IBM Integrated Virtualization Manager

In today's dynamic marketplace, small and medium businesses are continually striving to adapt and respond to rapidly shifting IT requirements coupled with tight budget constraints. Simplifying the IT infrastructure is very important to business executives and IT professionals alike.

To help address these issues, IBM created the Integrated Virtualization Manager (IVM). The IVM is an easy-to-use, browser-based tool which literally allows clients to point, click and consolidate multiple workloads onto one IBM Power System.

The IVM, coupled with the advanced capabilities of Power Systems, offers small and medium business the opportunity to:

• Simplify IT management by enabling computer resources to look and perform as one
• Increase business flexibility, allowing your organization to meet both anticipated and unanticipated spikes in server demand with shared capacity
• Save time and money, helping clients get the most out of their IT investment

In addition to the benefits mentioned above, IVM offers a lower cost of entry into virtualization on IBM POWER processor-based servers, since it does not require the use of a separate hardware appliance like the Hardware Management Console (HMC) or Systems Director Management Console(SDMC) for managing logical partitions (LPARs) on a single system. With IVM, clients can partition a single system by creating LPARs and provide for management of devices such as storage and virtual Ethernet. Best of all, IVM is included at no additional charge with the purchase of PowerVM on IBM Power Systems and is packaged in the Virtual I/O Server (VIOS) software.

IVM offers a rich set of PowerVM virtualization function; however it is a subset of the function offered via the management consoles. Be sure to look at the Appendix I for a detailed comparison of the different PowerVM management options.