Guest coupling simulation

Guest coupling simulation is available with z/VM®. The z/VM guest coupling simulation allows you to simulate one or more complete parallel sysplexes within a single z/VM system image, providing a test environment for parallel sysplex installation. The simulated environment is not intended for production use since its single points of failure diminish the availability advantages of the parallel sysplex environment. There are no special hardware requirements (external coupling facility channels, external coupling facilities, and Sysplex Timers are not necessary or supported). Guest operating systems within a simulated sysplex can only be coupled (through simulated coupling facility channels) to virtual coupling facilities also running as guests of the same z/VM system. You can have up to 32 virtual machines running z/OS® within a simulated sysplex, with each z/OS virtual machine coupled to up to eight virtual machines running as coupling facilities.

There is no system-imposed limit to the number of guest parallel sysplex environments that z/VM can simulate. However, practical limits on the number of guests that can be supported by a particular hardware configuration constrain the number of simulated parallel sysplex environments.