IBM PowerVM V3.1.1, IBM PowerVC V1.4.4, and IBM Virtual HMC (vHMC) 9.1.940 offer new enhancements

ENUSZP19-0548.PDF

Table of contents

Overview Program number Key requirements Announcement countries Effective date

Overview

IBM® PowerVM® V3.1.1 , which delivers industrial-strength enterprise virtualization for IBM AIX® , IBM i, and Linux® environments on IBM POWER® processor-based systems, has expanded function and new management capabilities.

IBM PowerVM Hypervisor has been updated with new features that include:

• Support for DRAM-backed persistent memory for faster VM restarts
• Enhanced SR-IOV and vNIC support
• LPM performance improvement

IBM PowerVM V3.1.1 has been updated with significant I/O performance, efficiency, usability, and scaling enhancements, including:

• An increased number of NPIVs allowed per Fibre Channel port on the 32 GB Fibre Channel HBA. The current limit is 64, and more NPIVs per port will provide better utilization, density, and efficiency.
• NPIV multiqueue (VIOS server) for improved performance and scalability.
• Fibre Channel device labels for improved manageability.
• iSCSI performance enhancements.
• Improved VIOS Upgrade Tool capabilities.
• SSP network resiliency improvements.

IBM PowerVC V1.4.4, which is designed to simplify the management of virtual resources in IBM Power® Systems environments, has been updated with several enhancements to storage integration, usability, and performance, including:

• IBM i license key injection
• Hitachi GAD support
• Initiator storage tagging
• Live Partition Mobility (LPM) VMs to the original system after evacuation
• Ability to pin VMs to a specific host
• Ability to dynamically add PowerVC created VM to an HMC user resource role
• Inactive partition migration
• Image sharing between projects
• New restricted administrator assistance role, with no deletion access
• NovaLink support for multivolume attachment
• FlexVolume driver support for Red Hat OpenShift

IBM Virtual HMC (vHMC) 9.1.940, released in conjunction with firmware FW940, which gives clients the ability to use their own hardware and server virtualization to host the IBM -supplied HMC virtual appliance, has been updated with the following enhancements:

• User mode NX accelerator enablement
• Support for SR-IOV logical ports in IBM i restricted I/O mode
• Injection of IBM i license keys
• Improved LPM error messages
• Ability to manage resource roles automatically in HMC
• Progress indicators for specific HMC commands
• Email notifications for scheduled operations
• IBM PowerSC Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) in-band support for HMC

IBM Cloud™ Management Console (CMC) Monthly Term offering is a cloud-delivered monitoring service that connects to multiple HMCs and gives administrators an aggregate view of their entire Power infrastructure. CMC has been updated with the following enhancements:

• Support for Enterprise Pools 2.0
• Cloud host options that include North America (Dallas) and Europe (Frankfurt)

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Key requirements

PowerVM

• For IBM PowerVM Linux Edition (5765-VL3): IBM POWER 7+, IBM POWER8® , or IBM POWER9™ technology-based server
• For IBM PowerVM Standard Edition (5765-VS3): POWER 7+ or POWER8 technology-based server
• For IBM PowerVM Enterprise Edition (5765-VE3): POWER 7+, POWER8 , or POWER9 technology-based server

PowerVC

• For IBM PowerVC Standard Edition (5765-VCS): POWER 7+, POWER8 , or POWER9 technology-based server
• For IBM Cloud PowerVC Manager (5765-VCC): POWER 7+, POWER8 , or POWER9 technology-based server
• For IBM Cloud PowerVC Manager SDI (5765-VCD): POWER 7+, POWER8 , or POWER9 technology-based server

vHMC

• For IBM HMC Virtual Appliance for POWER technology-based systems (5765-HMB): The Power Systems HMC virtual appliance requires a Power Systems server with a POWER8 or POWER9 technology-based processor.
• For IBM HMC Virtual Appliance for x86-based systems (5765-HMW): The x86-based HMC virtual appliance requires an x86 64-bit hardware with hardware virtualization assists ( Intel™ VT-x or AMD-V).

For additional information, see the Installing the HMC Virtual Appliance web page.

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Effective date

• November 15, 2019
  • IBM PowerVM Linux Edition (5765-VL3)
  • IBM PowerVM Standard Edition (5765-VS3)
  • IBM PowerVM Enterprise Edition (5765-VE3)
  • IBM Cloud Management Console Monthly Term offering (5765-CMT)
• November 22, 2019
  • IBM HMC Virtual Appliance for POWER -based systems (5765-HMB)
  • IBM HMC Virtual Appliance for x86-based systems (5765-HMW)
• December 13, 2019
  • IBM PowerVC Standard Edition (5765-VCS)
  • IBM Cloud PowerVC Manager (5765-VCC)
  • IBM Cloud PowerVC Manager SDI (5765-VCD)

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Program number

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Announcement countries

All European, Middle Eastern, and African countries, except Islamic Republic of Iran, Sudan, and Syrian Arab Republic.

Trademarks

IBM Cloud and POWER9 are trademarks of IBM Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both.

IBM, PowerVM, AIX, POWER, Power and POWER8 are registered trademarks of IBM Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both.

Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in the United States, other countries, or both.

Intel is a trademark of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries.

Other company, product, and service names may be trademarks or service marks of others.

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