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IBM i Virtualization Summary
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The summary on this page indicates the minimum IBM i operating system levels that are supported for the IBM i virtualization functions. There is also a column that indicates the type of environment:
- VIOS (for functions that require a VIOS configuration)
- iVirtualization (for functions that are supported in a configuration where IBM i is serving I/O to a client IBM i, AIX, or Linux partition, or where IBM i is a client of an IBM i partition)
- Native (for functions that are supported for Native SR-IOV configurations).
For IBM i Virtualization configurations:
- The hosting partition can be any IBM i release, IBM i 6.1 or newer, that is supported on a particular Power System processor generation natively.
- The client partition can be any IBM i release, IBM i 6.1 or newer, that is supported on that same Power System processor generation natively or with VIOS.
- For example, IBM i 7.1, on a Power System with POWER6 technology, can have client partitions that are IBM i 6.1 or 7.2; however, IBM i 7.3 is not supported on POWER6, so it cannot be a client of IBM i 7.1 on a POWER6 system.
For more information about iVirtualization, see IBM i Virtualization and Open Storage.
For general information about IBM i Technology Refreshes and Resaves, see IBM i Technology Refreshes and Resaves
See IBM i Virtualization Details for more announcement details about each item listed in the following tables.
| Items in the following tables were before the IBM i 7.6 General Availability date of 18 April 2025, but they are all supported by the base release of IBM i 7.6. |
| IBM i Virtualization Support | Configuration (Native, VIOS, iVirt) | IBM i 7.5 | IBM i 7.4 | IBM i 7.3 |
| Enhancements from November 2024 | ||||
| Virtual Fibre Channel: Improved performance and latency tracking | VIOS | Tech Refresh 5 | - | - |
| Enhancements from December 2022 | ||||
| Support for VIOS 3.1.4 | VIOS | Tech Refresh 1 | Tech Refresh 7 | Tech Refresh 13 |
| IBM i leverages VIOS NPIV multiple queues | VIOS | Tech Refresh 1 | Tech Refresh 6 (see May 2022) | Tech Refresh 12 (see May 2022) |
| Enhancements from May 2022 | ||||
| IBM i leverages VIOS NPIV multiple queues | VIOS | - | Tech Refresh 6 | Tech Refresh 12 |
| Items in the following tables were before the IBM i 7.5 General Availability date of 10 May 2022, but they are all supported by the base release of IBM i 7.5. Items from the preceding table are supported on IBM i 7.3 if they are Storage or Ethernet that are supported as virtual clients in VIOS or iVirtualization configurations on systems before the generation of systems with POWER9 technology, or if they are specifically supported by an IBM i 7.3 Resave. |
IBM i Virtualization Support | Configuration (Native, VIOS, iVirt) | IBM i 7.4 | IBM i 7.3 | IBM i 7.2 |
| Enhancements from Nov 2020 | ||||
| NPIV Acceleration | VIOS | Base | Base | Base |
| Multiple Mapping of NPIV ports for Live Partition Mobility (LPM) operations | VIOS | Base | Base | Base |
| Enhancements from May 2020 | ||||
| IBM i Tape Virtualization | iVirt | PTF MF66863 | PTF MF64802 | PTF MF64803 |
| IBM i Hybrid Network Virtualization | VIOS | Tech Refresh 1 | Tech Refresh 7 | N/A |
| Enhancements from Nov 2019 | ||||
| Support for SR-IOV logical ports on a restricted I/O LPAR | VIOS | Tech Refresh 1 | Tech Refresh 7 | N/A |
Items in the following tables were before the IBM i 7.4 General Availability date of 23 June 2019, but they are all supported by the base release of IBM i 7.4. |
IBM i Virtualization Support | Configuration (Native, VIOS, iVirt) | IBM i 7.3 | IBM i 7.2 | IBM i 7.1 |
| Enhancements from Oct 2017 | ||||
| Increase in max LUNs per port for NPIV configurations | VIOS | Tech Refresh 3 | Tech Refresh 7 | N/A |
| Increase of virtual LUN size after initial allocation | VIOS | Tech Refresh 3 | N/A | N/A |
