conventional write with O_SYNC on open . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3-36
Trace of a write with O_SYNC on open (1 of 5) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3-37
Trace of a write with O_SYNC on open (2 of 5) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3-38
Trace of a write with O_SYNC on open (3 of 5) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3-39
Trace of a write with O_SYNC on open (4 of 5) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3-40
Trace of a write with O_SYNC on open (5 of 5) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3-41
Checkpoint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3-42
Exercise introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3-43
Unit summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3-44

iv AIX I/O Internals Part 2 © Copyright IBM Corp. 2013

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TOC Unit 4. Specialized I/O Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-1

Unit objectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-2
Direct I/O performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-3
Direct I/O reads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-4
Direct I/O writes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-5
Direct I/O characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-6
How to enable Direct I/O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-7
filemon: DIO vs. demoted DIO read (1 of 2) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-8
filemon: DIO vs. demoted DIO read (2 of 2) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-9
trace: DIO read at a glance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-10
Trace of DIO read (1 of 3) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-11
Trace of DIO read (2 of 3) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-12
Trace of DIO read (3 of 3) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-13
trace: Demoted DIO read at a glance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-14
Trace of demoted DIO read . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-15
Trace of DIO write (1 of 3) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-16
Trace of DIO write (2 of 3) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-17
Trace of DIO write (3 of 3) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-18
Trace of demoted DIO write . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-19
Normal inode serialization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-20
Concurrent I/O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-21
Concurrent I/O performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-22
How to enable Concurrent I/O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-23
Inode serialization under Concurrent I/O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-24
Asynchronous I/O (AIO) subsystem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-25
Fast Path versus non-Fast Path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-26
AIO subsystem management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-27
Number of AIO servers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-28
How many AIO servers are active? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-29
Using tprof to view AIO servers (1 of 2) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-30
Using tprof to view AIO servers (2 of 2) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-31
AIO and iostat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-32
filemon: AIO on JFS2 (1 of 2) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-33
filemon: AIO on JFS2 (2 of 2) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-34
Trace of AIO on JFS2 (1 of 3) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-35
Trace of AIO on JFS2 (2 of 3) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-36
Trace of AIO on JFS2 (3 of 3) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-37
filemon: AIO on JFS2 with DIO (1 of 2) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-38
filemon: AIO on JFS2 with DIO (2 of 2) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-39
Trace of AIO on JFS2 with DIO (1 of 2) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-40
Trace of AIO on JFS2 with DIO (2 of 2) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-41
filemon: AIO on raw LV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-42
Trace of AIO on raw LV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-43
Tuning the AIO subsystem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-44
Checkpoint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-45
Exercise introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-46
Unit summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4-47

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Appendix A. Checkpoint solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A-1

vi AIX I/O Internals Part 2 © Copyright IBM Corp. 2013

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TMK Trademarks
The reader should recognize that the following terms, which appear in the content of this
training document, are official trademarks of IBM or other companies:
IBM, the IBM logo, and ibm.com are trademarks or registered trademarks of International
Business Machines Corp., registered in many jurisdictions worldwide.
The following are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation, registered in
many jurisdictions worldwide:
Active Memory™ AIX 6™ AIX®
BladeCenter® DS4000® DS6000™
DS8000® Enterprise Storage Server® POWER Hypervisor™
Power Systems™ Power® PowerVM®
POWER6® POWER7® Storwize®
System Storage®
UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group in the United States and other
countries.
Other product and service names might be trademarks of IBM or other companies.

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pref Course description

AIX Internals & Performance IV: I/O Management - Part 2 (Specialized
I/O)

Duration: 2 days

Purpose
The goal of this course is to provide the student with a working
knowledge of AIX 7 internals concepts related to different types of I/O
operations and storage configurations. It details the flow of execution
used for conventional I/O, direct I/O and concurrent I/O operations
using both the normal application programming interfaces and the
asynchronous I/O interfaces. It also describes the performance
characteristics of each method.
This course uses a combination of instructor lectures and machine
exercises to provide the student with practical background knowledge
regarding the topics covered.

Audience
This is an advanced course. The audience for this training includes
system administrators, support personnel, developers, IT specialists,
IT architects, and system engineers.

