IBM PowerVC Version 2.0 Introduction and Configuration

IBM® Power Virtualization Center (IBM® PowerVC™) is an advanced enterprise virtualization management offering for IBM Power Systems. This IBM Redbooks® publication introduces IBM PowerVC and helps you understand its functions, planning, installation, and setup. It also shows how IBM PowerVC can integrate with systems management tools such as Ansible or Terraform and that it also integrates well into a OpenShift container environment.

IBM PowerVC Version 2.0.0 supports both large and small deployments, either by managing IBM PowerVM® that is controlled by the Hardware Management Console (HMC), or by IBM PowerVM NovaLink. With this capability, IBM PowerVC can manage IBM AIX®, IBM i, and Linux workloads that run on IBM POWER® hardware.

IBM PowerVC is available as a Standard Edition, or as a Private Cloud Edition.

IBM PowerVC includes the following features and benefits:

Virtual image capture, import, export, deployment, and management
Policy-based virtual machine (VM) placement to improve server usage
Snapshots and cloning of VMs or volumes for backup or testing purposes
Support of advanced storage capabilities such as IBM SVC vdisk mirroring of IBM Global
Mirror
Management of real-time optimization and VM resilience to increase productivity
VM Mobility with placement policies to reduce the burden on IT staff in a simple-to-install and easy-to-use graphical user interface (GUI)
Automated Simplified Remote Restart for improved availability of VMs ifor when a host is down
Role-based security policies to ensure a secure environment for common tasks
The ability to enable an administrator to enable Dynamic Resource Optimization on a schedule

IBM PowerVC Private Cloud Edition includes all of the IBM PowerVC Standard Edition features and enhancements:

A self-service portal that allows the provisioning of new VMs without direct system administrator intervention. There is an option for policy approvals for the requests that are received from the self-service portal.
Pre-built deploy templates that are set up by the cloud administrator that simplify the deployment of VMs by the cloud user.
Cloud management policies that simplify management of cloud deployments.
Metering data that can be used for chargeback.

This publication is for experienced users of IBM PowerVM and other virtualization solutions who want to understand and implement the next generation of enterprise virtualization management for Power Systems.
Unless stated otherwise, the content of this publication refers to IBM PowerVC Version 2.0.0.