Hardware and software requirements
The following information provides a consolidated view of the hardware and software requirements for your IBM® Power® Virtualization Center environment.
It is recommended that the software and firmware is at the latest
levels.
Notes:
- Accounts that are used with PowerVC must be configured to use the Bash shell.
- Make sure that the version of RSCT installed must have the latest fixes applied.
Hosts
| Host type | Supported hardware | Supported operating systems |
|---|---|---|
| PowerVC management server |
ppc64le and x86_64 |
For POWER8®, POWER9™, RHEL 7.8, and RHEL 7.9 For x86_64, RHEL 7.8 and RHEL 7.9 Notes:
|
| Managed hosts |
IBM
POWER7® or later processor classes.
|
For more information about the supported guest operating system levels for deployed
virtual machines, see Guest operating system support.
Notes:
|
The following information describes the minimum and
recommended resources required for PowerVC virtual machines. In the table, the meaning of the
Processor capacitycolumn depends on the type of host that is being used as the PowerVC management server.
- If the PowerVC management server is
PowerVM®,
Processor capacity
refers to either the number of processing units of entitled capacity or the number of dedicated processors. - If the PowerVC management server is
x86 or KVM on Power,
Processor capacity
refers to the number of physical cores.
| Minimum | Recommended | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number of managed virtual machines or volumes (whichever is larger) | Up to 500 | 501-1000 | 1001-2000 | 2001-3000 | 3001-6000 | ||
| Processor capacity | 1 | 2 | 4 | 8 | 8 | 12 | |
| Virtual CPUs1 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 8 | 8 | 12 | |
| No Spectrum Scale used (GB) | Memory and swap space | 10 | 10 | 12 | 20 | 28 | 44 |
| Disk | 40 | 100 | 120 | 140 | 160 | 180 | |
| Spectrum Scale used (GB) | Memory and swap space | 16 | 16 | 16 | 32 | 32 | 64 |
| Disk | 45 | 105 | 124 | 152 | 164 | 200 | |
|
1: These can be shared or dedicated. For larger environments or to minimize the "noisy neighbor" effect, you should consider using dedicated processors. |
|||||||
PowerVC has the following space
requirements:
- /tmp: 250 MB
- /usr: 250 MB
- /opt: 5 GB
- /srv: 2 GB
- /var: 3 GB
OpenStack release
PowerVC version 1.4.4 is built on OpenStack Stein release.
Guest operating system support
This table lists the support for virtual machine operating systems on managed hosts.| Operating system | Little endian (LE) or big endian (BE) | Version |
|---|---|---|
| AIX® | BE |
7.1 TL0, SP0 7.2 TL0, SP0 Note: For secure boot, 7.2 TL3 on POWER9 with
firmware 920 and HMC V9R1.xxx with latest fixes.
|
| IBM i | BE |
7.2 TR1 7.3 TR3 7.4 Version 7.2 TR8, 7.3 TR4 is required for POWER9 |
| RHEL | LE |
RHEL 7.6-ALT 7.8 7.9 8.0, 8.1, and 8.2 |
| SLES | LE | 12 and
15 Note: SLES 15 SP2 for
1.4.4 fix pack 2.
|
| Ubuntu | LE |
16.04 Note: Ubuntu 16.04 will reach end of the lifecycle support (EOS) by end of April 2021. For details,
see Installing and configuring cloud-init on Ubuntu.
18.04.1 (KVM on Power only) |
Hardware Management Console
| Item | Requirement |
|---|---|
| Software level |
PowerVC supports the following HMC
releases:
|
| Hardware level | Requirements
Recommendations
|
PowerVM NovaLink
NovaLink 1.0.0.16 is
supported on these operating systems:
- Ubuntu 16.04.6 with latest fixes. This is required when using software-defined networking (SDN) capabilities.
- RHEL 7.6 (LE)
Notes:
For
further details, see the NovaLink hardware and software
requirements page. - RHEL 8 is currently not supported.
- If you are using RoCE adapters, make sure you install NovaLink 1.0.0.16 (Feb 2020 release). You can find release notes in the Read me file and repo at NovaLink 1.0.0.16 (Feb 2020 release).
- During Spectrum Scale upgrade, for Ubuntu 16.04 make sure that the kernel version is no later than 4.4.0.142 generic. You can upgrade the kernel version after upgrading the Spectrum Scale to 5.0.3.1.
- No updates are needed for NovaLink because PowerVC release 1.4.4.1 supports NovaLink version 1.0.0.16.
The amount of memory needed by one NovaLink
partition depends on how many virtual machines it is going to host:
| Number of virtual machines | Up to 250 | 251-500 | More than 500 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Memory needed in a standard environment (GB) | 2.5 | 5 | 10 |
| Memory needed in an SDN environment (GB) | 16 | 32 | 64 |
KVM on Power hosts
Note: This feature is not supported in PowerVC version 1.4.4 fix pack 2.
Your KVM on Power
environment must meet these requirements to be eligible for PowerVC management:
- Operating system on the managed host: Ubuntu 16.04.6 ppc64le or Ubuntu 18.04.2
ppc64le (with latest fixes) with all updates installed, RHEL 7.6 (with RHV 4.2
).Note: During Spectrum Scale upgrade, for Ubuntu 16.04 make sure that the kernel version is no later than 4.4.0.142 generic. You can upgrade the kernel version after upgrading the Spectrum Scale to 5.0.3.1.
- Operating system on the guest virtual machines: Linux® in LE.
- The OVS device name (port length) must be 15 or fewer characters.
- Hardware: IBM branded LC systems. See Scale-out servers for the complete list.
