Requirements for managing existing virtual machines

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Before you manage an existing virtual machine with PowerVC, ensure that the following requirements are met.

  • Operating systems
    • The virtual machine must have an IBM® i, AIX®, or Linux® operating system installed on it.
  • Shared processor pools and memory pools
    • The virtual machine can use any shared processor pool that is configured on the host.
    • The virtual machine cannot use a shared memory pool.
  • Networking
    • For virtual machines deployed with SR-IOV networks, the virtual machine must only have a pure virtual adapter (vNIC). Physical adapters are not supported. To manage a virtual machine that has an SR-IOV physical adapter, you must first remove the physical adapter.
    • The virtual machine must not have an 802.1Qbg-enabled adapter. 802.1Qbg-enabled ports are not supported. To manage a virtual machine that has an 802.1Qbg-enabled adapter, you must first remove the 802.1Qbg-enabled adapter.
    • The virtual machine must have virtual Ethernet adapters that each have only one VLAN configured. A virtual Ethernet adapter with more than one VLAN is not supported. To manage a virtual machine with multiple VLANs, you must first remove the additional VLANs.
  • Storage
    • The existing virtual machine's virtual SCSI or Fibre Channel server adapter on the Virtual I/O Server must be configured with a client partition ID and adapter number. For instructions see Configuring a Virtual I/O Server virtual SCSI adapter.
      Important: Instead of selecting Any client partition can connect when following the instructions, specify a specific client.
    • PowerVC does not support virtual machines that have multiple virtual Fibre Channel adapters that are allocated from a common physical Fibre Channel port on the Virtual I/O Server. Each virtual Fibre Channel adapter must be allocated from a different physical Fibre Channel port on the Virtual I/O Server.
    • At a minimum, the virtual machine must have an attached boot volume. Importing a virtual machine with pluggable storage is not supported.
    • The storage provider that hosts the volume for the virtual machine must be managed by PowerVC. If the virtual machine has more than one volume attached, only the volumes with storage providers that are managed by PowerVC will be brought under PowerVC management. To manage a virtual machine whose storage provider hosting the volume is not managed by PowerVC, you must first add the storage provider to PowerVC.
    • The virtual machine must have volumes that are configured through NPIV to the storage provider for registered SAN providers. The virtual machine must have volumes that are configured through virtual SCSI-attachment (vSCSI) for shared storage pool cluster providers.
      Note: If you have an existing virtual machine that is configured with an NPIV port, PowerVC allows you to manage that virtual machine on a Fibre Channel port. However, if that Fibre Channel has a connectivity setting of None or vSCSI, some operations, such as migration or attaching and detaching volumes on the virtual machine, will fail. To solve that problem, change that port's connectivity to Any or NPIV on the Fibre Channel Port Configuration page.
    • When managing attached volumes on existing NPIV virtual machines the WWPN of the virtual machine is used to identify the volume. All the volumes mapped to WWPNX of the virtual machine will be managed into PowerVC.
    Note: When you bring an existing virtual machine under management, any volumes that are attached to that virtual machine will be brought under management automatically. You cannot bring these volumes under management without bringing the virtual machine under management.