IBM PowerVM virtualization and systems management enhancements for IBM PowerVC and IBM PowerVP deliver expanded flexibility and new management capabilities
IBM Asia Pacific Software Announcement AP15-0140May 11, 2015
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| At a glance |
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PowerVM®, PowerVC, and PowerVP™ are updated with new and improved features.
PowerVM V2.2.3.50 enhancements:
- Support for little endian Linux™ distributions, which include Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7.1, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 12, and Ubuntu 15.04
- IBM® Power® System E850 server support
PowerVC V1.2.3 enhancements:
- New advanced policy-based management to automate the placement, segregation, and optimization of systems at deployment time
- Improved systems availability capabilities, including support for VM remote restart after a system failure, redundant HMC configurations, host groups, and support for managing common shared storage configurations between VMs that are typically used by clustering solutions
- New storage management capabilities, including support for multivolume VM capture and deploy, IBM SDDPCM and EMC PowerPath multipath managers, and SVC Mirroring configurations
PowerVP V1.1.3 enhancements:
- Support for new IBM Power E850 enterprise servers
- New capability to export PowerVP performance data to an external data repository
- Integration with the VIOS advisor
- New thresholds and alerts
- The ability to run the PowerVP user interface in a browser
- Support for monitoring RHEL 7.1, SLES 12, and Ubuntu 15.04 guest VMs running under PowerVM
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| Overview |
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PowerVM V2.2.3.50 delivers industrial-strength virtualization for IBM AIX®, IBM i, and Linux environments on IBM POWER® processor-based systems. PowerVM is updated with support for little endian guest VMs, including RHEL 7.1, SLES 12, and Ubuntu Server 15.04. This allows applications running in little endian mode to share resources on the same server as workloads running on AIX, IBM i, and older Linux versions.
PowerVM also supports the new Power E850 server.
Note: PowerVM has modified the service strategy for the VIOS component as is documented here
PowerVC V1.2.3 is an advanced virtualization management offering for Power Systems™ based on OpenStack technology. This comprehensive virtualization management offering is simple to install and use, and enables virtual machine setup and management.
PowerVC can help you achieve the following goals:
- Improve resource usage to reduce capital expense and power consumption.
- Increase agility and execution to quickly respond to changing business requirements.
- Increase IT productivity and responsiveness.
- Simplify Power Systems virtualization management.
- Accelerate repeatable error-free virtualization deployments.
Power VC can manage AIX, Linux, and IBM i VMs running under PowerVM virtualization and Linux VMs running under PowerKVM virtualization. This new release supports the new enterprise Power Systems servers that are built on IBM POWER8™ technology.
PowerVC includes the following features and benefits:
- Virtual machine image capture, deployment, resizing, and management
- Policy-based VM placement to help improve usage and reduce complexity
- VM Mobility with placement policies to help reduce the burden on IT staff in a simplified GUI
- A management system that manages existing virtualization deployments
- Integrated management of storage, network, and compute, which simplifies administration
See the Description section for additional discussion of new PowerVC Standard Edition features and functions for managing PowerVM and PowerKVM environments.
PowerVP V1.1.3 (virtualization performance) for IBM Power Systems offers performance insight into which virtual workloads are using specific physical resources on a Power server. This solution helps reduce time and complexity to pinpoint performance bottlenecks and enables a simple, color-coded dashboard to display the performance health of the system. It can help simplify management, reduce the cost of resolving performance issues, and give you a quick view of the performance health of your server.
PowerVP is tightly integrated with the PowerVM hypervisor and collects performance data directly from PowerVM, which offers the most accurate performance information about virtual machines running on Power Systems. This performance information is displayed on a real-time, continuous GUI and is also available historically for review.
In addition to supporting the new Power E850 enterprise servers, Power VP has been enhanced with these other new features and support:
- A new capability to export PowerVP performance data to an external repository
- Integration with the VIOS performance advisor
- New thresholds and alert
- The ability to run the PowerVM user interface in a browser
- Support for monitoring RHEL 7.1, SLES 12, and Ubuntu 15.04 guests running under PowerVM
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| Key prerequisites |
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PowerVC:
- PowerVM Standard Edition (5765-PVS) for basic functions and PowerVM Enterprise Edition (5765-PVE) or PowerVM PowerLinux™ Edition (5765-PVL) for full function.
- PowerKVM (5765-KVM).
- Firmware version 8.2, or higher, is required for the new Remote Restart function for PowerVM that is managed by PowerVC.
PowerVP:
- Any IBM system that includes an IBM POWER7® or POWER7+™ processor running firmware version 7.7, or higher, or any system with a POWER8 processor running PowerVM
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| Planned availability date |
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- May 29, 2015, for PowerVM Standard and Enterprise Editions
- June 12, 2015, for PowerVC Standard Edition
- June 26, 2015, for PowerVP Standard Edition
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| Description |
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IBM PowerVC V1.2.3 Standard Edition enhancements
PowerVC Standard Edition includes the following new features and functions for managing PowerVM environments:
- Advanced policy-based management
- Host grouping, which allows segregation of VMs with unique policy controls
- Rules for VM affinity and anti-affinity
- Policies for VM placement that allow control based on CPU usage and by CPU and memory capacity
- Systems availability enhancements
- Remote restart of VMs for a failed server
Note: This feature requires firmware V8.2, or higher.
- Exploitation of redundant HMC configurations
- Support for managing VMs with common shared storage volumes typically associated with clustered VMs
- Remote restart of VMs for a failed server
- Storage management enhancements
- Capture and deployment of multivolume VMs
- Support for IBM SDDPCM Multi-path Manager
- Support for EMC PowerPath Multi-path Manager
- Support and exploitation of SVC mirrored storage
- Network improvements
- Network MTU optimization
- Security improvements
- Improved PowerVC encryption
PowerVC Standard Edition includes the following new features and functions for managing PowerKVM environments:
- Advanced policy-based management
- Host grouping, which allows segregation of VMs with unique policy controls
- Rules for VM affinity and anti-affinity
- Policies for VM placement that allow control based on CPU utilization and by CPU and memory capacity
- Systems availability enhancements
- Remote restart of VMs for a failed server
- Storage management enhancements
- Support and exploitation of SVC mirrored storage
- Network improvements
- Network MTU optimization
- Security improvements
- Improved PowerVC encryption
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| Program number |
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| Program number | VRM | Program name |
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| 5765-PVS/PVE/PVL | 2.2.3.50 | PowerVM |
| 5765-VCS | 1.2.3 | PowerVC |
| 5765-SLE | 1.1.3 | PowerVP |
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| Technical information |
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This new release supports the new enterprise Power Systems servers built on POWER8 technology.
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| Prices |
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For all local charges, contact your IBM representative.
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| AP distribution |
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| Country/Region | Announced |
|---|---|
| AP IOT | |
| ASEAN * | Yes |
| India/South Asia ** | Yes |
| Australia | Yes |
| Hong Kong | Yes |
| Macao | Yes |
| New Zealand | Yes |
| People's Republic of China | Yes |
| South Korea | Yes |
| Taiwan | Yes |
| Japan IOT | |
| Japan | Yes |
* Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor-Leste, and Vietnam
** Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka
Trademarks
PowerVP, Power Systems, POWER8, PowerLinux and POWER7+ are trademarks of IBM Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both.
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