Front cover

Introduction to IBM Power

Virtual Server Private Cloud

Tim Simon
Vijaybabu Ananimuthu
Samvedna Jha
Marius le Roux
Raydo Matthee
Arnold Ness
Adrian Orben
Borislav Stoymirski
Keith Uplinger
Henry Vo

IBM Power

Redpaper
IBM Redbooks

Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

April 2025

REDP-5745-00
 Note: Before using this information and the product it supports, read the information in “Notices” on page v.

First Edition (April 2025)

This edition applies to IBM Power Virtual Server (December 2024).

© Copyright International Business Machines Corporation 2025. All rights reserved.

Note to U.S. Government Users Restricted Rights -- Use, duplication or disclosure restricted by GSA ADP Schedule
Contract with IBM Corp.
Contents

Notices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .v
Trademarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vi

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
Now you can become a published author, too! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
Comments welcome. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .x
Stay connected to IBM Redbooks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .x

Chapter 1. Hybrid by Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

1.1 The IBM Hybrid by Design approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.2 Introducing IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.3 Benefits of using IBM Power as your cloud platform. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.3.1 TCO benefits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.3.2 No refactoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.3.3 Security and availability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.3.4 IBM Power Virtual Server benefits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.4 Cloud offerings for IBM Power servers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1.4.1 IBM Power Systems Private Cloud with Shared Utility Capacity . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
1.4.2 IBM Power Virtual Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
1.4.3 IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
1.4.4 Choosing your cloud option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
1.5 Government regulations and compliance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
1.5.1 Black or disconnected sites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
1.6 Use cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
1.6.1 Burst to cloud . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
1.6.2 AI on Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
1.6.3 Database support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
1.6.4 Development and test environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Chapter 2. IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

2.1 IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
2.1.1 Same management interface as IBM Power Virtual Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
2.1.2 Security and data governance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
2.1.3 Pay-as-you-go model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
2.1.4 Dynamic provisioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
2.1.5 Scalable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
2.1.6 Implementation and migration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
2.2 Technology components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
2.2.1 Pods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
2.2.2 Compute . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
2.2.3 Storage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
2.2.4 Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
2.2.5 Operating system licensing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
2.2.6 IBM Cloud Catalog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
2.3 Pricing concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
2.3.1 Total cost of ownership versus cost of acquisition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
2.3.2 Pricing tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

© Copyright IBM Corp. 2025. iii

 Chapter 3. Planning considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
3.1 Planning overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
3.2 Prerequisites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
3.2.1 Base prerequisites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
3.2.2 Minimum size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
3.2.3 Supported workloads and operating systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
3.2.4 Proximity to IBM Cloud data centers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
3.2.5 Countries supported . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
3.3 Application assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
3.4 Sizing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
3.4.1 Compute sizing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
3.4.2 Storage sizing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
3.4.3 Scalability and flexibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
3.5 Network connectivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
3.5.1 Network prerequisites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
3.5.2 Network architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
3.6 Compliance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
3.7 Planning for integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
3.7.1 Network connectivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
3.7.2 Data migration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
3.7.3 Backup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
3.7.4 Disaster recovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
3.7.5 Application compatibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
3.7.6 Security and compliance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
3.7.7 Management and monitoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
3.7.8 Steps for effective integration planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
3.7.9 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
3.8 Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
3.8.1 IBM services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
3.8.2 Unplanned network disconnection of the management control plane. . . . . . . . . 107

Chapter 4. Ordering and installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

4.1 Process overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
4.2 Finalizing the configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
4.2.1 Technical delivery assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
4.3 Customer responsibilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
4.3.1 Prerequisites for installing the Pod . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
4.3.2 Additional customer requirements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
4.4 IBM installation and decommission services. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
4.4.1 Deployment services. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
4.4.2 End of services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

Chapter 5. Setup and operation for IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud . . . . . . 119
5.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
5.2 Setting up your workspace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
5.3 Setting up a virtual server instance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

Abbreviations and acronyms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

Related publications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

IBM Redbooks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Online resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Help from IBM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132

iv Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

Notices

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© Copyright IBM Corp. 2025. v

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vi Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

Preface

Enterprises adopting hybrid cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies require a flexible
infrastructure for performance, security, and interoperability. This adaptability enables
organizations to remain competitive, cut costs, and better respond to customer demands. To
achieve these goals, enterprises need platforms that allow for quick adjustments in workload
management and placement, focusing on business outcomes over infrastructure
maintenance. The IBM Hybrid Cloud strategy prioritizes flexibility and choice.

IBM Power Virtual Server has provided infrastructure as a service (IaaS) worldwide since its
2019 launch, combining compute, storage, and networking in IBM® data centers. This
reliable architecture supports mission-critical workloads and facilitates cloud migration
without refactoring. IBM introduced a new Private Cloud version of IBM Power Virtual Server,
which installs infrastructure in a client data center, connecting a local zone to IBM Cloud® and
offering a consistent as a service experience. This model enhances agility, reliability, and
security, optimizing IT operations for diverse enterprise needs.

IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud helps customers use hybrid cloud architecture
benefits, even when workloads are regulated, or data must stay in a specific country due to
government regulations.

Authors
This paper was produced by a team of specialists from around the world working at
IBM Redbooks®, Remote Center.

Tim Simon is an IBM Redbooks Project Leader in Tulsa, Oklahoma, US. He has over
40 years of experience with IBM, primarily in a technical sales role working with customers to
help them create IBM solutions to solve their business problems. He holds a BS degree in Math
from Towson University in Maryland. He has extensive experience creating customer solutions
by using IBM Power, IBM Storage, and IBM Z® throughout his career.

Vijaybabu Ananimuthu is a Technical Consultant at IBM Systems Experts Labs in India. He

holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Anna
University, Chennai. He has over 16 years of experience working with customers designing
and deploying solutions on IBM Power servers and IBM AIX®. He focuses on areas such as
IT Infrastructure Enterprise Solutions, technical enablement, and implementations that are
relative to IBM Power servers, Enterprise Pools, Performance, and automation. His areas of
expertise include capacity planning, migration planning, system performance, and
automation.

Samvedna Jha is a Senior Technical Staff Member at the IBM Power organization,
Bengaluru, India. She holds a masters degree in Computer Application and has more than
20 years of work experience. In her role as Security Architect, IBM Power, she has worldwide
technical responsibility to handle security and compliance requirements of Power products.
Samvedna is a recognized speaker at conferences, and has authored blogs and published
disclosures. She is also the security focal point for the Power products secure release
process.

© Copyright IBM Corp. 2025. vii

 Marius le Roux is an adept IBM i professional with a robust background in operations,
development, and integration since 2006. His expertise extends beyond technical skills to a
profound understanding of overall enterprise concepts, enabling him to make impactful
decisions that enhance system functions and business alignment. Through his
comprehensive experience with IBM i environments, Marius effectively bridges the gap
between complex IT solutions and strategic enterprise objectives. This unique blend of
technical acumen and business insight ensures that he runs projects and innovates and
optimizes them for long-term success.

Raydo Matthee is a South African technology leader and Solutions Architect at Skunkworks
(Pty) Ltd with over 15 years of experience in cloud computing, security, and enterprise
integration. Specializing in IBM Power Virtual Server and hybrid cloud solutions, Raydo helps
businesses integrate cloud technologies with a focus on security, compliance, and scalability.
He has authored multiple courses on topics like the Open Worldwide Application Security
Project, HashiCorp, and cloud security, reflecting his commitment to advancing IT education
and consultancy.

Arnold Ness is a Senior Power Technology Sales Leader in Canada. He has 40 years of
experience at IBM and Ciena, working with customers designing and implementing business
solutions using technology. He holds a MBA degree in Information Technology Management
from Royal Roads University, an Electrical Engineering degree from the University of Alberta,
and completed the IBM Client Executive program at Harvard. His areas of expertise include
solution design and development across x86, IBM Power, and IBM 390 platforms. He was
awarded the Lou Gerstner Award for Client Excellence in 2022 and has implemented
solutions with clients across North and South America. His interests lie in technology
innovation, sustainability, hybrid cloud, AI, cybersecurity, Internet of Things (IoT), and
quantum-safe computing.

Adrian Orben joined IBM in 2003. Since 2006, he has been a member of the Storage
Support Team that is responsible for IBM high-end disk products. His focus is supporting
IBM DS8000®, IBM XIV®, and IBM FlashSystem®. During this time, Adrian achieved several
storage-related certifications. Adrian holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Informatics from
the University of Applied Science in Mainz, Germany.

