Extreme Cloud Administration Toolkit (xCAT)

Deploy xCAT with confidence

If you rely on xCAT 2 for large-system management and provisioning, you need xCAT support options you can rely on, too. IBM Support for xCAT provides technical support for Version 2 of Extreme Cloud Administration Toolkit (xCAT), the open source cluster management tool available through SourceForge.

xCAT 2 provides a unified interface for hardware control, discovery and OS deployment, and its scalability can handle the provisioning throughput and management of the largest clusters. IBM Support enhances xCAT 2 value by delivering the technical support you need to confidently manage your large systems.

IBM Support for xCAT gives you the best of both worlds: flexible, open, innovative software plus trusted IBM service and support. IBM Support for xCAT offers two tiers of IBM support:

  • IBM Enhanced Support for xCAT
  • IBM Elite Support for xCAT
  • - Features

    IBM Support for xCAT gives you the flexibility to choose from two tiers of IBM support depending on your business needs. Based on your requirements for features such as access methods, technical contacts and targeted response times, you can optimize the value that you are getting from the open source community and IBM.

    The annual renewable support offering is priced per server for each server managed by the program.

    • Technical support is provided worldwide.
    • The IBM Support for xCAT is offered for xCAT Version 2.0 and beyond.
    • All fixes and code updates are provided to the open source project through the official SourceForge xCAT website

    There are two tiers of IBM Support for xCAT that provide support based on your particular needs. Both offerings are delivered via remote support teams—on-site support is not provided. The Enhanced and Elite support tiers offer the following benefits:


    Selected Support Offerings IBM Enhanced Support IBM Elite Support
    Electronic Problem Submission Yes Yes
    Voice Problem Submission Yes Yes
    Number of Electronic or Voice problems Unlimited Unlimited
    Support Hours 8am - 5pm
    Mon-Fri    		 8am - 5pm
    Mon-Fri
    (24x7x365 for severity 1)
    Response Target 4 business hours 2 business hours
    Technical contacts 2 Unlimited
    Developer Assistance Incidents Variable Variable
    Availability Worldwide Worldwide
  • - Requirements

    The following requirements apply to IBM Support for xCAT.


    Operating system Software Hardware
    • Linux
    • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 10 with Service Pack 2 and higher
    • SLES 11
    • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5.x
    • RHEL 6.x
    • IBM BladeCenter (requires the Advanced Management Module)
    • IBM Intelligent Cluster
    • IBM System x (only servers supported by the Intelligent Cluster)
    • IBM Power Systems
    • IBM System x iDataplex
    • IBM PureFlex
    • IBM System z
    • CentOS
    • Community ENTerprise Operating System (CentOS) 5.x and 6.x
    • IBM BladeCenter (requires the Advanced Management Module)
    • IBM Power Systems
    • Fedora
    • Fedora 8 and Fedora 9
    • Fedora 12, 13. and 14
    • Supported IBM hardware
    • AIX
    • AIX 5.3 and 6.1 (all available technology levels)
    • AIX 7.1 with SP 3
    • IBM BladeCenter (requires the Advanced Management Module)
    • IBM Power Systems
    • IBM PureFlex
    • Windows
    • Microsoft Windows 2008
    • Windows 7
    • All hardware supported by the IBM Intelligent Cluster
    • KVM
    • as included in RedHat Enterprise Linux 6
    • All hardware supported by the IBM Intelligent Cluster
    • VMware
    • vSphere 4.1
    • vSphere 5
    • All hardware supported by the IBM Intelligent Cluster
    • z/VM
    • z/VM 5.4, 6.1, and 6.2
    • IBM System z

    Refer to the xCAT Web site for additional supported distributions.

  • - Tools and plug-ins

    The following tools and plug-ins are available for use with xCAT. If you have purchased IBM Support for xCAT and have continued entitlement, these plug-ins will be supported as part of the contract agreement: IBM Support for xCAT.


    Plug-in Description
    • IBM Resource Monitoring and Control (RMC)
    • RMC runs on each node (operating system image) of an xCAT cluster and provides a common abstraction for monitoring the resources of the cluster of nodes.
    • RMC provides global access to subsystems and resources throughout the cluster, thus providing a single monitoring infrastructure for clusters.
    • IBM Energy Management Plug-in for xCAT on Power Systems
    • The IBM energy management plug-in for xCAT gives the administrator of IBM POWER clusters the ability to query and change the power settings for each server.
    • The actions are invoked using an xCAT command called 'renergy' which can be used in scripts or directly from the command line. The command can be run against multiple POWER servers in one invocation and will fan out the requests as efficiently as possible.
    • IBM HPC Hardware Server
    • The primary function of IBM HPC Hardware Server is to manage connections to POWER service processors and provide an API to communicate with these service processors.
    • IBM HPC Hardware Server is used by both the direct FSP management plug-in and by the IBM ISNM (Integrated Switch Network Manager).
    • Toolkit for Event Analysis and Logging (TEAL)
    • TEAL is used in a cluster of IBM Power 775 servers to analyze and report key hardware and software events including network events and hardware serviceable events.
    • Events and alerts are stored in centralized database tables that can be queried.
    • In addition to the default real-time analysis, TEAL provides historic event analysis capability.
    • IBM direct FSP management plug-in for xCAT
    • The direct Flexible Service Processor (FSP) management plug-in enables xCAT to manage the IBM Power 775 servers directly, without going through the Hardware Management Console (HMC).

    The plug-ins are available for download from IBM Fix Central Select POWER from the "Product group" drop down menu. Select CLUSTER SOFTWARE from the "Product" drop down menu. At the next drop down menu, select the desired tool(s). TEAL is available from SourceForge.net

Contact IBM

Cluster software ordering guide

Additional information

Support