IBM PowerVM

Highlights

• Consolidate diverse sets of applications built for multiple operating systems on a single server: AIX, IBM i and Linux®
• Virtualise processor, memory and input/output (I/O) resources to increase asset utilisation and reduce infrastructure costs
• Dynamically adjust server capacity to meet changing workload demands
• Move running workloads between servers to maximise availability and avoid planned downtime.

Complexity can work its way into your IT infrastructure, driven by the introduction of new applications and unanticipated growth. However, adding a server each time you have new demand for a new application means that you also require additional floor or rack space, power, cooling, network interfaces, data storage and administrative resources. Such complexity leads to inefficiency.

The answer is consolidation and virtualisation. New technologies have emerged that allow organisations to consolidate multiple operating systems and software stacks on a single platform and allocate the resources to meet specific business and application requirements in a more dynamic fashion. The latest IBM advances in virtualisation break out of traditional silos and offer broader platform support and scalability than ever before.

The IBM Power Systems family of servers includes proven1 server consolidation platforms that help you control costs while improving overall performance, availability and energy efficiency. With these servers and IBM PowerVM virtualisation solutions, your business can consolidate applications and servers, virtualise its system resources and provide a more flexible, dynamic IT infrastructure.

PowerVM delivers industrial strength virtualisation for AIX, IBM i and Linux environments on IBM POWER processor-based systems. IBM Power Systems servers coupled with PowerVM technology are designed to help clients build a dynamic infrastructure, reducing costs, managing risk and improving service levels.

PowerVM offers a secure virtualisation environment, built on the advanced reliability, availability and serviceability (RAS) features and leadership performance2 of the Power Systems platform.

Operating system versions supported

• AIX 5.2, AIX 5.3, and AIX 6.1
• IBM i 5.3, IBM i 5.4, IBM i 6.1
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 4 and RHEL 5
• SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 9, SLES 10 and SLES 11.

Hardware platforms supported

• IBM Power Systems with POWER5 and POWER6 processors.