Borislav Stoymirski is an IBM Power Servers Hardware Product Engineer at IBM Bulgaria,
specializing in solving complex hardware and software issues on IBM Power servers,
including IBM AIX, Virtual I/O Server (VIOS), Hardware Management Console (HMC), IBM i,
IBM Power Virtualization Center (IBM PowerVC), IBM PowerVM® NovaLink, IBM PowerVM,
Linux, and Red Hat OpenShift. Since joining IBM in 2015, he has provided reactive break-fix,
proactive, preventive, and cognitive support to several clients worldwide. Borislav earned a
masters degree in Computer and Software Engineering from the Technical University of
Sofia, Bulgaria, a masters degree in Transport Machinery and Technologies from the
Technical University of Sofia, Bulgaria, and another masters degree in Ecology and
Environmental Protection from the University of Chemical Technology and Metallurgy,
Bulgaria. He has authored several publications and has led technical training programs both
inside and outside IBM. His interests lie in green blockchain, AI, deep learning, machine
learning, cybersecurity, IoT, edge computing, cloud, and quantum computing.

viii Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

 Keith Uplinger is an IT Architect for IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud at Dallas, Texas,
US. He has over 20 years of experience in developing full-stack software solutions and
designing custom hardware solutions. He holds a degree in Computer Science from Texas
Tech University. He was the lead on the IBM World Community Grid for many years and
worked toward optimizing research applications to further research in fields of cancer,
weather, water filtration, and COVID. Keith was crucial to the development of Asynchronous
Replication Exchange for the molecule folding application that is used for drug discovery.
Most recently, Keith has been the primary developer on IBM Power Virtual Server Private
Cloud, integrating many different software requirements in an automated fashion to
accelerate the delivery time for a Point of Delivery (Pod) ordered by a customer.

Henry Vo is an IBM Redbooks Project Leader with 10 years of experience at IBM. He has
technical expertise in business problem solving, risk/root-cause analysis, and writing technical
plans for business. He has held multiple roles at IBM that include project management,
ST/FT/ETE Testing, back-end developer, and a DOL agent for NY. He is a certified IBM z/OS®
Mainframe Practitioner, which includes IBM Z programming, agile, and Telecommunication
Development Jumpstart. Henry holds a Master of Management Information System degree from
the University of Texas at Dallas.

Thanks to the following people for their contributions to this project:

Dan Sundt, IBM i Power as a service Product Manager

IBM Rochester

Boby Kuruvila George, Senior Solution Architect | IBM Cloud Infrastructure Solutions
IBM Sydney

Joe Cropper, Distinguished Engineer, Power as a service and Hybrid Cloud; IBM Master
Inventor
IBM Austin

Meera Rangarajan, Program Director, PowerVS Product Management, IBM Power

Bangalore, KA, India

Paul Finley, STSM, Power Hybrid Cloud XaaS

IBM Austin

Martin Vasica, Program Director for IBM Power XaaS Product Management
Bratislava, BL, Slovakia

Shrikant Joshi, IBM Consulting™

IBM Cambridge

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Preface ix
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x Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

 1

Chapter 1. Hybrid by Design

IBM continues to invest in concepts that bring value to enterprises seeking to increase their
return on investment for infrastructure and cloud implementations. Hybrid by Design, a proven
architectural framework, uses hybrid cloud technology to maximize business value. It
provides the agility, speed, and integration that are necessary for achieving future business
outcomes.

Hybrid by Design, originally rooted in a cloud architecture, outlines how organizations can
shape their hybrid cloud environments based on business priorities. By combining public and
private clouds with on-premises data centers, enterprises enhance their agility, speed, and
ability to scale initiatives. With the rise of generative artificial intelligence (AI), Hybrid by
Design extends beyond cloud computing to encompass the entire enterprise technology
landscape, including platforms, security, AI, cloud, and data. This approach transforms
diverse technologies into a cohesive system, amplifying business outcomes through
thoughtful design and integration.

The IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud offering, based on Hybrid by Design, enables
enterprises to install infrastructure within their own data centers, providing added security and
control of their data. This solution enables the use of cloud resources with no upfront costs,
and pay-as-you-go pricing.

This chapter introduces the IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud and discusses the
benefits that it brings to enterprise IT environments.

The following topics are included in this chapter:

򐂰 1.1, “The IBM Hybrid by Design approach” on page 2
򐂰 1.2, “Introducing IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud” on page 3
򐂰 1.3, “Benefits of using IBM Power as your cloud platform” on page 7
򐂰 1.4, “Cloud offerings for IBM Power servers” on page 12
򐂰 1.5, “Government regulations and compliance” on page 22
򐂰 1.6, “Use cases” on page 26

© Copyright IBM Corp. 2025. 1

1.1 The IBM Hybrid by Design approach
As enterprises embark on their journeys to adopt innovative hybrid cloud and AI technologies,
it is increasingly vital for these organizations to have a flexible infrastructure that delivers
performance, security, and interoperability to support evolving IT needs. To remain
competitive, reduce technology costs, and improve the ability to respond to changing
customer needs, enterprises need platforms that enable workload consumption to ramp up or
down quickly, place workloads on cloud or onsite, with a focus on business outcomes and
less on infrastructure management. Generative AI (gen AI) also has the potential to be a key
factor in business transformation, and enterprises that take a more intentional approach with
hybrid cloud might be better positioned to accelerate their impact.1

The IBM Hybrid by Design2 approach is a comprehensive framework for the strategic
implementation of a hybrid cloud architecture with five key priorities:
1. Drive a product-centric mindset to enable business priorities.
2. Build an intentional architecture to accelerate and scale business competencies.
3. Create a consistent development and operational experience across platforms.
4. Empower product teams to use hybrid capabilities.
5. Harness the power of all data and scale gen AI deployment.

Figure 1-1 presents the results of an IBM Institute for Business Values study, which reveals
that enterprises are working toward operating at enterprise scale. The study shows that
enterprises expect to increase their platform operational capabilities, and Hybrid by Design
platforms are tailored to meet this growth requirement.

Figure 1-1 Results of IBM Institute for Business Value study

1 https://newsroom.ibm.com/blog-infuse-ai-into-ibm-power-mission-critical-workloads-on-the-cloud-at-ou
r-site-or-yours
2
https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevemcdowell/2024/06/18/hybrid-by-design-a-new-paradigm-for-enterprise
-cloud-success/

2 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

 A Hybrid by Design versus a Hybrid by Default approach involves the following items:
򐂰 Business-centric product mindset3: The framework emphasizes a business-centric
product mindset, prioritizing business objectives and enhancing productivity. This
approach ensures that technology investments yield tangible business benefits and
fosters a consistent development and operational environment across different platforms
by using common technology standards.
򐂰 Intentional design: The core principle of the IBM Hybrid by Design framework is
intentionality. Each technical component supports specific business objectives versus
adopting cloud solutions haphazardly to avoid silos and incompatible islands of solutions.
򐂰 Scalability and flexibility: Focus on creating systems that can scale with evolving business
needs. The architecture is designed to adapt to changes in demand, technological
advancements, and market conditions, enabling companies to remain agile and
responsive.
򐂰 Value creation4: Use a common automation strategy for installation, operations, and
development across all platforms. An enterprise API catalog supercharges innovation and
productivity, and it can use gen AI over time.
򐂰 Security and compliance: Security is built in to the product from the beginning. AI is used
to consistently apply the highest standards for security across all environments and
provide visibility across platforms with embedded automation.
򐂰 Operational efficiency: Automate and streamline processes by using standardized tools
and processes to increase development productivity and reduce time to market.
򐂰 AI integration5: IBM Hybrid by Design emphasizes the integration of AI within the hybrid
cloud framework to drive transformative outcomes, optimize operations, and maintain a
competitive edge in an increasingly digital landscape.
򐂰 Open and integrated foundation: Building an open, integrated foundation across all digital
environments that uses expertise with hybrid multi-clouds to maximize return on
investment.

The IBM Hybrid Cloud strategy focuses on harnessing the power of choice and flexibility for
clients, which is why IBM Power Virtual Server now can deploy in a client data center. This
approach delivers flexibility around the consumption and management capabilities of the
cloud while keeping the data on-premises to help address regional compliance and
governance requirements of the business.

1.2 Introducing IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

Since 2019, IBM has offered IBM Power Virtual Server to provide IBM Power resources in the
cloud. The offering has grown to 21 data centers worldwide (with more locations expected)
and combines an infrastructure as a service (IaaS) model that includes IBM Power compute
nodes with storage area network (SAN) attached IBM Storage and associated network
connections within IBM Cloud locations. Now, as part of the IBM distributed hybrid
infrastructure strategy, IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud extends all the benefits of
IBM Power Virtual Server into your (or a partner’s) data center. The enhanced capabilities of
IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud provide managed IaaS at client locations, with
metered consumption and no upfront costs to support Hybrid by Design delivery of services.

3 https://www.ibm.com/thought-leadership/institute-business-value/en-us/report/hybrid-by-design/hybrid
-by-design-architecting-for-agility
4
https://www.ibm.com/consulting/hybrid-by-design
5 https://www.ibm.com/hybrid-cloud

Chapter 1. Hybrid by Design 3

 Figure 1-2 illustrates the comprehensive IBM Power Virtual Server offering, spanning both
IBM data centers and client locations. IBM Power Virtual Server provides a platform for
hosting IBM Power in a fully hybrid cloud enabled solution. You may choose whether to place
your workload in the IBM data centers or in your own data center (with an infrastructure that is
owned and managed by IBM).

Figure 1-2 IBM Power Virtual Server: A true hybrid cloud solution for your IBM Power workloads

Clients can achieve true hybrid cloud capabilities with their critical Power workloads either in
IBM Cloud or on-premises for secure, sovereign, sensitive and regulated workloads.
IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud provides the following benefits:
򐂰 Private and secure
You enjoy the flexibility of IaaS and cloud management while keeping your data
on-premises to ensure security and data sovereignty, and meeting regional compliance
and governance requirements.
򐂰 Flexible and intentional placement of workloads
Choose the best location to run each workload: off-premises in IBM Power Virtual Server
or on-premises in your data center, based on your business requirements for security and
data governance.
򐂰 Hybrid cloud enabled
You experience the same user interface in IBM Power Virtual Server and IBM Cloud,
making hybrid cloud operations more efficient to manage your on-premises infrastructure.
򐂰 Metered usage-based pricing with flexible consumption and acquisition
You pay only for what you use each month: Compute, memory, storage, and operating
system (OS) licenses are fully metered with no upfront costs6.

