IBM IBM PowerVC versions and releases
This chapter describes the updates that have been introduced since IBM Power Virtualization Center (IBM IBM PowerVC) Version 1.2.3, with special focus on Version 1.3.0 and Version 1.3.1.
The following topics are covered in this chapter:
2.1 Previous versions overview
IBM Systems and Technology Group Cloud System Software developed a virtualization management solution for PowerVM and PowerKVM, which is called IBM IBM PowerVC. The objective is to manage virtualization on the Power Systems platform by providing a robust, easy-to-use tool to enable its users to take advantage of the Power Systems platform differentiation.
2.2 IBM IBM PowerVC enhancements throughout the versions
The following sections introduce to you how IBM IBM PowerVC new features were added to this virtualization solution.
This list shows the previous versions:
•IBM IBM PowerVC first release (R1)
•IBM IBM PowerVC Version 1.2.0
•IBM IBM PowerVC Version 1.2.1
•IBM IBM PowerVC Version 1.2.2
•IBM IBM PowerVC Version 1.2.3
•IBM IBM PowerVC Version 1.3.0
2.2.1 IBM IBM PowerVC release to OpenStack edition cross-reference
Table 2-1 cross-references the IBM PowerVC releases to editions of OpenStack.
Table 2-1 IBM PowerVC releases cross-referenced to OpenStack versions
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IBM PowerVC release
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Availability
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OpenStack edition
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v1.2
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October 2013
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Havana
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v1.2.1
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April 2014
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Icehouse
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v1.2.2
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October 2014
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Juno
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v1.2.3
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April 2015
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Kilo
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v1.3.0
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October 2015
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Liberty
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v1.3.1
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June 2016
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Mitaka
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2.2.2 IBM IBM PowerVC first release (R1)
IBM PowerVC first release was available in certain markets in 2013. The primary objective of this release was to simplify the task of deploying a single logical partition (LPAR) with operating system software for new IBM Power System hardware clients. This release presented several restrictions, requiring virtualization management of the hosts and supporting only limited resource configurations.
2.2.3 IBM IBM PowerVC Version 1.2.0
The second release, IBM PowerVC Version 1.2.0, was also available worldwide in 2013. The primary objective was to simplify the virtualization management experience of IBM Power Systems servers through the Hardware Management Console (HMC) and build a foundation for enterprise-level virtualization management.
2.2.4 IBM IBM PowerVC Version 1.2.1
The third release of IBM PowerVC, Version 1.2.1, was available worldwide in 2014 with the addition of PowerKVM support that was built on POWER8 servers and shared storage pool (SSP) support for the PowerVM edition.
2.2.5 IBM IBM PowerVC Version 1.2.2
The fourth release of IBM PowerVC, Version 1.2.2, was also available worldwide in 2014. This version focused on adding new features and support to the following components:
•Image management
•Monitoring
•Host maintenance mode
•Storage
•Network
•Security
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Important: IBM IBM PowerVC Express Edition is no longer supported in this release.
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2.2.6 IBM IBM PowerVC Version 1.2.3
The first part of this section is an overview of the new IBM PowerVC V1.2.3 features and the following list describes the most important features that are introduced in IBM IBM PowerVC Standard Edition Version 1.2.3:
•New client operating systems supported
•Scaling improvement
•Redundant HMC
•Host groups management.