- Firmware: OPAL. If the system has an FSP, navigate to and select OPAL.
- Storage: Minimum of 5 disks. One for the operating system boot, and four for the virtual storage backend. Disks can be provided over a SAN (iSCSI or Fibre Channel) or through the local system disk subsystem. For details, see Software-defined storage.
- Memory: 64GB or more memory is required.
- Networking: 10 GigE or higher. KVM on Power systems can use flat, VLAN or overlay networking. For information about overlay networking, see Software-defined networking.
Virtual I/O Server
Notes:
- PowerVC does not install or configure third-party software on the Virtual I/O Server (VIOS). Any third-party software that you want to use for VIOS resources must be installed and configured on the VIOS before managing it with PowerVC.
- A minimum of 6GB memory is required for VIOS 3.1.x.
For VIOS sizing requirements when using SR-IOV, see IBM PowerVM Best Practices.
| Platform | Requirement |
|---|---|
| Virtual I/O Server (VIOS) |
|
Network
| Item | Requirement |
|---|---|
| Network switches | PowerVC does not manage network switches, but supports network configurations that use VLAN-capable switches. |
| Virtual networks | Supports Shared Ethernet Adapters for virtual machine
networking. Supports SR-IOV based vNICs on PowerVM . When using software-defined networking capabilities, flat, VLAN, or VXLAN overlays are supported on PowerVM with SDE mode and on KVM on Power systems. |
PowerVC can be installed on a system with both IPv4 and IPv6 stacks. However, PowerVC uses only one stack. PowerVC uses the default network interface, eth0. To use a different network interface, set the HOST_INTERFACE environment variable before running the install script. Otherwise, the installer auto-selects eth0 and uses whichever stack is set up for that interface. Regardless of which stack is selected, as long as connectivity exists, hosts and storage of either type can be registered and managed with PowerVC. That is, PowerVC can be accessible via an IPv6 interface and still communicate to hosts and storage over IPv4 addresses.
In summary, having separate IPv4 and IPv6 interfaces is supported, but dual stack, IPv4 and IPv6 from the same NIC, is not supported.
| IPv6 Support | IPv4 Support | Dual Stack | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Management Server | Virtual Machine deployed by PowerVC | Management Server | Virtual Machine deployed by PowerVC | Management Server | Virtual Machine |
| Yes | Yes (via CLI or REST API only) | Yes | Yes | No | No |
Fabrics
PowerVC supports up to 25 fabrics.| Supported Driver | Documentation |
|---|---|
| Brocade | Brocade
zone driver system requirements Virtual fabric support is included. |
| Cisco | Cisco
Fibre Channel Zone Driver VSAN support is included. |
| Pluggable | A pluggable fabric is an OpenStack supported fabric. Any
fabric supported by an OpenStack driver can be registered with PowerVC, but the level of functionality that
it has within PowerVC depends on the
driver. See Planning for storage for details. Note: PowerVC supports calling the pluggable
driver function, but not the driver itself. Issues traced back to a pluggable driver or underlying device will be referred to the
device vendor.
|
Storage drivers
Some storage drivers support different devices depending on the OpenStack release.
| Supported Driver | Documentation |
|---|---|
| Hitachi | Enterprise Hitachi Block Storage Driver (HBSD) 8.1.0.0 Supported devices are listed in the Hitachi Block Storage Driver for OpenStack v 8.1.0.0 Release Notes®. |
| IBM System Storage® DS8000® | IBM Storage volume driver For supported models, see OpenStack support summary. |
| PowerMAX (VMAX) | Dell EMC VMAX iSCSI and FC drivers Support for EMC Hybrid VMAX3 is deprecated. Also, SMI-S Provider management and EMC VMAX2 arrays are no longer supported.. |
| EMC VNX | Dell EMC VNX driver |
| IBM
Storwize® family IBM SVC |
IBM
Storwize family and SVC volume driver
IBM Flash System v9000 Overview For supported models, see OpenStack support summary. |
| IBM XIV® Storage System, IBM FlashSystem A9000, or IBM FlashSystem A9000R | IBM Storage volume driver
For supported
models, see OpenStack support summary.
Note: Unless stated otherwise, all
references to XIV Storage System in this guide relate all
members of the Spectrum Accelerate Family (XIV Storage System, IBM Spectrum Accelerate, FlashSystem A9000, or FlashSystem A9000R).
|
| IBM Spectrum Scale (formerly GPFS) | Spectrum Scale 5.0.3.1. For more information, see Software-defined storage requirements and limitations. |
| Pluggable | A pluggable storage device is an OpenStack supported storage
device. Any storage device supported by an OpenStack driver can be registered with PowerVC, but the level of functionality that
it has within PowerVC depends on the
driver. See Planning for storage for details. Note: PowerVC supports calling the pluggable
driver function, but not the driver itself. Issues traced back to a pluggable driver or underlying device will be referred to the
device vendor.
|
|
Note: For information about storage support on IBM i, refer to the IBM i POWER® External
Storage Support Matrix Summary.
|
|
Security
| Item | Requirement | More information |
|---|---|---|
| Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) server (optional) | OpenLDAP 2.0 | OpenLDAP |
| Microsoft Active Directory 2016 | Active Directory Domain Services | |
| IBM Security Directory Suite 8.0.1 | IBM Security Directory Suite |
Web browsers
- Mozilla Firefox ESR 60Note: PowerVC does not load if Ask me every time is selected as the custom history setting.
- Google Chrome, version 73
- Microsoft Internet Explorer, version 11.0
- Microsoft Edge
- Safari, version 12
Note: Enable browser cookies for PowerVC
to load successfully.