Getting started with PowerVM

You can use this collection of topics to find ways to perform common PowerVM® tasks, such as configuring and managing virtual resources.

Management console comparison
Compare the features of the PowerVM management consoles.
Introduction to PowerVM
Businesses are turning to PowerVM virtualization to consolidate multiple workloads onto fewer systems to increase server use, and to reduce cost. PowerVM provides a secure and scalable virtualization environment for AIX® and Linux® applications that are built on the advanced reliability, availability, and serviceability features and the leading performance of the IBM® Power Systems platform.
Configuring PowerVM with HMC
Use the Hardware Management Console (HMC) to configure PowerVM features and the managed system.
Micro-Partitioning technology
When you enable the Micro-Partitioning® technology, you can configure multiple partitions to share system processing power.
Active Memory Sharing
When you enable the PowerVM Active Memory Sharing technology, you can configure multiple partitions to share system memory.
Overview of shared memory
Shared memory is physical memory that is assigned to the shared memory pool and shared among multiple partitions. The shared memory pool is a defined collection of physical memory blocks that are managed as a single memory pool by the hypervisor. Partitions that you assign to the shared memory pool share the memory in the pool with other partitions that you assign to the pool.
Thin provisioning
Thin provisioning helps reduce the amount of unused storage allocated to applications or users.
Thick provisioning
Thick provisioning helps reserve storage space for virtual disks, thus ensuring that there are no failures because of lack of storage space.
Virtual fibre channel (NPIV)
With N_Port ID Virtualization (NPIV), you can configure the managed system so that multiple partitions can access independent physical storage through the same physical Fibre Channel adapter.
Shared storage pools
On the Virtual I/O Server (VIOS) Version 2.2.0.11, Fix Pack 24, Service Pack 1, and later, you can create shared storage pools. Shared storage pools provide distributed storage access to all VIOS logical partitions in a cluster.
Shared processors pools
You can assign priorities to partitions and the hypervisor allocates processing power as needed by the applications. This feature allows for automatic nondisruptive balancing of processing power between partitions assigned to shared pools resulting in increased throughput and the potential to reduce processor-based software licensing costs. This feature is supported on POWER9™ processor-based servers.
Active Memory Deduplication
Active Memory Deduplication is a feature that is available on systems that have the PowerVM Active Memory Sharing technology. PowerVM Active Memory Sharing is available with the PowerVM Enterprise Edition hardware feature. Active Memory Deduplication is a virtualization technology in which memory pages with identical contents are coalesced (or deduplicated) in physical memory. Active Memory Deduplication aggregates the same data in one memory position, and frees other duplicate memory blocks, thus optimizing memory use.
Single root I/O virtualization
Single root I/O virtualization (SR-IOV) is a Peripheral component interconnect express (PCIe) standard architecture that define extensions to PCIe specifications to enable multiple partitions running simultaneously within a system to share PCIe devices. The architecture define virtual replicas of PCI functions known as virtual functions (VF). A partition can connect directly to an SR-IOV adapter VF without going through a virtual intermediary (VI) such as a POWER Hypervisor or Virtual I/O Server. This provides for a low latency and lower CPU utilization alternative by avoiding a VI.
Simplified remote restart
Remote restart is a high availability option for logical partitions. When an error causes a server outage, a partition that is configured with the remote restart capability can be restarted on a different physical server. Sometimes, it might take longer to start the server, in which case the remote restart feature can be used for faster reprovisioning of the partition. This operation completes faster as compared to restarting the server that failed and then restarting the partition.
Virtual Network Interface Controller adapter
A logical partition to which single root I/O virtualization (SR-IOV) logical ports that are assigned cannot be migrated. To overcome this limitation, a virtual Network Interface Controller (vNIC) can be assigned to a logical partition. A vNIC is a type of virtual adapter that can be configured on client logical partitions to provide a network interface. Each vNIC client adapter is backed by an SR-IOV logical port that is owned by the Virtual I/O Server (VIOS).
Related information

Last updated: Wed, April 29, 2020