4 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

򐂰 Streamlined IT operations and accelerated client time to value
IBM provides the expertise to maintain and operate the infrastructure platform up to the
virtual machine (VM) level, enabling clients to focus on their business outcomes.
򐂰 Constant improvements and enhancements
IBM continues to improve IBM Power Virtual Server with new capabilities, such as:
– Identical management interfaces for workloads, whether placed on IBM Power Virtual
Server in the cloud or on-premises.
– The same architecture and support for a broad range of IBM Power servers, including
scale-up and scale-out servers.
– A single consolidated bill for IT services, whether on-premises or off-premises.
– Flexible consumption with the ability to grow to meet evolving business requirements.

Figure 1-3 shows how a unified platform with both a public and private cloud offering can
enable customers to intentionally place their workloads in the best environment.

Figure 1-3 Hybrid cloud view of the IBM Power Virtual Server offering

The IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud platform supports the following features:
򐂰 Existing Power workloads with co-existence with new container-based microservices and
modernization of legacy applications on a shared infrastructure.
򐂰 Support for products from independent software vendors (ISVs) running on IBM Power.
򐂰 A virtualized platform to replace VMware based Linux workloads to lower the total cost of
delivery and increase the virtualization rate for applications.
򐂰 A cloud solution that can meet specific regulatory requirements for data protection and
data sovereignty.

6
Clients are required to commit to a minimum monthly usage for the term (3 or 5 years) of the agreement and pay
the greater of usage or the minimum commitment fees.

Chapter 1. Hybrid by Design 5

 򐂰 Red Hat OpenShift 4.15 with Installer Provisioned Infrastructure (IPI) simplifies and
automates deployment of Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Power Virtual Server (~2 hours to set
up a Red Hat OpenShift cluster instead of days or weeks).
򐂰 Infusing business applications on IBM Power with AI.
Integrate AI into IBM Power to run your business operations and AI integration on the
same platform. This seamless integration enables you to incorporate AI into your existing
workflows, where transactions are run and data is located. Figure 1-4 illustrates this
approach, showing how IBM Power Virtual Server applications integrate with
IBM watsonx® to provide an enhanced AI experience.

Figure 1-4 AI integration with IBM Power Virtual Server and IBM watsonx

With IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud, customers can accomplish the following tasks:
򐂰 Maintain customer data and workloads on their own site.
Enterprises might have workloads or data that is regulated and cannot be hosted
off-premises. Sometimes, enterprises can have workloads that are sensitive or with
ultra-short latency requirements that are better served onsite and near other onsite
workloads.
򐂰 Maintain customer data in region and specific geographies in the location of their choice.
Country sovereignty regulations require some data and workloads to stay in that country.
According to a recent IBM Institute of Business Value study, 61% of cloud leaders cite
security or compliance as reasons for moving certain workloads from public clouds to
private clouds or on-premises data centers.
򐂰 Provide a seamless hybrid cloud experience.
Enterprises can foster a unified hybrid cloud landscape by seamlessly integrating IBM
Power Virtual Server running both at an IBM site and at a client site location with the ability
to manage all the VMs and infrastructure effortlessly through a unified user interface.
Clients can be flexible by using as a service with intentional workload placement
on-premises and off-premises.
򐂰 Deliver a predictable charging model with Committed Monthly Spend (CMS) combined
with flexible consumption and metered usage-based pricing.
Both IBM site and at client site offerings include compute, memory, storage, and OS
licenses that are metered by the hour, enabling clients to pay for how much they use each
month with no upfront payment.

6 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

 򐂰 Streamline IT operations.
Whether in the cloud or at an enterprise’s site, IBM manages the infrastructure, freeing
enterprises to focus on business outcomes and less on managing infrastructure. IBM
owns, delivers, and sets up the IBM Power Virtual Server in your data center of choice,
and provides a fully managed solution, including monitoring, security, firmware updates,
and infrastructure management.
򐂰 Provide enhanced security and control of data.
IBM Power Virtual Server is designed to provide comprehensive security for IBM Power
infrastructure by integrating with IBM Cloud tools to manage security. This approach
alleviates the need to manage the Power infrastructure security with the added benefit of
maintaining sensitive data and workload on-premises.

1.3 Benefits of using IBM Power as your cloud platform

The same benefits that led to investment in the IBM Power infrastructure in private data
centers are provided by using the IBM Power Virtual Server infrastructure, either in the cloud
or a data center of your choice. “Build on Power” for security, performance, reliability,
availability, scalability, sustainability, and a lower total cost of ownership (TCO). Fewer cores =
Fewer licenses = Lower TCO.

Beyond the TCO benefits of using an IBM Power based cloud infrastructure, there are
migration efficiencies, management advantages, reliability and availability advantages, and
security benefits. This section describes the benefits that IBM Power can bring to your cloud
platform.

1.3.1 TCO benefits

Hardware is typically less than 15% of the cost of an IT solution, with software and services
making up 85%. IBM Power is designed to support more workload per core compared to x86
architecture alternatives. The power of the IBM POWER® processor core often results in
needing only 25 - 50% of the number of licenses compared to an x86 solutions, as shown in
Figure 1-5.

Figure 1-5 TCO comparison of Power and x86

Chapter 1. Hybrid by Design 7

 Fewer cores equal fewer software licenses. The ongoing yearly support and service fees
(which can be 20 - 25% of the initial purchase) and the additional cores that are required to
support workloads on x86 can double your cost every 4 - 5 years. Choosing to implement a
solution on x86 might result in doubling the overall cost of the solution. Instead, design for
affordability by running on IBM Power servers to reduce TCO.

IBM Power servers are integrated solutions that are designed to provide the following
benefits:
򐂰 Reliability: Ranked #1 for the 15th year in a row by the ITIC's global reliability report.
򐂰 Pervasive security: The most secure open system on the market:
– Provides Transparent Memory Encryption.
– 2.5X faster AES crypto performance per core with four crypto engines.
– Future ready for quantum-safe cryptography and fully homomorphic encryption (FHE).
򐂰 Performance:
– Runs Oracle and other database workloads better than other platforms.
– 4.1 x more containerized throughput per core versus x86 running Red Hat OpenShift.
– Supports eight threads per core and higher usage.
– Greater memory bandwidth versus x86.
– Colocate cloud applications and legacy applications on the same platform.
– AIX, IBM i, Linux (Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and SUSE), KVM, and Red Hat
OpenShift can all be supported in separate partition running concurrently.
򐂰 Sustainability: Two times more capacity with the same energy usage.
򐂰 AI-ready: Four matrix math accelerators per core for faster inferencing.

1.3.2 No refactoring
Before the introduction of IBM Power Virtual Server running in the cloud, migrating workloads
from an existing IBM Power infrastructure to the cloud involved moving the applications and
data to an x86 platform. This approach was complicated for several reasons:
򐂰 Compatibility issues: Applications and workloads that are designed for IBM Power might
not run natively on x86, requiring refactoring or recompiling.
򐂰 Performance variations: Some workloads, particularly ones that are compute-intensive or
require high throughput, might perform differently on x86 hardware.
򐂰 Data migration: Moving data from one architecture to another one can be complex,
especially if it involves different database systems or file formats.

With IBM Power Virtual Server (either the public cloud or the new Private Cloud version), the
cloud target now uses the same technology. Migrating workloads are now simpler, and there
are many tools to help with the migration. Although migration still takes careful planning, there
is no need for refactoring or recompiling the applications.

The flexibility of the migration of applications and data makes IBM Power Virtual Server in
IBM Cloud an ideal solution for backup, disaster recovery (DR), and development. IBM Power
Virtual Server Private Cloud offers secure, dedicated data centers that are tailored to each
client’s needs.

8 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

1.3.3 Security and availability
Security and availability are two important components of any enterprise application
environment. Having a critical application down due to hardware issues can cost thousands of
dollars an hour in some industries. In addition to the lost business that is caused by an
unreliable infrastructure, your company’s reputation can be harmed. The IBM Power Virtual
Server Private Cloud uses IBM Power10 servers that provide industry-leading availability as
measured by the amount of unplanned downtime that customers experienced. Security is
also critical in an environment. Having a security breach can cost millions of dollars in lost
business, loss of reputation, and regulatory fines. IBM Power10 servers are designed with
security in mind, with built-in encryption and available security tools to help secure and
manage your environment.

Availability
The reliability of IBM Power10 servers is ranked #1 by ITIC with 99.999% availability, as
shown in Figure 1-6.

Figure 1-6 ITIC Reliability Report

In addition to the built-in reliability of Power10 servers, IBM Power Virtual Server (both the
public version and Private Cloud) are designed with reliability and availability that is built in.
Redundant resources and the ability to restart your workloads automatically by using those
redundant components are designed into the solution. Also provided are storage solutions to
keep your data accessible, with backup and data replication services available to meet your
availability requirements.

