3.2 Provisioning
The automation of typical data center tasks, such as software installation or network configuration, is crucial for faster and easier data center management. Therefore, the provisioning process involves many steps. However, after these steps are completed in your pSeries environment, you can provision and manage your environment more effectively than before.
Task automation in IBM takes the form of workflows that automate a manual process, and it and includes the IT expertise needed to perform these tasks. The dynamic execution of workflows is the core of systems provisioning. Systems provisioning is one of the IBM Virtualization Engine systems services.
Systems provisioning introduces the concept of pools of IBM eServer resources that are shared between different workloads. The resources are dynamically assigned to workloads that need capacity. Capacity can be given back to the pool if the workload no longer needs it. Little or no human interaction is required. Typical activities include installation of operating systems, booting machines over a network, device configuration, and configurations for networks, such as virtual LANs (VLANs).