•Advance placement policies (affinity/anti-affinity)
•Multi-disk capture/deploy
•PowerVM and PowerKVM remote restart
•The cloud-init for the latest service pack (SP) of AIX
IBM IBM PowerVC Version 1.2.3.2 enhancements
In September 2015, new functions were added to this version:
•Support for IBM PowerVM multiple SPPs
•Data volume resize (larger)
2.3 IBM IBM PowerVC Version 1.3.0
IBM IBM PowerVC Version 1.3, available in December 2015, introduces a long list of enhancements and new features:
•Dynamic Resource Optimizer (DRO)
•IBM PowerVM Novalink support
•Enhanced fabric management through storage connectivity groups
•Manage up to 25 fabrics
•IBM System Storage DS8000 support
•Manage up to 5000 virtual machines (VMs)
•New supported guest operating systems
•Functional enhancements
2.3.1 Dynamic Resource Optimizer
DRO monitors the resource usage of physical hosts and VMs in a cloud environment. When a host becomes overused, DRO adjusts for workloads whose characteristics change over time. DRO optimizes the cloud by:
•Migrating VMs
•Activating mobile cores through Capacity on Demand (CoD) from IBM Power Systems, available for enterprise pool members only
Activating Dynamic Resource Optimizer
DRO activation is set for each host group. Within a host group that has DRO activated, you can easily select specific hosts or VMs to opt out of optimization, which gives you the reassurance that critical workloads are never moved.
Advise-only mode
While you are getting to know DRO and fine-tune your DRO setup, you can run it in Advise-only mode. You can review the DRO Events window to see the DRO’s load-balancing advice, and when you are ready, it is simple to switch to Active mode.
Specifying the threshold for overused
You have control over what it means for a system to be overused, and you can set a different threshold for each host group. In the IBM PowerVC user interface, you create the optimization policy by setting values for CPU utilization threshold, Run interval, and Stabilization. The DRO acts only after the CPU utilization threshold is crossed the number of times that are specified in Stabilization. Here is an example scenario assuming the following values:
•CPU utilization threshold: 70%
•Run interval: 5 minutes
•Stabilization: 3 times
Then, the DRO checks the CPU utilization on each host in the host group every 5 minutes. If any host has a CPU utilization greater than 70%, its threshold is exceeded. If a host’s CPU utilization threshold is exceeded three times in a row, the appropriate DRO action is triggered.
Specifying what actions are taken (or suggested)
When a DRO action is triggered, it performs or recommends an action. On each host group, you can specify that the DRO should activate cores through CoD, migrate VMs, or both. If you specify both, then the DRO always tries to activate cores before migrating VMs.
Reviewing Dynamic Resource Optimizer activity
The actions that are taken or recommended by the DRO are listed on the DRO events window. You can customize this window and specify the period for which events should be listed.
Monitoring the CPU utilization
You do not have to wait for the DRO to act to see that a host is being overused. You can view the CPU utilization and threshold status for a host at any time by reviewing the host’s details window in the IBM PowerVC graphical user interface (GUI).
2.3.2 PowerVM Novalink support
IBM PowerVC Version 1.3 supports hosts that are managed by PowerVM Novalink, which improves scaling and performance. Your environment can be made up of a combination of hosts that are managed by PowerVM Novalink and those that are managed by the HMC. You can switch a host from HMC-managed to PowerVM Novalink-managed through IBM PowerVC user interface to redefine easily the management system, IBM PowerVC can continue to manage it without any interruptions. For more information, see 1.1, “IBM PowerVC overview” on page 2.
2.3.3 Enhanced fabric management through storage connectivity groups
A storage connectivity group is associated with a set of Virtual I/O Servers (VIOS) and optionally, sets of Fibre Channel (FC) fabrics and ports, that are considered storage connectivity candidates for VMs during deployment, migration, and when new storage is attached to a VM. IBM PowerVC Version 1.3.0 storage connectivity groups contain an Enhanced fabric management, and also contain a new Fabrics section that you can use to control how much fabric redundancy is required in your environment.
2.3.4 Managing up to 5000 virtual machines
PowerVM Novalink-managed hosts allow substantial increases in scaling:
•When your environment consists entirely of PowerVM Novalink-managed hosts, IBM PowerVC can manage 200 hosts and 5000 VMs.
•In an environment made up of PowerVM Novalink-managed hosts and HMC-managed hosts, IBM PowerVC can manage 3000 VMs and 100 hosts (at most, 30 of these can be HMC-managed).