Security
In today’s digital landscape, IBM Infrastructure serves as a formidable shield against increasingly
sophisticated cyberthreats through its robust and integrated security solutions. IBM weaves
security into the fabric of its systems and platforms, enabling businesses to operate confidently
amid evolving risks.

At the heart of IBM's approach is the integration of security throughout its systems, building
trust and resilience from the ground up, which includes safeguarding firmware integrity with
secure boot processes and bolstering data protection through hardware-based encryption
acceleration.

IBM goes beyond basic protection with a proactive cybersecurity strategy. IBM offers secure
storage solutions and advanced threat prevention and detection mechanisms. In an incident,
IBM provides rapid response and recovery options to minimize downtime and effectively
manage operational risks.

Chapter 1. Hybrid by Design 9

 Privacy and confidentiality are paramount and are supported by IBM advanced encryption
technologies, which include pervasive encryption throughout the data lifecycle and quantum-safe
cryptography, which are designed to guard against emerging threats such as quantum computing.

Figure 1-7 shows the IBM Power Security Architecture and how security is integrated across all
layers.

Figure 1-7 IBM Power Security Architecture

IBM simplifies regulatory compliance with continuous compliance and audit capabilities.
Automated monitoring and enforcement tools ensure adherence to industry standards, and unified
security management tools facilitate consistent governance across diverse IT environments.

Collaborating closely with ecosystem partners, IBM integrates security across hybrid cloud
environments, networks, software systems, architectures, and chip designs. This comprehensive
approach ensures holistic protection and resilience across all facets of an IT infrastructure.

The IBM Power Security Architecture provides safe, simple security with isolation and
integrity controls between each layer of components. This architecture supports the industry
evolution to the Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) to allow open-source industry collaboration
while ensuring that you can validate the source and integrity of each component. IBM works
closely with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to track and fix
vulnerabilities and is working to support the evolution to post-quantum cryptography. IBM is
also working on FHE, which enables applications to work with encrypted data to further
enhance security.7

By consolidating security insights across various domains, IBM enables informed decision-making
and proactive threat management. This integrated approach dissolves traditional security silos,
turning security into a catalyst for innovation and business growth.

In summary, IBM Infrastructure sets a high standard for security excellence by embedding
advanced features into its solutions and equipping businesses to address both current and
future cybersecurity challenges with confidence. Through collaborative efforts with ecosystem
partners and a focus on regulatory compliance, IBM delivers secure, resilient, and compliant
infrastructure solutions, empowering businesses to thrive in the digital age amid evolving
cyberthreats. The IBM PowerSC architecture provides safe, simple security with isolation and
integrity controls between layers and components.

7 https://research.ibm.com/topics/fully-homomorphic-encryption

10 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

1.3.4 IBM Power Virtual Server benefits
IBM Power Virtual Server has offered a cloud-based, off-premises solution since 2019,
enabling customers to dynamically provision IBM Power servers and storage with a
pay-as-you-go charging model. This model enables clients to quickly migrate IBM Power
based workloads to the cloud.

IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud extends this offering, providing enterprises with
secure, integrated data center services at their chosen location, also on a pay-as-you-go
basis. Using the data center expertise that was gained through IBM Power Virtual Server, the
IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud solution delivers performance, scalability, flexibility,
security, and industry-leading reliability. It integrates servers, storage, network, security, and
solution patterns to enable self-service capabilities in the client's data center.

Replicating these cloud capabilities and maintaining this integrated solution requires an
enterprise to invest millions of dollars and months or years of development time.

Fully metered consumption

IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud provides fully metered consumption, enabling you to
pay for the infrastructure as you use it and eliminating capital expense for the infrastructure.
The terms of the offering are as follows:
򐂰 3-year or 5-year term with 1-year renewal
򐂰 Pay-as-you-use monthly billing with CMS
򐂰 IBM owned and managed

Lowest TCO and fastest time to value

Moving IBM Power workloads to the cloud can be challenging and expensive. Before the
availability of IBM Power Virtual Server, that migration usually meant an expensive and risky
refactoring of the applications to run them on x86 base hardware.

IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud offers the best TCO value for customers that want to
move to on-premises cloud solutions compared to IBM competitors, as shown in Table 1-1.

Table 1-1 TCO comparison

IBM Power Virtual Server at client AWS Outposts
򐂰 Highest security servers 򐂰 Higher energy costs
򐂰 Highest reliability servers 򐂰 Higher software costs
򐂰 High-performance processors 򐂰 Lower performance processors
򐂰 Metered usage billing 򐂰 Delivered capacity billing
Lowest TCO TCO 1.5x higher

AWS Outposts AWS Outposts

򐂰 Higher energy costs 򐂰 Higher energy costs
򐂰 Higher software costs 򐂰 Higher software costs
򐂰 Lower performance processors 򐂰 Lower performance processors
򐂰 Delivered capacity billing 򐂰 Metered usage billing
TCO 1.2x higher TCO 1.2x higher

IBM offers IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud with no upfront capital on a pay-as-you-go
consumption model with a monthly minimum fee for a 3-year or 5-year term. The
configuration can be designed as a small or medium Point of Delivery (Pod) depending on the
client workloads.

Chapter 1. Hybrid by Design 11

 If you are choosing whether to use IBM Power Virtual Server versus choosing to build your
own infrastructure, consider the points that are illustrated in Figure 1-8. Beyond the up-front
capital expense for the equipment, consider the costs of creating the support structure for all
the other components that are involved in the solution, for example, storage, networking,
security, and monitoring.

Figure 1-8 DIY comparison

Choosing IBM Power Virtual Server either in IBM data centers or client locations provides an
excellent option to implement a Power based infrastructure with no up-front investment and
with usage-based costs.

1.4 Cloud offerings for IBM Power servers

IBM has a range of cloud solutions that are designed to provide flexible acquisition and
consumption options for IBM Power servers:
򐂰 IBM Power Virtual Server in IBM data centers
IBM Power Virtual Server is a cloud-based offering running in IBM data centers with
IBM Power servers and storage that can be dynamically defined. There is no customer
up-front investment, and you pay only for resources that are consumed.
򐂰 IBM Power Virtual Server at client locations (IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud)
IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud is an extension of IBM Power Virtual Server. In
this case, the customer is responsible for providing data center space, and IBM is
responsible for installing and managing the servers, storage, and networking for the
customer’s usage. There is no customer up-front investment, and you pay for resources
that are consumed with a minimum monthly commitment.

12 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

 򐂰 IBM Power Systems Private Cloud with Shared Utility Capacity
The Power System Private Cloud with Shared Utility Capacity (also known as Power
Enterprise Pools 2 (PEP2)) is a client-managed offering. The Power servers are installed
and managed by the client in their data center. The Shared Utility Capacity allows flexibility
in paying some portion of the cost of the POWER processors and memory that are
installed in the servers initially and then paying for more capacity as it is consumed.
Capacity usage is pooled across all the servers in the PEP2 pool, providing the ability to
move workloads to any server based on business demand.

The three options are shown in Figure 1-9.

Figure 1-9 Comparing IBM Power based cloud options

With these options, IBM provides a full range of cloud solutions, so you can choose where
you want to deploy the infrastructure for your IBM Power based workloads:
򐂰 Off-premises, managed by IBM
򐂰 On-premises, managed by IBM
򐂰 On-premises, fully managed by you

The cost of running an IT infrastructure consists of more than the acquisition costs and initial
capital investment. It also includes the costs of operating and maintaining the infrastructure.
For each option that you are considering, you must understand those additional management
costs and who is responsible for the operations of each component.

Chapter 1. Hybrid by Design 13

 Figure 1-10 shows who supports the many layers and components of your application
infrastructure, from the server hardware to the data and applications, and including the
networking and storage infrastructure.

Figure 1-10 Operational support assignments across cloud implementation models

For the PEP2 option, the responsibilities are shown in the first column. The IBM Power Virtual
Server options are shown in the next two columns. The ability to have IBM manage the server
layer, the virtualization layer, and the storage layer in the Power VS offerings enables you to
focus on running your business instead of managing the infrastructure.

The next sections describe each of the options in more detail.

1.4.1 IBM Power Systems Private Cloud with Shared Utility Capacity
IBM Power Systems Private Cloud with Shared Utility Capacity (formerly known as PEP2)
pools resources across multiple IBM Power servers within an enterprise. The value
proposition of this option is a pay-as-you-go model, reducing the initial investment in
hardware and replacing it with a metered consumption offering. This solution is more flexible
compared to other Capacity on Demand (CoD) offerings that are available on IBM Power
servers.

The Shared Utility Capacity solution is managed through the IBM Cloud Management
Console (CMC), which is used to meter the usage across the Shared Utility Capacity pool.

As more enterprises look at ways to reduce costs while maintaining the scalability that is
required to stay competitive in today's fast-paced business environment, pay-as-you-go or
consumption-based infrastructure models have grown increasingly popular. These purchase
models enable clients to quickly scale up or down their IT infrastructure to optimize costs
while quickly adapting to dynamic business environments. To maintain a competitive
advantage, use an IT model that helps you adapt rapidly to the changing tech landscape.

14 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

A consumption-based IT model thrives in this environment because it has the following
characteristics:
򐂰 Balances the flexibility of a cloud infrastructure with the control, security, and reliability that
you expect from on-premises data centers.
򐂰 Pays for IT resources when they are consumed, which reduces the up-front capital
expense and other costs that are associated with traditional procurement processes.
򐂰 Enables rapid infrastructure expansion to quickly accommodate the needs of new projects
and workloads.

