Virtual Flash Memory

The Virtual Flash Memory is designed to improve availability and handling of paging workload spikes when running z/OS V2.1 or higher. The Virtual Flash Memory support with z/OS is designed to help improve system availability and responsiveness using Virtual Flash Memory across transitional workload events, such as market openings and diagnostic data collection.

The Virtual Flash Memory usage is no longer supported for coupling facility images. There are alternative MQ shared queue offload mechanisms provided by MQ that can be considered as an alternative.

The initial Virtual Flash Memory represents the amount of Virtual Flash Memory allocated to an activated logical partition. The maximum Virtual Flash Memory amount represents the maximum Virtual Flash Memory the logical partition is allowed. This means, if the initial and maximum amounts are specified, the maximum amount minus the initial amount is the Virtual Flash Memory amount that the logical partition's operating system can dynamically configure.