Migration to an Updated System that Has the LGR for Mixed APVIRT Facility and a New Crypto Type

APVIRT virtual machines can be relocated from older systems without the LGR for mixed APVIRT facility to systems that have the LGR for mixed APVIRT facility. Such a relocation is permitted only if the destination system supports the user's current APVIRT capabilities. If the destination system supports the user's current APVIRT capabilities, the outbound relocation is permitted and the return relocation is also permitted. You can use the VMRELOCATE TEST command to test whether the virtual machine is eligible to be relocated to the specified system. See VMRELOCATE.

Figure 1 illustrates a scenario for moving a workload from an older system to an upgraded system that has the LGR for mixed APVIRT facility.

Figure 1. Using relocation to migrate a workload to an upgraded system.
An APVIRT user on a z14 system with a CEX6a adapter can relocate to a z15 system with a CEX7A adaptor.

In this scenario an IBM z15 system with a CEX7A crypto adapter and the LGR for mixed APVIRT facility is added to a relocation domain that includes an IBM z14 system with a CEX6A crypto adapter. The IBM z14 system does not have the LGR for mixed APVIRT facility. The virtual machine can be freely relocated from the IBM z14 system to the IBM z15 system. Relocation of the virtual machine back to the IBM z14 system is also permitted.

The workload migration involves the following steps. Each numbered step corresponds to a numbered image in Figure 1:

  1. The relocation domain RLD1 contains only an IBM z14 system, which does not have the LGR for mixed APVIRT facility.
  2. Prepare the relocation domain for workload migration:
    • On the IBM z15, load an image that contains the LGR for mixed APVIRT facility.
    • Update relocation domain definitions to include the IBM z15 system.
    • On the IBM z14, identify one or more virtual machines that run crypto workloads that you want to migrate to the new IBM z15 system.
  3. Use LGR to migrate the selected set of virtual machines from the IBM z14 system to the IBM z15 system.

    LGR from the IBM z15 system back to the IBM z14 system is permitted. The guest retains its virtual AP capabilities from the originating system. If the originating system is not reconfigured, then the same pool capabilities apply and are identical to the guest's virtual characteristics when the decision is made to relocate back.

  4. After you verify that the migration is successful you can consider the following actions:
    • Migrate more work from the IBM z14 system to the IBM z15 system.
    • Decommission the IBM z14 system.