All these benefits contribute to a greater alignment between business and IT leaders, and
when both sides of an organization are aligned, you are better prepared to deliver innovative
products and services to your clients. Regardless of industry or company size, the shift to
consumption-based IT is clear.

Flexible consumption offerings provide many of the attributes that clients like about public
cloud in an on-premises, private cloud with better control and security.

IBM Power Systems Private Cloud with Shared Capacity provides greater flexibility and
scalability within your data centers. This new end-to-end solution enables you to take
advantage of cloud agility and economics while getting the same business continuity and
security that you are used to from IBM Power. There are three core components that make up
the IBM Power Systems Private Cloud Solution:
򐂰 Dynamic cost optimization with pay-as-you-go pricing
򐂰 Automated, consistent enterprise IT management
򐂰 Increased flexibility for hybrid cloud

Pool options
PEP2 provides enhanced multisystem resource sharing and by-the-minute consumption of
on-premises compute resources to clients who deploy and manage a private cloud
infrastructure.

There are multiple pools that are supported in PEP2, where servers of similar capabilities can
be mixed within a pool. For example, IBM Power E1080 and IBM Power E980 can be in a
pool, but Power E1080 and IBM Power E1050 must be in separate pools. At the time of
writing, the following types of pools are available in PEP2:
򐂰 Power E1080 and Power E980
򐂰 Power E1050 and IBM Power E950
򐂰 IBM Power S1022, IBM Power S1024, IBM Power S922, and IBM Power S924

Activations and usage charges

Base Processor Activation features and corresponding software license entitlements are
purchased for each server in a PEP2. Base Memory Activation features are purchased for
each enterprise server in the pool (Power E1080, Power E1050, Power E980, and
Power E950). Base Memory Activation features are not supported for the scale-out servers
(Power S1022, Power S1024, Power S922, and Power S924) because all installed memory is
included with the purchase of these systems. However, memory usage can still be tracked.

Chapter 1. Hybrid by Design 15

 When acquiring systems to include in the Shared Utility Capacity offering, you can purchase
one base processor activation and 256 GB of base memory activation at a minimum (for the
enterprise servers; for the scale-out servers, all installed memory is purchased up-front). This
approach enables acquisition of server capacity with minimal capital expense that is replaced
by a pay-as-you-go model. The offering enables you to balance the initial capital investment
with a metered approach to meet your specific business requirements.

All installed processors and memory on servers in a PEP2 are activated and made available
for immediate use when a pool is started. Processor and memory usage on each server are
tracked by the minute and aggregated across the pool. Any usage under the base capacity
across the pool is not charged, which enables the resources to be shared across the pool
without having to move them from server to server as workloads expand or decrease.

Any unpurchased capacity in the pool can be used on a pay-as-you-go basis. Resource
usage that exceeds the pool's aggregated base resources is charged as metered capacity by
the minute, on a real-time basis. Metered capacity can either be debited against
prepurchased capacity credits or it can be billed monthly.

Processor usage is tracked based on actual consumption by partitions. Memory usage is

tracked based on the assignment of memory to active partitions and is not based on OS
usage of the memory. Both processor and memory usage are tracked and charged by the
minute. Both processor and memory usage are based on the average usage for 1 minute and
not the peak usage during the minute.

The cloud-like agility and resilience that is offered with the IBM Power Systems Private Cloud
Solution on-premises can ensure the business continuity and security that you look for and
always count on from IBM Power servers with new economics around the ability to
pay-per-use, by the minute, for compute resources to optimize your costs. IBM CMC provides
robust monitoring and drill-down of resource consumption in real time and historically for
systems within a pool.

Summary
Shared Utility Capacity delivers enhanced multi-system resource sharing and by-the-minute
consumption of on-premises compute resources for clients deploying and managing a private
cloud infrastructure. This flexibility combined with IBM Power security, reliability, and
scalability provides clients with the consumption-based IT solution that is required in today's
dynamic, hyper-competitive market. Shared Utility Capacity simplifies system management,
so clients can focus on optimizing their business results instead of moving resources and
applications around within their data center. Resources are easily tracked and monitored by
IBM CMC, which automatically tracks usage by the minute and debits against Capacity
Credits, which are based on actual usage. With Shared Utility Capacity, you no longer need to
worry about over provisioning capacity to support growth because all resources are activated
on all systems in a pool. Purchased Base Activations can be seamlessly shared between
systems in a pool, and all unpurchased capacity can be used on a pay-per-use basis.

16 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

1.4.2 IBM Power Virtual Server
IBM Power Virtual Server is a cloud-based infrastructure service that enables businesses to
run workloads on IBM Power server hardware. It combines the performance and reliability of
IBM Power Architecture® with the flexibility and scalability of a virtualized environment. Key
features include the following items:
򐂰 Flexibility: Users can scale resources up or down based on demand, making it suitable for
various workloads, including enterprise applications and databases.
򐂰 Performance: Using IBM POWER processors, the service is designed to be for
high-performance computing tasks.
򐂰 Hybrid cloud integration: It supports seamless integration with on-premises systems and
other cloud services, facilitating a hybrid cloud approach.
򐂰 Security: Built-in security features help protect sensitive data and comply with industry
standards.
򐂰 Managed services: IBM provides management options, enabling users to focus on their
applications rather than infrastructure.

IBM Power Virtual Server is targeted at organizations looking for robust, enterprise-grade
cloud solutions that can support demanding applications. IBM Power Virtual Server resources
are in IBM data centers with dedicated networking and storage area network-attached Fibre
Channel storage. You can choose one of the regions that are listed in the specifications that
are nearest to your data center. At the time of writing, there are 21 data centers worldwide
hosting IBM Power Virtual Server. IBM Power clients who rely on a private cloud infrastructure
can now quickly and economically extend their Power IT resources on the cloud.

In the data centers, the IBM Power Virtual Servers are separated from the rest of the
IBM Cloud servers with separate networks and direct-attached storage. The internal networks
are fenced, but offer connectivity options to the IBM Cloud infrastructure or private cloud
environments. This infrastructure design enables IBM Power Virtual Server to maintain key
enterprise software certification and support because the IBM Power Virtual Server
architecture is identical to the certified private cloud infrastructure.

IBM Power Virtual Server is an IaaS offering where there are no upfront costs for deploying
resources, which are paid for based on usage. IBM Power Virtual Server uses a monthly
billing rate that includes the licenses for the AIX, IBM i, or Linux OSs. The monthly billing rate
is prorated by the hour based on the resources that are deployed to the IBM Power Virtual
Server instance (VSI) for the month. When you create the Power VSI, you can see the total
cost for your configuration based on the options that you specify. You can quickly identify what
configuration options provide you with the best value for your business needs. There is also
an option for a “bring your own Linux image”. In this case, the customer is responsible for
acquiring the subscription and paying the Linux distributor for licenses that are used.

You can configure and customize the following options when you create an IBM Power Virtual
Server:
򐂰 Number of VSIs
򐂰 Number of cores
򐂰 Amount of memory
򐂰 Data volume size and type
򐂰 Network interfaces

Configuration, billing, and management are all handled by IBM Cloud through a cloud-based
GUI and defined APIs.

Chapter 1. Hybrid by Design 17

1.4.3 IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud
IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud is an extension of IBM Power Virtual Server where
the resources that are used in your cloud environment are in your data center instead of using
resources in the IBM Power Virtual Server data centers.

This offering is designed to provide a private cloud option for clients that need to meet specific
regulations about data privacy and data sovereignty. The equipment that is installed in the
client data center is the same set of Power servers, SAN-attached storage devices, and
networking equipment that is installed in the IBM Power Virtual Server public cloud and
managed by using the same IBM Power Virtual Server management tools.

This solution is an IaaS one with no upfront capital expense and the on-premises equipment
is owned and managed by IBM. Pricing for the offering is usage-based like the public cloud
version of IBM Power Virtual Server, with a minimum monthly spending commitment.

The client works closely with the IBM team in selecting the configuration from a list of
supported options, and then that configuration is assembled and delivered to the client data
center. The client is responsible for providing the necessary floor space, power, heat and air
movement, and networking connections from the client data center to one of the IBM data
centers that support connectivity to an IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud location.

When the IBM Power Virtual Server Pod is delivered to the client data center, IBM service
representatives install the Pod and connect it to the IBM cloud. Then, the customer manages
the resources by using the same management interface that is used for any IBM Power
Virtual Server implementation.

1.4.4 Choosing your cloud option

When businesses decide to move workloads to the cloud, selecting the right cloud
environment is a critical decision. It involves balancing factors such as cost, security,
performance, compliance, and scalability. IBM Power cloud solutions offer several options,
including IBM Power Systems Private Cloud with Shared Utility Capacity, IBM Power Virtual
Server, and IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud. Each of these options provides unique
benefits that are suited to different business needs, ranging from hybrid cloud flexibility to
on-premises control. Table 1-2 provides a comparison of the cloud options by feature. This
table is a starting point for making your decision.

