Virtual System Pools

Essential building blocks for cloud computing architectures

Cloud computing puts new demands for flexibility and scalability on the infrastructure. To address these new challenges, IBM is announcing virtual system pools that can reconfigure and scale for dynamic workloads. Running images can be captured and cloned, and features like intelligent placement of the virtual machines within the pool of systems provide operational simplification and workload optimization.

Delivered through IBM Systems Director VMControl Enterprise Edition, new virtual system pools allow clients to manage system pools with the same cost and effort as a single system, They offer simplified management, increased workload availability, and the flexibility needed to meet the demands of cloud computing workloads. With virtual system pools, users can:

• Simplify management of complex, multi-platform data centers
• Improve resilience over single system implementations
• Eliminate planned downtime with non-disruptive system updates
• Automate placement for new workloads
• Realize elastic scalability
• Drive higher utilization and efficiencies of IBM systems

Virtual image deployment and management with IBM Systems Director VMControl provides the ability to:

• Capture and catalog virtual images
• Standardize virtual image building blocks
• Customize virtual environment runtime requirements

New virtual system pools are a key enhancement to IBM’s offerings for a dynamic infrastructure. They can reduce cost with simplified management and increased resource utilization, improve service with at-a-glance health summary and non-disruptive server firmware upgrades and manage risk through increased availability of workload and individual servers with system pools.