The IBM 7040-61D I/O Drawer pSeries 690 are the leading-edge of technology, both in processor power and speed, and in I/O capabilities. There are configuration decisions that should be made to get maximum performance from these systems. These configurations include planning for sufficient memory to support the types of expected workloads and planning to pair memory cards of the same sizes in adjacent memory slots, also plan for sufficient 7040-61D I/O drawers to support the I/O bandwidths expected and the numbers and types of devices to be attached.