Table 1-2 Feature comparison of the cloud options

Feature IBM Power Systems IBM Power Virtual IBM Power Virtual
Private Cloud with Server Server Private Cloud
Shared Utility
Capacity

Cost model Pay-as-you-go, no Pay-as-you-go, Pay-as-you-go,

upfront cost metered hourly metered hourly

Security Highest level of control Enterprise-grade Full control with IBM

and security security, encryption management

Compliance Full compliance for Complies with major Fully compliant for
sensitive data standards in-country hosting

Performance High-performance, low Elastic, global cloud Low latency, high

latency infrastructure performance

18 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

 Feature IBM Power Systems IBM Power Virtual IBM Power Virtual
Private Cloud with Server Server Private Cloud
Shared Utility
Capacity

Hybrid cloud Seamless with IBM Public cloud hybrid Hybrid cloud with
integration Cloud and others capabilities on-premises control

Use cases Mission-critical, Scalable, flexible cloud Hybrid cloud with strict
on-premises apps workloads data control

As an example, a financial services company with highly sensitive customer data and
compliance needs might choose IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud for their core
banking systems. This option enables them to host critical applications on private
infrastructure within their own data center, ensuring compliance with data sovereignty
regulations while using IBM Power Virtual Server for less sensitive workloads, such as
development and testing.

Factors to consider when choosing your cloud option

There are many factors that are involved in choosing which cloud option fits your
requirements. Each option has benefits across each of the factors, and depending on which
factors are most important for the specific workloads that you are considering, these factors
have different weights. Consider the following factors:
򐂰 Cost efficiency:
– IBM Power Systems Private Cloud with Shared Utility Capacity
For businesses that want the flexibility of a private cloud without large upfront costs,
IBM Power Systems Private Cloud with Shared Utility Capacity offers a pay-as-you-go
model, which is ideal for businesses looking to reduce capital expenditure (CapEx)
while still enjoying cloud flexibility. The operation expenditure (OpEx) model also
enables businesses to align costs with usage to scale resources as needed.
– IBM Power Virtual Server
For businesses that need scalability and flexibility, IBM Power Virtual Server offers an
elastic compute infrastructure, where businesses can scale up or down based on
demand. It is suited for workloads that experience fluctuations, such as seasonal
applications or testing environments.
– IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud
This option provides the same pay-as-you-go flexibility as IBM Power Virtual Server but
within a fully private, on-premises environment. It is ideal for businesses that must
maintain physical control over their infrastructure but want the benefits of cloud billing
models.
򐂰 Security and compliance:
– IBM Power Systems Private Cloud with Shared Utility Capacity
This solution is designed for businesses that need complete control over their
environment but still want to benefit from cloud technologies. Because the
infrastructure is hosted within the business's own data center or colocation facility, it
provides the highest level of security and control, ensuring compliance with strict
regulatory standards.

Chapter 1. Hybrid by Design 19

 – IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud
For industries that handle sensitive data (such as finance and healthcare), IBM Power
Virtual Server Private Cloud offers cloud services that meet stringent security and
compliance requirements. The private infrastructure is by IBM but hosted on the client's
premises, giving businesses full control over data locality and privacy.
– IBM Power Virtual Server
While offering the flexibility of a public cloud, IBM Power Virtual Server includes
enterprise-grade security measures such as encryption, identity management, and
compliance certifications, making it a good option for businesses that must comply with
global regulatory standards.
򐂰 Performance and latency:
– IBM Power Systems Private Cloud with Shared Utility Capacity
For businesses that require low-latency and high-performance workloads, especially
those running mission-critical applications or AI workloads, IBM Power Systems
Private Cloud with Shared Utility Capacity ensures that applications run on a dedicated
infrastructure with consistent performance.
– IBM Power Virtual Server
IBM Power Virtual Server offers elastic computing resources that are spread across
multiple global regions. This situation can be beneficial for workloads where
performance is less critical but global reach and availability are important. However,
businesses with strict latency requirements should evaluate the proximity of their users
or systems to IBM Cloud regions to ensure optimal performance.
– IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud
By offering cloud flexibility in an on-premises setup, IBM Power Virtual Server Private
Cloud minimizes latency for locally critical workloads while providing the scalability and
flexibility of a cloud solution. This situation is important for businesses that cannot
tolerate delays due to remote connections but still want cloud-like capabilities.
򐂰 Hybrid cloud capabilities:
– IBM Power Systems Private Cloud with Shared Utility Capacity
Designed for businesses looking for hybrid cloud solutions, IBM Power Systems Private
Cloud with Shared Utility Capacity allows seamless integration between on-premises
and public cloud environments. Businesses can extend workloads to IBM Cloud or
other public clouds when needed while maintaining core applications and data on
private infrastructure.
– IBM Power Virtual Server
IBM Power Virtual Server is a fully public cloud solution that can integrate with existing
on-premises environments to create a hybrid cloud. It is suited for businesses that
need a flexible approach to scaling out workloads to the cloud while maintaining some
control over core infrastructure.
– IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud
This option provides the best of both worlds: cloud features within a private
environment. It is ideal for businesses with hybrid cloud strategies that want to keep
sensitive workloads on-premises while extending less sensitive workloads to public
cloud environments.

20 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

򐂰 Workload-specific considerations:
– Development and testing
If the cloud is primarily required for development and testing, then IBM Power Virtual
Server offers the fastest provisioning, flexible scaling, and cost-efficiency. Development
teams can spin up and tear down virtual servers as needed, making this option ideal
for agile testing cycles.
– Mission-critical workloads
For production and mission-critical workloads that require high performance, low
latency, and DR features, IBM Power Systems Private Cloud with Shared Utility
Capacity or IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud provide the security, performance,
and resilience that are necessary to maintain continuous operation.

Table 1-3 provides a summary of these factors and the strengths of each of the options.

Table 1-3 Summary of factors to consider in choosing your cloud option

Factor IBM Power Systems IBM Power Virtual IBM Power Virtual
Private Cloud with Server Server Private Cloud
Shared Utility
Capacity

Cost efficiency 򐂰 Pay-as-you-go 򐂰 Pay-as-you-go 򐂰 On-premises

model model flexibility
򐂰 Reduced CapEx 򐂰 Elastic compute 򐂰 Pay-as-you-go
򐂰 OpEx model 򐂰 Scale up and down model
򐂰 Flexible resources 򐂰 Private
infrastructure

Security and 򐂰 Complete control 򐂰 Enterprise grade 򐂰 Sensitive data

compliance 򐂰 On-premises or security handling
colocation 򐂰 Encryption 򐂰 On-premises
򐂰 Highest security 򐂰 Compliance control
certification 򐂰 Full data locality

Performance 򐂰 Low latency 򐂰 Global reach 򐂰 On-premises

򐂰 High performance 򐂰 Multiple regions performance
򐂰 Dedicated 򐂰 Elastic resources 򐂰 Low latency
infrastructure 򐂰 Cloud-like
scalability

Hybrid cloud 򐂰 Seamless 򐂰 Public cloud 򐂰 Best of both worlds

integration solution 򐂰 Sensitive
򐂰 Extend to public 򐂰 Integrate with workloads
cloud on-premises on-premises
򐂰 Core apps 򐂰 Flexible scaling 򐂰 Extend to public
on-premises cloud

Workload specific considerations:

򐂰 Development and testing: Consider IBM Power Virtual Server for fast provisioning and flexible
scaling.
򐂰 Mission-critical workloads: Consider Power Private Cloud or IBM Power Virtual Server Private
Cloud for high performance, low latency, and security.

Choosing the right cloud option for IBM Power workloads depends on the specific
requirements of the business. Factors such as security, compliance, performance, and cost
must all be carefully considered. IBM offers a range of cloud solutions that cater to different
needs, from fully private clouds to highly flexible public cloud options. Businesses should
evaluate their workloads and operational requirements to make an informed decision about
which cloud model best supports their strategic goals.

Chapter 1. Hybrid by Design 21

1.5 Government regulations and compliance
Government regulations and data protection laws play a pivotal role in how organizations
approach cloud adoption and management. These rules, particularly in industries like
healthcare, finance, and government, determine where and how sensitive data must be
stored, processed, and transmitted. Understanding and adhering to these regulations is
crucial when selecting a cloud provider.

IBM Power Virtual Server is designed to provide you with a solution that enables you to meet
regulatory requirements for data processing. IBM Power Virtual Server has earned several
certifications for differing regulations, such as General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR),
System and Organization Controls (SOC), and Payment Card Industry Data Security
Standard (PCI DSS). IBM continues to conduct regular compliance audits to ensure
continuous compliance with legal and regulatory standards. By using the on-premises IBM
Power Virtual Server Private Cloud, you can meet additional regulatory standards, specifically
in data control and data sovereignty.

Figure 1-11 shows how IBM Power Virtual Server can help with your compliance
requirements.

Figure 1-11 Government regulations and compliance

Monitoring and compliance tools

IBM Power Virtual Server provides several key monitoring, security, and auditing tools. These
tools enable organizations to track system performance, security, and data access, ensuring
that any compliance gaps or risks are identified and addressed promptly.

Figure 1-12 on page 23 shows the IBM compliance and audit tools that are found in
IBM Cloud.

