PowerVM, formerly known as Advanced Power Virtualization (APV), is a chargeable feature of IBM POWER5,

POWER6 The POWER6 is a microprocessor developed by IBM that implemented the Power ISA v.2.03. When it became available in systems in 2007, it succeeded the POWER5+ as IBM's flagship Power microprocessor. It is claimed to be part of the eCLipz projec ...

POWER7 POWER7 is a family of superscalar multi-core microprocessors based on the Power ISA 2.06 instruction set architecture released in 2010 that succeeded the POWER6 and POWER6+. POWER7 was developed by IBM at several sites including IBM's Roche ...

POWER8 POWER8 is a family of superscalar multi-core microprocessors based on the Power ISA, announced in August 2013 at the Hot Chips conference. The designs are available for licensing under the OpenPOWER Foundation, which is the first time for ...

POWER9 POWER9 is a family of superscalar, multithreading, multi-core microprocessors produced by IBM, based on the Power ISA. It was announced in August 2016. The POWER9-based processors are being manufactured using a 14 nm FinFET process, in ...

and

Power10 Power10 is a superscalar, multithreading, multi-core microprocessor family, based on the open source Power ISA, and announced in August 2020 at the Hot Chips conference; systems with Power10 CPUs. Generally available from September 2021 in ...

servers and is required for support of micro-partitions and other advanced features. Support is provided for

IBM i IBM i (the ''i'' standing for ''integrated'') is an operating system developed by IBM for IBM Power Systems. It was originally released in 1988 as OS/400, as the sole operating system of the IBM AS/400 line of systems. It was renamed to i5/OS i ...

AIX Aix or AIX may refer to: Computing * AIX, a line of IBM computer operating systems *An Alternate Index, for a Virtual Storage Access Method Key Sequenced Data Set * Athens Internet Exchange, a European Internet exchange point Places Belgiu ...

and

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, whi ...

Description

IBM PowerVM has the following components: * A "VET" code, which activates firmware required to support resource sharing and other features. * Installation media for the Virtual I/O Server (VIOS), which is a service partition providing sharing services for disk and network adapters. * Installation media for

Lx86 PowerVM Lx86 was a binary translation layer for IBM's System p servers. It enabled 32-bit x86 Linux binaries to run unmodified on the Power ISA-based hardware. IBM used this feature to migrate x86 Linux servers to the PowerVM virtualized environ ...

, x86

binary translation In computing, binary translation is a form of binary recompilation where sequences of instructions are translated from a ''source'' instruction set to the ''target'' instruction set. In some cases such as instruction set simulation, the target ...

software, which allows Linux applications compiled for the Intel x86 platform to run in POWER-emulation mode. A supported Linux distribution is a co-requisite for use of this feature. IBM PowerVM comes in three editions:

IBM PowerVM Express

* Only supported on "Express" servers (e.g. Power 710/730, 720/740, 750 and Power Blades). * Limited to three partitions, one of which must be a VIOS partition. * No support for Multiple Shared Processor Pools. * Withdrawn from marketing August 1, 2014. This is primarily intended for "sandbox" environments

IBM PowerVM Standard

* Supported on all

and

systems. * Unrestricted use of partitioning – 10×

LPAR A logical partition (LPAR) is a subset of a computer's hardware resources, virtualized as a separate computer. In effect, a physical machine can be partitioned into multiple logical partitions, each hosting a separate instance of an operating ...

s per

core Core or cores may refer to: Science and technology * Core (anatomy), everything except the appendages * Core (manufacturing), used in casting and molding * Core (optical fiber), the signal-carrying portion of an optical fiber * Core, the centra ...

(20×

s for Power7+ and Power8 servers) (up to a maximum of 1,000 per system). * Multiple Shared Processor Pools (on POWER7 and POWER8 systems only). This is the most common edition in use on production systems.

IBM PowerVM Enterprise

* Supported on POWER7 and POWER8 systems only. * As PowerVM Standard with the addition of

Live Partition Mobility Live Partition Mobility is a chargeable Live migration feature of IBM POWER6, POWER7, POWER8 and POWER9 servers, available since 2007, that allows a running LPAR to be relocated from one system to another. In concept, it is similar to VMware VMot ...

(which allows running virtual machines to migrate to another system) and Active Memory Sharing (which intelligently reallocates physical memory between multiple running virtual machines).

References

{{Reflist

External links

IBM PowerVM Wiki

IBM PowerVM Editions Formerly Advanced POWER Virtualization (APV)

IBM PowerVM Editions Support

Overview of PowerVM

* PowerVM Virtualization on IBM System p: Managing and Monitoring
Virtual I/O Server Commands Reference
Virtualization software IBM software