Prerequisites
Students attending this course are expected to have AIX system
administration skills, problem determination skills, and a basic
knowledge of the I/O framework within the kernel. These skills can be
obtained by attending the following course, or gained from equivalent
experience:
• QV473 AIX Internals & Performance III: I/O Management - Part 1
(Conventional I/O)

Objectives
After completing this course, you should be able to:
• Explain the kernel I/O layers
• Present possible storage configurations
• Verify execution of basic I/O operations

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• Describe the characteristics of direct I/O, concurrent I/O, and

asynchronous I/O
• Verify execution of direct I/O, concurrent I/O, and asynchronous I/O

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pref Agenda
Welcome
Unit 1 - I/O Internals Framework
Exercise 1 - I/O Internals Framework
Unit 2 - Possible I/O Configurations
Exercise 2 - Possible I/O Configurations
Unit 3 - Conventional I/O Operations
Exercise 3 - Conventional I/O Operations
Unit 4 - Specialized I/O Operations
Exercise 4 - Specialized I/O Operations

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Text highlighting
The following text highlighting conventions are used throughout this book:
Bold Identifies file names, file paths, directories, user names,
principals, menu paths and menu selections. Also identifies
graphical objects such as buttons, labels and icons that the
user selects.
Italics Identifies links to web sites, publication titles, is used where the
word or phrase is meant to stand out from the surrounding text,
and identifies parameters whose actual names or values are to
be supplied by the user.
Monospace Identifies attributes, variables, file listings, SMIT menus, code
examples and command output that you would see displayed
on a terminal, and messages from the system.
Monospace bold Identifies commands, subroutines, daemons, and text the user
would type.

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Uempty Unit 1. I/O Internals Framework

What this unit is about

This unit introduces the disk storage resources presented in Power
Systems servers running AIX 7, and describes the organization and
components of the kernel to implement the I/O operations.

What you should be able to do

After completing this unit, you should be able to:
• Explain the kernel I/O layers
• Describe the main difference between blocking I/O and
asynchronous I/O operations
• List file I/O types

How you will check your progress

• Checkpoint questions
• Machine exercises

References
Bach, Maurice J., The Design of the UNIX Operating System
(ISBN-10: 0132017997)
IBM AIX Information Center for AIX Version 7.1
http://pic.dhe.ibm.com/infocenter/aix/v7r1/index.jsp
IBM AIX Web site
http://www.ibm.com/systems/power/software/aix/
AIX Version 7.1 Web site
http://www.ibm.com/systems/power/software/aix/v71
SG24-7910 IBM AIX Version 7.1 Differences Guide Redbook

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Uempty Unit 2. Possible Disk I/O Configurations

What this unit is about

This unit describes the different disk configurations that might be
encountered in an AIX partition, including natively attached storage,
virtualized storage, and multipath I/O.

What you should be able to do

After completing this unit, you should be able to:
• Describe the disk storage resources
• Explain the possible disk I/O configurations on AIX
• List the performance considerations for disk I/O

How you will check your progress

• Checkpoint questions
• Machine exercises

References
Bach, Maurice J., The Design of the UNIX Operating System
(ISBN-10: 0132017997)
IBM AIX Information Center for AIX Version 7.1
http://pic.dhe.ibm.com/infocenter/aix/v7r1/index.jsp
IBM AIX Web site
http://www.ibm.com/systems/power/software/aix/
AIX Version 7.1 Web site
http://www.ibm.com/systems/power/software/aix/v71
SG24-7910 IBM AIX Version 7.1 Differences Guide Redbook

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Uempty Unit 3. Conventional I/O Operations

What this unit is about

This unit discusses how conventional I/O operations are processed for
reads (cached and non-cached) and writes. This process is shown
using trace report data.

What you should be able to do

After completing this unit, you should be able to:
• Describe the flow of information for conventional I/O operations
• Interpret trace report data to determine whether a read request was
satisfied from disk or the file system cache
• Interpret trace report data to determine if a write request was
synced to disk immediately

How you will check your progress

• Checkpoint questions
• Machine exercises

References
IBM AIX Information Center for AIX Version 7.1
http://pic.dhe.ibm.com/infocenter/aix/v7r1/index.jsp

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Uempty Unit 4. Specialized I/O Operations

What this unit is about

This unit describes direct I/O, concurrent I/O, and the asynchronous
I/O subsystem.

What you should be able to do

After completing this unit, you should be able to:
• Describe the characteristics of direct I/O, concurrent I/O, and the
AIO subsystem
• List the benefits of direct I/O and concurrent I/O
• Describe how to enable direct I/O and concurrent I/O
• Identify when direct I/O and concurrent I/O operations are demoted
• Use filemon and trace reports to verify the execution of direct I/O,
concurrent I/O, and AIO operations
• Tune the AIO subsystem

How you will check your progress

• Checkpoint questions
• Machine exercises

References
Bach, Maurice J., The Design of the UNIX Operating System
(ISBN-10: 0132017997)
IBM AIX Information Center for AIX Version 7.1
http://pic.dhe.ibm.com/infocenter/aix/v7r1/index.jsp
IBM AIX Web site
http://www.ibm.com/systems/power/software/aix/
SG24-7910 IBM AIX Version 7.1 Differences Guide Redbook

© Copyright IBM Corp. 2013 Unit 4. Specialized I/O Operations 4-1

Course materials may not be reproduced in whole or in part
without the prior written permission of IBM.