Persistent memory virtualization for virtual machine

You can enable Persistent Memory Virtualization feature for a virtual machine. When the virtual machine is deployed with a persistent memory volume, during VM restart the persistent memory volume is retained reducing the boot time.

You can configure PMEM volumes and assign them to a virtual machine. Device capacity is carved into persistent memory volumes by the virtualization management entity. PowerVM® presents a technology agnostic persistent memory architecture to the operating systems and management entities that is not specific to any given type of device.

Prerequisites

  • The virtual machine must be in shutoff state for add or remove persistent memory volume operations.
  • No other task must be performed on the virtual machine.

Supported use cases

PowerVC supports the following use case scenarios:
  • Deploy a virtual machine with one or more persistent volumes using Create server API or Deploy page using GUI.
  • Create a compute template with one or more persistent volumes and capacity.
  • View, add, or remove persistent volumes of an existing virtual machine.
  • Onboard a virtual machine with persistent volumes.

Limitations

  • User cannot perform migrate or remote restart operations on the virtual machine with persistent memory volume.
  • Virtual machines with persistent volumes are hard pinned to the host.
  • User cannot unpin a virtual machine with persistent memory volume.
  • PowerVC allows only DRAM based persistent memory volumes