IBM® Wave for z/VM® is a virtualization management solution for IBM z/VM and Linux on System z®. This virtualization management software provides a simplified and cost effective way for companies to harness the consolidation capabilities of the IBM System z platform and its ability to host the workloads of tens of thousands of commodity servers. IBM Wave for z/VM is a complete management solution for System z-based virtual server farms.

This simplified user interface can be used to manage virtual servers and resources that would otherwise need to be performed with z/VM system commands by a skilled z/VM systems programmer. IBM Wave for z/VM has quite a few benefits for today’s z/VM environment. It simplifies management and administration of a z/VM environment by abstracting z/VM resources and providing a GUI to automate z/VM functions. With a simplified GUI and its point and click functionality, there is much less need to understand extensive z/VM command syntax. IBM Wave for z/VM not only improves the ease of use of z/VM but provides additional functionality and flexibility to manage a virtualized environment.

Here are 5 things you should know about IBM Wave for z/VM:

1. Intelligent icons

Intelligent icons help the user understand the status of the system and its resources. For example an icon can indicate whether a virtual guest is running or shutting down, whether it is running a Linux distribution from SUSE or Red Hat, or whether it is a CMS guest, a system service machine or a IBM Wave for z/VM internal virtual server. All IBM Wave icons provide at-a-glance information.  An example of these icons can be seen in Table 1. 

Table 1 Example of intelligent icons

2. Definition and use of functionality types

Functionality is an attribute assigned to virtual machines which is itself defined in the global IBM Wave parameters .Functionality types are used to express the interdependencies between Linux guests. For example, if an application server depends on a database server, then the database server would have a higher activation level to ensure that it is available when the application server starts. If your site is not using this functionality, then you will only have an option called “N/A (Application Level 1),” which means that all Linux guests have the same priority for startup. 

3. Custom attributes

Custom attributes and their associated values can be defined and associated with virtual guests. Multiple attributes can be assigned to guests and then used for grouping and filtering in any combination to take action on a set of guests. For example, an attribute called Server Use could be defined with possible values Production, QA, and Development. Another attribute called Server Type could be defined with possible values Database, Transaction and Web.

4. System storage administration

At a glance views of overall system storage utilization with the ability to drill down to the volume level for site level administrators and for Linux administrators views of storage groups to which they are uniquely permitted.  Using the Manage Storage Wizard enables management at the z/VM level such as dedicating devices, adding minidisks, as well enabling management on the Linux level such as the creation and expansion of LVM volume groups, regular partitions, and logical volumes and adding FCP attached storage to z/VM guests. IBM Wave for z/VM also provides a simplified mechanism of storage assignment and storage management allowing the IBM Wave for z/VM user to interact with DASD Volumes, DASD Groups and DIRMAINT regions.

5. Performance

Performance view of all managed systems includes current CPU utilization, page and spool space and virtual to real storage ratios. Drill down to the Linux guest level is also supported. If the Performance Toolkit is available, then IBM Wave for z/VM will use this feature to display performance information for individual virtual machines.

For more information see the following:

• IBM Redbooks:IBM Wave for z/VM: Installation, implementation and exploitation, SG24-8192-00
• IBM Solution Guide: IBM Wave for z/VM: An Introduction, TIPS1080
• IBM Redbooks System z hardware and software blog:
  • Enter IBM Wave!
  • Cloning A Gold Master With IBM Wave for z/VM 
  • IBM Wave for z/VM Projects and Groups 
     

Lydia Parziale is an IBM Redbooks Project Leader. She works with teams of international technical experts from around the world to explore various technologies and their integrations and writes books, guides, blogs and videos on what  they find. Follow Lydia on Twitter at @LydiaP01.