2.3.5 New supported guest operating systems
IBM PowerVC supports the following guest operating systems. When the supported version is on Big Endian (BE) or Little Endian (LE) systems, it is noted in the list:
•AIX 6.1 or later
•AIX 7.1 or later
•AIX 7.2 or later
•IBM i 7.1 TR 8 or later
•IBM i 7.2 TR 1 or later
•RHEL 5.9 or later (BE)
•RHEL 6.4 or later (BE)
•RHEL 7.1 (BE and LE) or later
•SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP 3 or later (BE)
•SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP 0 or later (LE)
•Ubuntu 14.04.03
•Ubuntu 15.04
•Ubuntu 15.10
•Ubuntu 16.04 or later
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Note: Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5.x is deprecated and might be withdrawn from support in subsequent releases.
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2.3.6 Functional enhancements that are introduced in Version 1.3.0 Fix Pack 2
IBM PowerVC Version 1.3.0 Fix Pack 2 introduced important and significant improvements:
•Security roles added
•Change between PowerVM Novalink and HMC management
•VM migration regardless of management type
Security roles added
New security roles are added in this upgrade so that you can manage your user capabilities with more granularity.
Changing between PowerVM Novalink and HMC management
With IBM PowerVC Version 1.3 Fix Pack 2, if you have a host that was added to IBM PowerVC as HMC managed, you can change it to be PowerVM Novalink managed and vice versa. However, you must ensure that IBM PowerVC recognizes the change and can continue communicating with it.
Migrating virtual machines regardless of management type
In IBM IBM PowerVC Version 1.3 Fix Pack 2, VMs can be migrated from hosts that are HMC managed to hosts that are PowerVM Novalink managed and vice versa. The normal rules surrounding migration still apply.
2.4 IBM IBM PowerVC Version 1.3.1
Even though IBM Cloud PowerVC Manager works with IBM PowerVC Standard to provide an end-to-end cloud solution, you can use Cloud PowerVC Manager to provision workloads and manage virtual images, in addition to all IBM PowerVC Standard functions. It is considered as a new version.
The installation process requires your decision to install any of the following editions:
•IBM Cloud PowerVC Manager
•IBM IBM PowerVC Standard
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Note: You can install IBM PowerVC Standard edition and enable cloud offering later by running a script.
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2.4.1 IBM Cloud PowerVC Manager
IBM Cloud PowerVC Manager with OpenStack for Power Systems is an entry-level cloud solution to help organizations get up and running quickly and easily with cloud. It works with the Power Systems infrastructure, leveraging the Power Systems enterprise reliability, availability, and security (RAS) to deliver cloud without risk. IBM Cloud PowerVC Manager increases efficiency through heterogeneous cloud management to manage private, public, or hybrid cloud infrastructure. Cloud PowerVC Manager can manage PowerKVM environments directly or PowerVM environments through IBM PowerVC, giving customers the flexibility to leverage the choice of Hypervisor that is provided with Power Systems. Key features include:
•Self-service portal for provisioning of services with an easy to use interface
•Virtual image oversight with automated approval processing and provisioning
•Basic usage metering to support a pay-per-use business model, with automated collection of resource usage metrics
•Security through authentication and authorization
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Note: IBM Cloud PowerVC Manager has all the functions of IBM PowerVC Standard plus the new self-service portal functions in the IBM PowerVC user interface.
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IBM Cloud PowerVC Manager allows Power Systems clients to transition quickly to a cloud-based infrastructure and provides the benefits of a cloud delivery model by enabling:
•Fast time to value with a solution that is simple to deploy, easy to use, and works with an existing, heterogeneous infrastructure.
•A simplified, starter cloud experience for lower costs and single point of management across compute environments.
•A function-rich solution that provides insight into resource utilization with metering and reporting, and improves manageability.
•Accelerated infrastructure delivery and improved operational quality with standardization and automation.