22 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

Figure 1-12 IBM Cloud compliance tools for IBM Power Virtual Server

Here are the essential tools that are available within IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud
to help with compliance and monitoring:
򐂰 IBM Cloud Monitoring
Provides real-time insights into the health, performance, and availability of cloud
resources.
How it helps:
– Tracks system performance, resource usage, and network metrics.
– Monitors the status of VMs, applications, and infrastructure components.
– Enables businesses to set up alerts based on custom thresholds, helping identify
compliance violations or performance degradation.
Ensures continuous operational compliance by monitoring the system and identifying
issues before they impact service availability.
򐂰 IBM Cloud Security and Compliance Center
A centralized platform that monitors and manages compliance with industry standards and
regulations.
How it helps:
– Automates compliance checks by comparing infrastructure settings and configurations
against regulatory standards like HIPAA, PCI DSS, and GDPR.
– Provides compliance dashboards and generates audit reports to ensure that security
configurations meet legal requirements.
– Helps detect misconfiguration, vulnerabilities, and potential risks that might lead to
noncompliance.
Regularly audits the system's compliance status and provides actionable insights to
maintain regulatory adherence.

Chapter 1. Hybrid by Design 23

 򐂰 IBM QRadar® (Security Information and Event Management (SIEM))
A comprehensive security monitoring tool that detects and responds to security incidents
across the entire environment.
How it helps:
– Collects and analyzes log data from various sources, including network traffic, user
activity, and system events.
– Identifies potential security breaches, unauthorized access attempts, and other
suspicious activities in real time.
– Provides audit trails and incident reports to support security audits and investigations.
Helps organizations meet compliance standards by detecting and reporting security
violations and incidents in real time, ensuring prompt remediation.
򐂰 IBM Spectrum® Protect
A data protection and backup tool that ensures business continuity and compliance with
data retention policies.
How it helps:
– Automates backup processes and ensures that data is securely stored in line with
regulatory requirements.
– Provides detailed reports about data backups, recovery points, and retention periods to
support audit processes.
– Offers data encryption both at rest and during transmission, ensuring compliance with
standards that mandate data protection.
Supports compliance with data protection laws by ensuring that backup and recovery
policies align with retention and encryption standards (such as GDPR and HIPAA).
򐂰 IBM Guardium®
A security solution that is focused on data protection and database activity monitoring.
How it helps:
– Monitors access to sensitive data and logs all database activity, including user access,
changes, and queries.
– Provides detailed audit trails of database transactions, ensuring that sensitive data is
accessed and modified according to security policies.
– Enforces data access controls and generates reports for compliance audits.
Ensures compliance with data protection regulations like PCI DSS and SOX, which
mandate strict controls over access to sensitive data.
򐂰 IBM Log Analysis
Provides centralized logging for tracking and analyzing system and application logs across
IBM Power Virtual Server environments.
How it helps:
– Collects logs from various cloud components and aggregates them for detailed
analysis.
– Identifies anomalies, errors, and security events based on logs, providing a clear audit
trail.
– Generates compliance reports and ensures that logs are stored securely for later
retrieval.

24 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

 Supports compliance efforts by maintaining detailed log records for auditing purposes,
ensuring traceability and accountability for system activities.
򐂰 IBM Power Virtualization Center (IBM PowerVC)
A cloud management tool for managing and monitoring virtualized Power servers.
How it helps:
– Manages resource allocation, provisioning, and monitoring of VMs.
– Provides real-time monitoring of cloud performance and infrastructure status.
– Supports compliance by offering visibility into infrastructure configurations, ensuring
alignment with regulatory requirements.
Helps monitor compliance by tracking system configurations, resource allocations, and
changes within the virtualized environment.

Table 1-4 provides a summary of the tools.

Table 1-4 Compliance and monitoring tools summary

Tool Primary use Compliance role

IBM Cloud Monitoring Monitors the real-time Ensures continuous operational

performance and health of compliance by detecting
cloud resources. performance and security
issues.

IBM Cloud Security and Manages security policies and Automates compliance checks
Compliance Center checks against compliance and generates regulatory
standards. reports for auditing purposes.

IBM QRadar (SIEM) Analyzes security events and Provides audit trails for security
detects potential incidents. violations and helps respond to
incidents in real time.

IBM Spectrum Protect Automates backup and data Ensures compliance with data
protection. retention policies and
encryption standards.

IBM Guardium Monitors database activity and Supports compliance by

protects sensitive data. logging database access and
ensuring that data security
standards are met.

IBM Log Analysis Centralized logging and Provides audit trails and logs for
analysis. compliance auditing and
investigation purposes.

IBM PowerVC Manages virtualized Power Monitors resource usage and

servers. system configurations,
ensuring that the infrastructure
meets compliance standards.

Case study: Multinational compliance in action

A global pharmaceutical company that is adopting a hybrid cloud model must comply with
GDPR in Europe, HIPAA in the US, and local data laws in Asia. By using IBM Power Virtual
Server Private Cloud in each region, the company ensures that sensitive healthcare data
remains compliant with regional regulations while benefiting from the cloud's scalability and
flexibility.

Chapter 1. Hybrid by Design 25

 Summary
These tools ensure that businesses that use IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud can
automate compliance checks, generate audit reports, and continuously monitor their
environment to maintain compliance with industry regulations. Regular use of these tools
enables businesses to proactively address compliance challenges and maintain robust
security.

Navigating government regulations is a critical aspect of cloud adoption. By using IBM Power
Virtual Server Private Cloud, organizations can ensure compliance with data sovereignty,
security, and industry-specific regulations while using the cloud's flexibility. Whether
managing healthcare, financial, or government data, IBM Power Virtual Server offers a
comprehensive solution to meet regulatory needs.

1.5.1 Black or disconnected sites

An enterprise or organization that has locations with security requirements that do not allow
any outside network connectivity are not a good fit for the IBM Power Virtual Server Private
Cloud offering. The IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud requires a management network
connection to the IBM CMC for remote provisioning and management of the infrastructure.
The CMC does not enable access to any client data or applications.

1.6 Use cases

There are many ways to get started on moving workloads to the cloud. The following sections
provide some use cases for workloads that are good choices to implement in a hybrid cloud
environment.

1.6.1 Burst to cloud

Burst to cloud refers to the capability of extending an organization's on-premises
infrastructure by temporarily using cloud resources during periods of high demand. This
hybrid cloud strategy enables businesses to “burst” workloads into the cloud when local
resources are insufficient, providing more computing power, storage, and other resources
without the need for permanent hardware investments. IBM Power servers, especially when
used with IBM Power Virtual Server, enables businesses to burst workloads to IBM Cloud
seamlessly, offering both flexibility and cost savings.

Key features of burst to cloud

By using burst to cloud, organizations can optimize their IT infrastructure, reduce costs, and
improve their ability to handle unpredictable workloads.

Figure 1-13 on page 27 provides an illustration of burst to cloud.

26 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

Figure 1-13 Burst to cloud

Burst to cloud has the following features:

򐂰 Dynamic resource expansion
When the demand on an organization's on-premises infrastructure exceeds its capacity,
workloads can be automatically redirected to cloud environments to maintain
performance. This approach is ideal for businesses experiencing seasonal traffic spikes,
sudden increases in customer demand, or data processing bursts.
Example: A retailer might use burst-to-cloud during Black Friday or holiday shopping
seasons to accommodate spikes in web traffic.
򐂰 Cost efficiency
Rather than investing in more on-premises servers that might be needed only
occasionally, businesses can use pay-as-you-go cloud resources. This approach avoids
over-provisioning and helps manage costs more efficiently.
Example: A media company streaming a large live event can temporarily use cloud
resources to handle the spike in viewer traffic without purchasing new hardware.
򐂰 Hybrid cloud integration
IBM Power Virtual Server enables seamless integration between on-premises
environments and IBM Cloud. Workloads can be shifted between the two environments
with minimal disruption, giving organizations flexibility in where they run their applications.
This model is suitable for companies that require a balance between data residency and
cloud scalability.
򐂰 DR and flexibility
Burst to cloud can also be used as part of a DR strategy, where critical workloads can shift
to the cloud if there are on-premises failures. This approach ensures business continuity
without investing heavily in secondary infrastructure.

Implementing burst to cloud

Implementing burst to cloud requires some planning and preparation. To be successful, you
must implement a hybrid cloud architecture that integrates your private infrastructure and
public clouds. Use load-balancing techniques to distribute workloads between on-premises
and cloud resources.

When you decide to use a burst to cloud strategy, consider data transfer costs and latency
when workloads are moved between environments and ensure that your cloud provider
meets your security and compliance requirements.

Chapter 1. Hybrid by Design 27

 Here are some additional considerations:
򐂰 Monitor usage patterns.
Regularly monitor resource usage to predict when cloud bursting might be necessary.
Automating the scaling process based on performance metrics can help avoid bottlenecks
and downtime.
򐂰 Optimize workload placement.
Identify which workloads are suitable for bursting to the cloud. Applications with variable
demand or batch processing tasks are ideal candidates for bursting to cloud.
򐂰 Use auto-scaling tools.
Use IBM Cloud Auto-Scaling to automatically adjust resources based on preset
thresholds, ensuring that workloads remain responsive while minimizing unnecessary
cloud usage.
Example use case: A financial services firm experiences fluctuating demand for its data
analysis services. During normal operation, its on-premises Power servers handle the
workload. However, at quarter-end, when demand for financial reports surges, the firm
bursts workloads into IBM Cloud. This strategy enables the firm to avoid hardware
over-provisioning while ensuring timely report generation.

