What's new

PowerVC high availability and scale architecture

Earlier versions of PowerVC followed the All-in-One (AIO) deployment model that involved installing packages and setting up services corresponding to stateless (OpenStack based services like nova, cinder, etc.) and stateful services (MariaDB, RabbitMQetc) on a single system; thus, not following the distributed approach that OpenStack supports. While All-in-one deployment model keeps PowerVC deployment simple and highly manageable, the model denies PowerVC the scale and high availability that it might achieve with a multinode model. For details, see PowerVC high availability and scale architecture.

PowerVC support for P10

PowerVC 2.1.1 supports managing a Power10 host via HMC or NovaLink.

Functional enhancements

PowerVC 2.1.1.1 features

Listed below are the key features implemented in the 2.1.1.1 release.

Upgrade to 2.1.1.1

You can upgrade to PowerVC 2.1.1.1 by installing PowerVC 2.1.1. Similarly, if you have any previous version of PowerVC 2.0.3 or later installed, take a backup, copy the backup file to a custom location, and then uninstall the existing version. Reboot the system, install PowerVC 2.1.1, then perform restore. You can then upgrade to PowerVC 2.1.1.1. For details on upgrade, see Upgrading to PowerVC 2.1.1 or 2.1.1.1 Private Cloud. You can also refer to Backing up for more information on the backup procedure.

Storage connectivity group enhancement

Starting 2.1.1.1, PowerVC provides the ability to tag initiator port groups (IPG) as a boot IPG so that all boot volume attachments use the same virtual Fibre Channel (vFC) adapters that come from boot IPG. This enables IBM i virtual machines to assign the correct load source adapter to boot volumes. For details, see Storage connectivity groups.

Volume ID column in GUI (ID: PVC-I-422 )

The Ldev column now displays in the volumes tab of Storage template details, Image volume and Existing volumes tab of Deploy VM, Image volumes tab of Deploy Template, and volume list of Consistency Group pages when the Hitachi Storage provider is registered. Similarly, the WWN column displays in the volumes tab of Storage template details, Image volume and Existing volumes tab of Deploy VM, Image volumes tab of Deploy Template, and volume list of Consistency Group pages when the Pure Storage provider is registered.

Pinned VMs tab in the Host details page

A Pinned VMs tab is added in the Host details page that contains the Name, Original host, and Type columns for all the pinned virtual machines.

Lazy loading functionality in GUI

In PowerVC 2.1.1.1, the lazy loading feature that is implemented in the PowerVC GUI enhances the user experience in loading pages quickly.

PowerVC configuration command for Storwize

You can now create instance snapshot volumes in the configured child pool for Storwize by using the powervc-config storage storwize snapshot_child_pools command. For details, see CLI commands.

PowerVC 2.1.1 features

Listed below are the key features implemented in the 2.1.1 release.

Direct install or upgrade to 2.1.1

You can now directly install PowerVC 2.1.1. For upgrade, if you have any previous version of PowerVC 2.0.2 or later, take a backup, copy the backup file to a custom location, and then uninstall the existing version. Reboot the system and install or upgrade to PowerVC 2.1.1. It is recommended to use a fresh system or a VM to install PowerVC.

UI enhancements

• Column customization in additional lists in PowerVC GUI (ID: PVC-I-245)

  The column customization feature is now enabled in the Network Lists and Storage Lists. Click the customization icon and then select or deselect the columns as required. Click up or down arrows to customize the appearance of columns. PowerVC retains the customization preferences for specific users until further modifications.

• Additional Volume ID column in Column Customization (ID: PVC-I-422)

  The column customization option in the Boot volume and Data volume pages contain the Ldev column when the Hitachi Storage provider is registered and the WWN column when the Pure Storage provider is registered.

• Enable Replication option for Pure Storage in PowerVC GUI (ID: PVC-I-21)

  The Enable Replication option is now available in the Actions menu of the Storage list edit page for Pure Storage. Clicking this option displays the Enable Replication page in which you can make the desired selection and click Enable to activate HyperSwap® registration. You can also create and use the Pure Storage replication templates for managing replicated volumes.

• Compute plane nodes page enhancement in PowerVC GUI

  The Compute plane nodes page is enhanced to now display the list of compute plane nodes that are skipped during the PowerVC update process. You can select the compute plane nodes, then click Update to begin the update process.

• PowerVC GUI Help panel design enhancements (ID: PVC-I-20)
  The Help panel design is enhanced, adhering to the IBM Carbon guidelines.

  • Added the scroll option in the content section.
  • Replaced Online References to Quick Links.
  • Added the accordion to Quick Links.
  • Set the Quick Links accordion to either expand or collapse to fit the information in the content section.
• PowerVC Host Enter Maintenance Mode option defaults to None (ID: PVC-I-26)

  The Enter Maintenance Mode option window in the Host list page, which previously defaulted to Migrate all virtual machines to another host now defaults to None to allow you to choose the desired option.

• Virtual machines tab in the Network list page (ID: PVC-I-376)

  A Virtual machines tab is added to the Network edit page of the Networks list that contains a table with Name, Host, IP, State, Health, and Task columns for all the virtual machines.

• Projects Switcher drop-down selection (ID: PVC-I-413)

  In the Projects Switcher drop-down, the prefix ''Project:'' has now been removed from the project names' selection.

• Last logged-in timestamp in the About User panel in PowerVC GUI

  The About User panel in PowerVC GUI now contains Last logged-in that provides the time and date of the most recent login for a user.

• High Availability service for UI servers

  Starting PowerVC 2.1.1, High Availability (HA) is enabled for the UI service to ensure that there is minimum to no UI login downtime, and to avail other HA features.

• Delete Volume dialog design improvements

  The Delete Volume dialog for the Delete option in the Storages Boot Volumes page is improved to provide additional information and warning message about one or more selected volumes for deletion.

• PowerVC GUI page performance enhancement

  When services are unavailable in the Storage, Data volume, and Boot volume pages, the error message pop-up window now displays the status and the error reason.

• Gnocchi integration with Swift as a storage driver

  Gnocchi is now integrated with Swift for data consistencies around multinode clusters.

Replication feature on Pure Storage

PowerVC 2.1.1 provides the capability for two site (sync and async) and three site (trisync) replication. One of the main objectives of this support is to use the Pure Storage Active cluster capability to build high available workloads. For details, see Replication feature on Pure Storage. You can use API to register a secondary storage or a tertiary storage or both for Pure Storage for a primary storage provider in PowerVC. For details, see Storage controller registration. You can set the PowerVC cinder configuration for Pure Storage by using powervc-config storage purestorage command. For details, see CLI commands.

powervc-scale-config --list in a tabular format

Starting PowerVC 2.1.1, the powervc-scale-config --list subcommand displays values in a tabular format along with the Oslo_Conf Value and System_Conf Value columns. The Oslo_Conf Value is the scale configuration value and the System_Conf Value is the attribute value that is configured in the system.

Changes in hardware and software support

Changes in guest OS support

Support for RHEL 8.6, RHEL 8.7, RHEL 9.0, and CoreOS guest OS has been added. For details, see Guest operating system support.