•Simple and intuitive self-service interface for reduced workload, OpenStack alignment provides clients with open technology choices.
2.4.2 Self-service portal
Managing a private cloud requires software tools to help create a virtualized pool of compute resources, provide a self-service portal for users, and policies for resource allocation, control, and security, and metering data for resource billing.
Cloud PowerVC Manager comes with a self-service portal that you can use to deploy quickly and reliably VMs. Users who need access to this tool must be assigned the self-service role by an administrator. With the self-service role, you have user-level access to a given project. This new concept of a project allows administrators to group resources together and to allow access only to users who need it, through integrated role-based access controls. What you can do in a project is driven by the policies that are set by the cloud administrator.
The cloud administrator’s role can specify how many VMs a self-service user can create before needing administrator approval. After reaching that point, if a user tries to create a VM, a request is generated before the VM is created. If an administrator approves the request, the VM is then created.
A cloud self-service user creates VMs by using pre-built deploy templates that are set up by the cloud administrator. These templates are created from the images that are accessible to a project. Deploy templates are tied to one project, but multiple deploy templates that use different settings can be created from the same image.
2.4.3 Access roles
There are two relevant roles in self-service portal functions:
•Administrator
•Self-service user
Administrator’s role in Cloud PowerVC Manager
When you log in to a project as an administrator, the IBM PowerVC administrator user interface is loaded. On the left navigation, you can see the following list of resources:
•Links for images
•VMs
•Hosts
•Available networks
•Storage
All of those resources except hosts belong to the project in which you logged in to. The home window shows utilization information of the processes and memory across all the hosts.
Table 2-2 shows the administrator actions that are allowed in IBM PowerVC.
Table 2-2 IBM Cloud PowerVC administrator actions
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Administrator actions
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Description
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Manage self-service users
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In the project you have logged in to, you can view the list of users and groups that are assigned the self-service role. You can add or remove user roles through the OpenStack CLI. However, if a user is assigned the self-service role in a project, do not assign him or her another role in that project.
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Manage deploy templates
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Create, edit, and delete deploy templates, list all the deploy templates in your project, view their details, and use them to deploy a VM.
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Manage requests from self-service users
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You can approve or reject requests that are made by self-service users for VM management such as:
•Deploy.
•Expiration.
•Extension.
•Capture.
•Snapshot.
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Manage your VMs
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List the VMs in your project and view their details, and perform VM lifecycle operations, such as:
•Deploy.
•Start/stop/restart.
•Delete.
•Resize.
•Capture VMs to create an image.
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2.4.4 IBM Cloud PowerVC Manager capabilities
Besides the features that are introduced in this section, the following list shows you what you can do with Cloud PowerVC Manager edition:
•Create images.
•Deploy VMs.
•Operate a private or public cloud.
•Manage a hybrid cloud infrastructure.
•Use IBM Platform Resource Scheduler.
Creating images
You can easily create new golden master images and software appliances by using corporate standard operating system, application versions, technology levels, and security patches. You can deploy multiple instances of an image at a time and multiple configurations of virtual images across different projects. Cloud PowerVC Manager provides reliably tracked images to ensure compliance and minimize security risks. Also, it can optimize resources, reducing the number of virtualized images and the storage that is required for them.
Deploying virtual machines
You can slash time to value for new workloads from months to a few days:
•You can do deployment of application images across compute and storage resources for both Power Systems and x86 platforms.
•Cloud PowerVC Manager maintains availability with remote restart of failed VMs with workload priority, which leads to user self- and project-level user access controls.
•You have investment protection with from full support of existing virtualized environments.
•You can optimize performance of IBM systems with dynamic scaling, expansive capacity, and continuous operation.
Operating a private or public cloud
You can cut costs with efficient operation:
•Delegate provisioning to authorized users to improve productivity.
•Maintain full oversight to ensure a secure and optimized cloud with automated approval/rejection.
