IBM Power Virtualization Center (PowerVC) for IBM i

Major functions delivered in PowerVC 1.4.3 for IBM i

Please visit this link for details:

https://developer.ibm.com/powervc/2019/06/21/announcing-powervc-1-4-3-release-grand-ga/

Major functions in the version of 1.3.3 of PowerVC for IBM i:

    - Installing of Cloud-Init on IBM i will not require downloading the dependencies from the internet any more.

    - Cloud-Init is used to initialize the IBM i VMs deployed by PowerVC. 

    - SR-IOV support. 

    - Support Software-defined networking.

    - Supported storage matrix:

        SVC support with both NPIV and vSCSI
        XIV storage support via vSCSI
        Hitachi storage support via vSCSI
        EMC VMAX and VNX vSCSI are supported.
        DS8000 is supported with both NPIV and vSCSI connectivity.

    - For other PowerVC functions, please visit this link: https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSXK2N_1.3.3/com.ibm.powervc.standard.help.doc/powervc_whats_new_hmc.html

Functions delivered in PowerVC 1.3.3 for IBM i (June, 2017)

    - Activation Engine has been removed. Cloud-Init should be used to initialize and configure the IBM i VMs.

    - Support Software-defined networking. Software-defined networking (SDN) virtualizes your network. It allows you to change virtual machine communication without changing your physical network. PowerVC supports SDN on PowerVM® NovaLink managed systems. For details, see Software-defined networking.

    - Other enhancements that help the users to manage virtualization and cloud environment.  

Functions delivered in PowerVC 1.3.2 for IBM i (December, 2016)

    - Hihachi storage support via vSCSI.

      - More Cloud-Init enhancements.

    - Other enhancements that help the users to manage virtualization and cloud environment. 

Functions delivered in PowerVC 1.3.1 for IBM i (June, 2016)

    - Cloud-Init support.

    - Novalink support which improves performance and scalability by removing the Nova-compute workload from PowerVC.

    - Other enhancements that help the users to manage virtualization and cloud environment.  

Functions delivered in PowerVC 1.3.0 for IBM i

    - New storage type support: DS8000 is supported with both NPIV and vSCSI connectivity. 

    - A Beta version of Cloud-Init is provided with IBM i as an optional package to better handle early initialization of IBM i VM instances. 

    - Other enhancements that help the users to manage virtualization and cloud environment.  

Functions delivered in PowerVC 1.2.3 for IBM i
    - Multi-disk support: Supports capturing multiple volumes attached to an IBM i VM, resulting in a single deployable image. Also, an IBM i image that is comprised of more than one volume can be deployed as a new VM.
    - Remote Restart is introduced for IBM i, which allows an administrator to remotely restart VMs from a "dead" host on another healthy host within the environment to maintain the availability of VMs.
    - EMC VMAX and VNX vSCSI are supported.
    - SVC mirroring support allows a customer to establish a local mirror in a second pool on the same SVC or Storwize controller, which can provide for a degree of disaster recovery.
    - Redundant HMC support for PowerVC allows customers to switch to the redundant HMC in case of HMC failure or upgrade.
   
Functions delivered in PowerVC 1.2.2 for IBM i    
    - IBM i as a client managed by PowerVC is officially supported.
    - SVC support via vSCSI
    - XIV storage support via vSCSI