| Automation for Cloud Init | VIOS | Tech Refresh 3 | Tech Refresh 7 | N/A |
| Enhancements from Nov 2016 | ||||
| vNIC fail-over | VIOS | Tech Refresh 1 | Tech Refresh 5 | N/A |
| Shared Ethernet Adapter (SEA) large send | VIOS | Tech Refresh 1 | Tech Refresh 5 | N/A |
| Enhancements from May 2016 | ||||
| Live Partition Mobility - Support for active tapes | VIOS | Base | Tech Refresh 4 | N/A |
Items in the following tables were before the IBM i 7.3 General Availability date of 15 April 2016, but they are all supported by the base release of IBM i 7.3. |
IBM i Virtualization Support | Configuration (Native, VIOS, iVirt) | IBM i 7.2 | IBM i 7.1 | |
| Enhancements from Nov 2015 | ||||
| Little Endian Linux Client | iVirt | Tech Refresh 3 | Tech Refresh 11 | |
| vNIC with SR-IOV | VIOS | Tech Refresh 3 | Tech Refresh 11 | |
| VLAN Tag Support for Network Boot and Install | VIOS | Tech Refresh 3 | N/A | |
| Large Send Offload on Virtual Ethernet | iVirt | Tech Refresh 3 | Tech Refresh 11 | |
| Enhancements from May 2015 | ||||
| SR-IOV support for Power Systems with POWER8 technology | Native, iVirt, VIOS | Tech Refresh 2 | Tech Refresh 10 | |
| Enhancements from June 2014 | ||||
| Native SR-IOV Ethernet | Native, iVirt, VIOS | Base | Tech Refresh 8 | |
| Increased number of virtual disks per VSCSI adapter | iVirt, VIOS | Base | Tech Refresh 8 | |
| Layer-2 bridging of VLAN-tagged frames | iVirt | Base | N/A | |
| Control over resources used to initialize client disk | iVirt | Base | N/A | |
| SSD preference for virtual disk | iVirt | Base | N/A | |
| Easier tape and optical configuration | iVirt | Base | N/A | |
Items in the following table were before the IBM i 7.2 General Availability date of 2 May 2 2014, but they are all supported in the base release of IBM i 7.2. Items from the preceding table are supported on IBM i 6.1 only if they apply to Storage or Ethernet that can be supported as virtual clients in VIOS or iVirtualization configurations on systems before the generation of systems with POWER8 technology. |
| Virtualization Support by GA date | IBM i 7.2 | IBM i 7.1 | IBM i 6.1 (with 6.1.1 Machine Code) | Environment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
March 2013 -- NPIV attach of SVC and Storwize V7000, V3700, V3500 | Base | Tech Refresh 6 | - | VIOS |
October 2012 -- Large Receive Offload for layer 2 bridging -- IBM PowerVM V2.2 Refresh with SSP & LPM updates | Base Base | Tech Refresh 5 Tech Refresh 5 | - - | VIOS VIOS |
| May 2012 -- IBM i Live Partition Mobility -- HMC Remote Restart PRPQ -- Performance enhancement for zeroing virtual disk | Base Base Base | Tech Refresh 4 Tech Refresh 4 Tech Refresh 4 | - - - | VIOS VIOS iVirtualization |
| December 2011 -- IBM PowerVM V2.2 Refresh with SSP enhancements | Base | Tech Refresh 3 | - | VIOS |
| October 2011 -- Ethernet layer-2 bridging -- Mirroring with NPIV Attached Storage -- VPM enhancement to create IBM i partitions -- PowerVM NPIV attachment of DS5000 for Blades -- IBM PowerVM V2.2 Refresh with Network Load Balancing | Base Base Base Base Base | Tech Refresh 3 Tech Refresh 3 Tech Refresh 3 Tech Refresh 3 Tech Refresh 3 | - - X (client only) - X | iVirtualization VIOS iVirtualization VIOS VIOS |
| May 2011 -- Partition Suspend and Resume -- IBM i to IBM i virtual tape support -- PowerVM NPIV attachment of DS5000 | Base Base Base | Tech Refresh 2 Tech Refresh 2 Tech Refresh 2 | - APAR II14615 (client only) - | VIOS iVirtualization VIOS |
| December 2010 -- PowerVM with Shared Storage Pools | Base | Tech Refresh 1 | - | VIOS |
| September 2010 -- Support for embedded media changers -- Expanded HBA and switch support for NPIV on blades | Base Base | Tech Refresh 1 Tech Refresh 1 | - X | iVirtualization VIOS |
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Modified date:
17 February 2026
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