•Standardize deployment and configuration to improve compliance and reduce errors by setting policies, defaults, and templates.
•Simplify administration with an intuitive interface for cross-platform management of projects, users, workloads, resources, billing, approvals, and metering.
•Supports mobility and flexibility for device-independent cloud management.
Managing a hybrid cloud infrastructure
Cloud PowerVC Manager provides flexibility to use the most optimal infrastructure:
•Manage all IBM server architectures and major hypervisors.
•Manage systems on-premises or off-premises in a private or public infrastructure.
•Enables your IT department to monitor / approve all public and private deployments of VMs.
•Lower cost of ownership by deploying workloads on the best optimized environment.
IBM Platform Resource Scheduler
The IBM Platform Resource Scheduler improves service levels with automated, policy-based management:
•Provides dynamic resource management
•Higher quality of service
•Improved application performance, VM availability, and resilience
•More flexible resource selection
•Automated management
•Increase asset utilization up to 20%
•Reduce infrastructure costs
•Intelligent VM placement
•Automated, on-going resource optimization
This is the “short time to implement a cloud” solution, and customers and service providers can take advantage of a number of cloud solution offerings that include a choice of Power Systems pre-configured with the software installed, including IBM Cloud Manager with OpenStack.
2.4.5 Viewing usage information (metering data)
Administrators can use REST APIs to determine metering data for a project or a user. You can determine the number of virtual CPUs (total_vcpu), the amount of memory being used by VMs (total_memory), and the amount of storage being used by volumes (total_volumes).You can use these APIs to query the meter samples.
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Note: Usage information is updated every 10 minutes.
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When viewing the usage data as an administrator, you can:
•Determine the value of 1 meter for one user
•Determine the usage for all users in a project
•Determine one metering value for all users in a project
•Determine the usage for all users in all projects in which you are an administrator
2.4.6 IBM IBM PowerVC Standard edition
This version is based on the Standard edition, which means most of the enhancements are functional and apply to both editions.
The following list shows the functional changes that are introduced in this version:
•DRO
•Improved lifecycle control of data volumes
•Expanded PowerVM Novalink support
•Projects
Dynamic Resource Optimizer enhancement
There has been an improvement to the DRO that allows schedules for monitoring policies, PowerVM Novalink-based mobile core CoD optimization, and improved DRO policy controls. It can be turned on automatically to manage and rebalance the workload of your private cloud.
Improved lifecycle control of data volumes
You can use this new function to choose which volumes to delete. If the volume is being shared with another VM, that volume is not eligible for deletion.
Expanded PowerVM Novalink support
Although PowerVM Novalink is not a part of IBM PowerVC, these two technologies work closely together. With IBM PowerVC V1.3.1, PowerVM Novalink Version 1.0.0.3 has expanded support that impacts how it functions with IBM PowerVC. PowerVM Novalink now supports the following functions:
•PowerVM simplified remote restart
•CoD with DRO
•Shared processor pools
•Power Enterprise Pools management
•IBM i VM management
•VM deployment with the IBM Active Memory™ Expansion (AME) enabled
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Note: Remote restart is supported only if both systems are managed by PowerVM Novalink.
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Projects
Another part of IBM PowerVC Version 1.3.1 is the addition of security projects. This function was added to the IBM PowerVC Standard Edition, so it is available in the cloud offering as well. You can now add images, VMs, networks, and storage to projects and only people who are granted a role in that project can access those resources. Of course, you can have different roles in different projects, so someone can be an administrator in Project A, a restricted individual to deploy in Project B, and have no access to Project C.
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Important: You must select a project every time you log in to IBM PowerVC, and you can work with only the resources that are in that project.
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IBM PowerVC had projects all along, but everything was in the default project. So, all of your resources are in the default project. To move them to a different project, an administrator must create the project, remove the resource from IBM PowerVC, and then add it to the project.
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