Papers on IBM eServer z900

Discovereded this page on IBM's website. The papers were published in an issue of the "Journal of Research and Developemnt".

This particular issue is dedicated to architecture and design choices of the IBM eServer z900.

The range of topics is quite large: CPU, IO, system configuration, etc. 19 Articles.

Follow this link to download the papers.

- Development and attributes of z/Architecture
- The microarchitecture of the IBM eServer z900 processor
- First- and second-level packagi
- Self-timed interface of the input/output subsystem of the IBM eServer z900
- Coupling I/O channels for the IBM eServer z900: Reengineering required
- zSeries features for optimized sockets-based messaging: HiperSockets and OSA-Express
- FCP for the IBM eServer zSeries systems: Access to distributed storage
- RAS design for the IBM eServer z900
- System control structure of the IBM eServer z900
- Hardware configuration framework for the IBM eServer z900
- Flexible configuration and concurrent upgrade for the IBM eServer z900
- The alternate support element, a high-availability service console for the IBM eServer z900
- Intelligent Resource Director
- IBM eServer z900 system microcode verification by simulation: The virtual power-on process
- Hyper-acceleration and HW/SW co-verification as an essential part of IBM eServer z900 verification
- z/CECSIM: An efficient and comprehensive microcode simulator for the IBM eServer z900
- Hierarchical indexing data structure method for verifying the functionality of the STI-to-PCI bridge chips of the IBM eServer z900
- IBM eServer z900 high-frequency microprocessor technology, circuits, and design methodology

System Integration and Testing

Some bookmarks on the topic of system integration and methods of integration testing:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integration_testing

Configuring a server to run Microsoft Virtualization environment

A good series of articles that will guide you through the neccessary steps to get from a bear HW to running guest operating systems (virtual environments) on your server.

1. Installing Microsoft Virtual Server 2005
- Virtual Server architecture
- Installing Virtual Server
- Connecting to the Virtual Server Administration Web site

2. Creating a Virtual Server Virtual Mashine
- Configuring Virtual Server settings
- Creating a new virtual machine

3. Configuring Virtual Networks
- Virtual Server's networking architecture
- Understanding virtual networks
- Creating virtual networks
- More Virtual Server networking features

And finally, the step that makes all of the about usefull:

4. Installing guest operating system
- Overview of guest OS installation
- Guest OS installation options
- Using the Virtual Mashine Remotecontrol Client (VMRC)
- Completing the OS installation

Very good website for Architecture Resources

Came across this website that contains some very good papers on Software Arechitecture. I think the author of the website is writing a boog, which is partially available on the site as well.

http://www.bredemeyer.com/architect.htm

Inline assembly in Liux (x86)

IBM wants to tell you how to write inline x86 assembly in Linux.

IBM on inline assebmly

Intel Developers Conference - EFI

Participants of the IDF (Intel Developers Conference) received a healthy dose of the EFI updates. I don't have a summary of the event yet. Just a link to the presentations on Intel's website:

EFI @ IDF

Which Devices are OK to use with Solaris 10?

This list might have been less important previously. With the addition of x86 support, this will be very usefull when selecting a device for your platform, or debugging issues with the 3rd party drivers.

The list covers a broad range of the I/O devices: USB, SCSI, SATA, etc.

Solaris 10 - List of Verified I/O Devices.

Nice Article About EFI

The article was written in 2004, but It's news to me, which is why I'm posting it.
Introducing the Intel Platform Innovation Framework for the Extensible Firmware

This is written by the author of "Beyond BIOS", from Intel Press.

Overview:
1. Why BIOS exists, and why OS needs BIOS services
2. Flow of the Framework (or is it EFI?) execution during system boot
3. Briefly on the driver structure in the Framework and driver authentication
4. Briefly on several stages of the Framework (EFI?) execution

The article presents a nice summary, but you really need a good knowledge of the legacy BIOS to understand the dramatic advantages Framework and EFI offers.

I suspect the book is a better source of information, since it has been written 2 years after the article.

Intel EFI Book

Intel Publishes an EFI Book. The book is called "Beyond BIOS". It's available from Intel Press. The table of context looks promising.

Available here: Intel: "Beyond BIOS"

Free DOS 1.0

An open source version of DOS has been released after 12 years of development. FreeDOS 1.0.

Networking Package
www.freedos.org

Linux Firmware Development Kit

Today I've heard about a Linux-ready Firmware Development Kit. The project is being introduced by Intel and is mainintained by Intel people. This would be interesting to explore for several reasons. What are the looking for in the BIOS to consider it to be compatible with Linux? Since the source code is availabe, the project is open-source, this can be easily done. The other reason of course is to see how compatible our system is in Linux. We are booting Linux and have been certified by some Linux distributions, but ... The downside of this project is that it is not an industry standard, but rather somebody's opionion.

Tiancore: by Intel, for everone

Tiancore.org

About 7 years ago Intel has started an initiative to replace the legacy BIOS, a 25 year old piece of system software that was pioneered by IBM and has been patched and awkwardly extended ever since. The prject is called EFI - Extensible Firmware Interface.

EFI introduces structure, true extensibility and open specification to the field that has been driven by legacy requirements and tribal knowledge instead of the specicification. It seems like Intel is releasing the project to the open source comunity.

First, with the uefi.org. The consortium is charged with responsibility to take the original EFI specification and maintain it under the new name - Unified EFI. The consortium has already released a spec UEFI 2.0.

Now, and this might be news to just me, Intel has released the code for the EFI Framework under the name TianoCore.

Boot Mac OSx on x86 HW

Came across this project of booting Mac OSx on the x86 HW. I am guessing that it has originated before the Intel based Macs. This project is still relevant, since it still maybe be a challenge to boot OSx on off the self x86 HW.

www.osx86project.org