Preparing the management server or host

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IBM® Power® Virtualization Center can be installed on one of your IBM Power Systems hosts or it can be installed on an x86 server. It can be installed either in a virtual machine (LPAR), or on a bare metal server.

If you are using a Power Systems host as your management server, then you need to perform the same initial configuration tasks on it that you did on all of the other hosts in your environment. No matter what host PowerVC is installed on, the system's host name must be resolvable by DNS or locally.

The tasks that you follow differ based on whether you are using a PowerVM® host or a x86 server.

Installing other software
It is recommended that PowerVC is the only server application hosted on the virtual machine. However, PowerVC can generally coexist with other software on the same instance, assuming that there is no resource or dependency conflict between PowerVC and the other software. Potential conflicts include port contention, user namespace, file system capacity, firewall settings, and so on. It is not recommended that you version lock any RPMs except when directed to do so by IBM support.

You should also consider performance implications to PowerVC and to the other software when installing other software on the same instance. For example, PowerVC memory usage may grow and cause problems with applications that coexist with PowerVC.

PowerVC resource requirements are sized assuming that PowerVC is the only workload that is running on the management instance. If other applications are using resources, adjust the sizing accordingly.

Table 1. Tasks for preparing the management server or host
PowerVM virtual machine x86 virtual machine Bare metal x86 or IBM Power server
The management server needs to have two virtual machines (logical partitions) installed on it:
  • The Virtual I/O Server virtual machine that was created when you installed the Virtual I/O Server during initial configuration of the host.
  • The management virtual machine, which is a Red Hat® Enterprise Linux® virtual machine into which you will install PowerVC.
After these two virtual machines are created, you need to install the operating system into the management virtual machine.		 After the virtual machine is created, you need to install the operating system into the management virtual machine. Verify that the server meets the minimum requirements by reviewing this topic: Hardware and software requirements, then install Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

For instructions, see this topic: Installing RHEL on the PowerVC management server or host.