Managing existing virtual machines

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You can manage existing virtual machines with IBM® Power® Virtualization Center. After they are added to PowerVC, you can remove them from management at any time. Removing them does not destroy the virtual machine.

You can choose to manage existing virtual machines when you register the device or by following these steps after registration. If you plan to capture and deploy the virtual machine, you must first add the virtual machine to your PowerVC environment. Supported volumes and ports associated with the virtual machine will be automatically included for management.

Before you add an existing virtual machine to PowerVC, review the information in Requirements for adding existing virtual machines.

When you import a virtual machine, it is automatically connected to the right network. If no network is found, PowerVC creates one in the current project. When you are managing a new virtual machine, PowerVC associates the virtual machine with the first valid Shared Ethernet Adapter (SEA) network existing with the matching VLAN for the virtual machine. If PowerVC cannot determine the IP addresses of virtual machines that are being imported, networks are created as DHCP and the network interfaces will not have an IP address. If you change the network to static, you can edit the virtual machine's network interface to add an IP address for the virtual network interface. Recording the appropriate IP address prevents other deploys from using this IP address.

To remanage a virtual machine that was imported in an earlier version of PowerVC, do the following:
  1. On the Virtual Machines page, click Manage Existing.
  2. Update the network and make it static. Ensure that the subnet mask and gateway details match those of the virtual machine.
  3. Select a virtual machine and click Manage.
    Notes:
    • If the virtual machine is powered off or RMC is down, PowerVC does not detect the IP addresses.
    • PowerVC does not detect IP addresses of IBM i virtual machines.

If you import another virtual machine that uses the same VLAN and virtual switch, PowerVC connects it to the previously created network.

When you unmanage a virtual machine, PowerVC retains the port and network information so that if you manage it again, the same networking information is used. If the virtual machine is associated with a shared network, you can manage the virtual machine into a different project than it had been in. In this case, the port is moved to the new project.

To add existing virtual machines to PowerVC or to stop managing them, follow these steps:

  1. From the left side of the page, click the hosts icon.
  2. In the Hosts page, click the host that has the existing virtual machines to open its details page.
  3. Expand Virtual Machines and click Manage Existing. To stop managing virtual machines, select the virtual machine and click Unmanage instead. This action does not destroy the virtual machine.
  4. After the action completes, go to the Virtual Machines page and double-click the virtual machine to view the details. Click Actions > Edit onboard details to specify details such as the operating system type and boot volumes. A volume from a DS8000 storage provider cannot be attached to a managed virtual machine if the operating system has not be set.