IBM Preps Update to Virtualization Manager

Corrected: October 8, 2007

by Alex Woodie

The upcoming release of Systems Director Virtualization Manager version 1.2 from IBM will allow System i shops to manage and control virtual machines created with a variety of virtualization solutions, including VMware ESX Server, Microsoft Virtual Server 2005, and Xen's XenSource offering, from a single location. However, it doesn't offer System i users the same degree of control over their virtual assets as it does to their Windows and Linux brethren.

Last week, IBM announced that on September 28, Systems Director Virtualization Manager will become available. The software, which is available as a free add-on to IBM Director, allows administrators to create, deploy, and relocate virtual machines across a variety of physical machines running a variety of operating systems. However, it doesn't support the deployment or relocation of i5/OS LPAR assets.

IBM sought to make virtual machine management easy with Virtualization Manager, so it gave it a Web interface. With it, administrators can see the relationships between physical and virtual systems, including information about server and storage relationships, virtual allocations and settings, virtual disk, logical volumes, and virtual SCSI. By providing this information in an easy-to-digest Web format, IBM hopes that administrators will make better decisions.

With Virtualization Manager 1.2, IBM has added a new Virtual Image Management extension that provides a "single, unified view of all types of system templates and server images to help easily deploy new physical or virtual servers." The software, which starts at $119 per server, supports multiple types of image repositories.

IBM is also prepping Systems Director Virtualization Manager for x86 version 1.2, which will provide X86- and X64-based Windows and Linux servers with the same sorts of virtualization tricks that Systems Director Virtualization Manager provides for POWER-based systems.

While i5/OS LPAR isn't fully supported, that doesn't mean System i users are left entirely high and dry when it comes to defining, configuring, and managing their LPAR. System i users can define, edit, and control their i5/OS LPAR assets with Virtualization Manager. They just can't deploy them using the product, IBM says.

Version 1.2 also introduced the the IBM Availability Management option, which gives Virtualization Manager users a degree of high availabilty by allowing them to re-locate, either statically or dynamically, their Xen-based virtual servers.

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IBM Creates Virtualization Dashboard, Merges Server and Storage Management

This article contained two errors. IBM's Virtualization Manager 1.2 does not offer zero capabilities to System i users, as the article previous stated. According to IBM, users can create, edit, and monitor their LPAR assets, but they can't deploy them. Also, the new IBM Availability Management option in version 1.2 has nothing to do with the Hardware Management Console, as previously stated. In fact, it's a new option that provides high availability for Xen virtual servers. IT Jungle regrets the errors.

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