For more information, see the following documents:

򐂰 IBM Power Systems for Hybrid Cloud
򐂰 IBM Power Virtual Server Burst to Cloud Guide
򐂰 IBM Auto-Scaling Overview

1.6.2 AI on Power
IBM Power is designed for AI and advanced workloads, positioning enterprises to infer and
deploy AI algorithms on sensitive data and transactions that are on Power servers. More
specifically, IBM Power Virtual Server can help enterprises by providing a flexible, scalable,
and secure platform to run mission-critical workloads, including AI, which extends
on-premises environments to the cloud.

Concurrently, clients want to be agile and drive stronger business outcomes with simpler
experiences, which include ramping up quickly, spending less time maintaining infrastructure,
and paying as they go. With a flexible as a service offering, clients can get frictionless
workload migration and modernization from on-premises to the cloud. This approach is
possible because of architectural parity between IBM Power and IBM Cloud that helps IBM
clients achieve growth while adopting innovative AI and hybrid cloud technologies. IBM Power
Virtual Servers delivers a VM as a service on the Power Architecture, which is engineered to
run your mission-critical applications. With the same architecture on-premises and on cloud,
workload migration does not require re-platforming to move it to other clouds.

IBM continues to make improvements to the IBM Power Virtual Server offering on IBM Cloud,
including enhancing the user experience and capabilities and expanding the infrastructure
itself so that clients can focus on business outcomes.

IBM Power clients have valuable data on their servers, giving them an opportunity with
enterprise AI to derive insights from this data to help address business challenges such as
providing a more seamless and secure customer experience. IBM Power10 has on-chip
acceleration for production-ready AI at the point of data to enable faster time to insight and
lower latency.

28 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

 Technology services provider OpenTech uses the OpenXAI platform, which is a private,
document-sourced, and knowledge-based gen AI chat application that generates content for
users based on their own private data. Choosing the right infrastructure to run OpenXAI was
critical for OpenTech because the company’s chat application was being trained on sensitive
and confidential documentation. Furthermore, OpenTech needed to stay on-premises within
the country to comply with local regulations regarding data privacy and sovereignty.

IBM and OpenTech joint clients use IBM Power10 processor-based servers to run gen AI
chatbots that use private documentation to keep confidential data secure.

“Putting our OpenXAI platform on Power10 gives us the best of both worlds. Our open-source
technology stack makes development and expansion easy to handle as we add new features
constantly,” said Moatasim Al-Masri, CEO, OpenTech. “In addition, clustering multiple
Power10 servers together with IBM Storage solutions gives our clients a unique and robust
gen AI solution that takes the worry out of having to find hardware to match the software. This
solution is powerful for today and into the future and can be a closed on-premises private
solution or a private corporate cloud solution hosted on-prem, keeping confidential
information secure to meet data privacy and sovereignty requirements.”8

Statement of direction
IBM intends to incorporate the IBM Spyre™ accelerator in future Power offerings to provide
additional AI compute capabilities. Working together, IBM POWER processors and IBM Spyre
accelerator will enable the next-generation infrastructure to scale demanding AI workloads for
businesses.9

1.6.3 Database support

IBM Power is an excellent platform for databases due to its high availability (HA) design, its
performance and scalability, and its integrated security capabilities. The data that is managed
by the database is the lifeblood of an enterprise’s business, and if it is unavailable for any
reason, business operations are crippled. This situation can lead to a financial loss due to lost
business and to a loss of reputation because customers cannot interface with the enterprise.

IBM Power is the choice to host databases for many enterprises. IBM works closely with
database vendors to ensure that clients can get the best value when running their databases
on IBM Power.

Because IBM Power Virtual Server is based on the same IBM Power Architecture that runs
on-premises, database vendors do not need to specifically support databases on Power: If it
runs on-premises, then it will run on IBM Power Virtual Server. This section focuses on database
support for IBM Power Virtual Server, including IBM Db2®, Oracle Database, and other
databases that run on IBM Power.

IBM Db2
IBM Db2 is a relational database product that enables users to store, manage, and retrieve
data in a structured format. Db2 offers features like data security, scalability, and support for
various data types. It can also handle complex queries and transactions.

8
https://community.ibm.com/community/user/power/discussion/webcast-delivering-an-on-prem-generative-a
i-chatbot-with-ibm-power
9 https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/announcements/statement-direction-spyre-accelerator-power-platform

Chapter 1. Hybrid by Design 29

 IBM Db2 is the cloud-native database that was built to power low–latency transactions and
real-time analytics at scale, providing customers with both self-managed and fully managed
(software as a service (SaaS)) options on the cloud. It provides a single engine for DBAs,
enterprise architects, and developers to keep critical applications running. It also stores and
queries anything and powers faster decision-making across organizations.

For the past three decades, Db2 has provided stability and dependability for customers’ data
management solutions. Its robust architecture and performance have given businesses
uninterrupted access to critical data while powering their enterprise-level applications. Db2
has been recognized as a leading data management product, as shown in Figure 1-14.

Figure 1-14 Db2 recognized as a leader

IBM Db2 first started as a mainframe database over 40 years ago. After its success on that
platform, it was ported to run on Linux, UNIX (for example, AIX), and Windows (Db2 LUW).
Since then, it has grown into a highly used cloud-ready database engine for use both
on-premises and in the cloud. IBM Db2 is integrated into IBM i as an integral component in
the IBM i ecosystem.

Many customers run Db2 on IBM Power, running in AIX or Linux, as do all IBM i users. It is
known for its integrated features for performance and data replication, serving data for
business-critical applications across many industries.

IBM Power Virtual Server provides an excellent infrastructure and environment to relocate
your Power on AIX assets to a high-performance, virtual computing infrastructure. With
IBM Db2 on IBM Power Virtual Server, you may use Db2 backup and restore procedures and
Db2 high availability and disaster recovery (HADR) database synchronization commands.
You can create an off-premises backup of your Db2 database for DR or fully migrate your Db2
workload from on-premises to an IBM Power Virtual Server environment in a safe and secure
IBM data center quickly by using common Db2 tools.

30 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

IBM Power Virtual Server can offer price and performance advantages over comparable
x86-based platforms. Consider the following benefits:
򐂰 IBM Power9® based IBM Power Virtual Server processors, available now, offer
competitive price performance.
򐂰 Because Db2 LUW licensing is per core, the per core performance advantage of
IBM Power Virtual Server over x86-based compute provides TCO advantages.
򐂰 Power10 processors, which are becoming generally available in more data centers, offer
more than a 2x per core performance advantage over Power9.

In addition, modern AIX on an IBM Power Virtual Server infrastructure can provide
operational benefits. For example, an IBM Aspera® client/server infrastructure can be
installed to facilitate fast data transfers across networks.

The future of Db2 is bright, and performance, modernization and TCO benefits can be
realized by migrating Db2 on AIX from Power servers to IBM Power Virtual Server.

Oracle
Clients worldwide across multiple industries are finding an edge over competitors by using
Oracle workloads running on IBM Power. Running on IBM Power provides better performance
than x86 based options and uses the HA of the IBM Power platform. The ability to run more
workload per core on IBM Power also enables those clients to reduce licensing costs,
providing a high-performance and cost-effective choice for running business-critical
workloads that are based on Oracle.

Figure 1-15 lists five key motivations for running your Oracle workloads on IBM Power.

Figure 1-15 Five motivations for running Oracle on IBM Power

Using IBM Power Virtual Server, clients can build a hybrid cloud environment to run Oracle on
an IBM Power stack (either in IBM data centers or client locations) that is identical to their
existing on-premises Power based infrastructure for Oracle workloads. Running Oracle on
IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud enables clients to use the 1:20 entitled core-to-virtual
processor ratio (like traditional on-premises implementations) to maximize Oracle licensing
TCO. IBM Power Virtual Server uses a fully Oracle certified stack with PowerVM, AIX, IBM i,
SAN-based storage, and network adapters, which enables full Oracle support. IBM and
Oracle work closely together to identify and fix any issues that might arise.

Chapter 1. Hybrid by Design 31

 Running on IBM Power Virtual Server meets Oracle’s hard partitioning requirements, which
can reduce the number of licenses that are required for your solution. You get the following
benefits:
򐂰 Subcapacity licensing with the ability to license only the CPUs that are available to Oracle
Database and middleware. This approach enables a company to optimize Oracle licensing
to provide a reduced TCO that is lower than any hyperscale cloud environment.
򐂰 Full support for Oracle Database, Oracle RAC, Oracle Fusion Middleware, and Oracle
Applications. Any IBM Power supported Oracle solutions are supported on IBM Power
Virtual Server.
򐂰 Highest off-premises scalable Oracle DB Single Instance capability.
򐂰 Superior storage resiliency with an enterprise class platform with all flash NVMe-enabled
SAN storage.

Figure 1-16 summarizes the reasons that clients choose IBM Power to run their Oracle
business workloads.

Figure 1-16 Summary of why clients choose IBM Power for Oracle workloads

Other databases
There are many other databases, either SQL-based or noSQL-based that are available on
IBM Power. They can be installed in your IBM Power Virtual Server servers. Running these
databases on IBM Power Virtual Server can provide a TCO advantage compared to running
them on x86 servers while providing enterprise-level support.

32 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

 Figure 1-17 shows several databases that are supported on IBM Power.

Figure 1-17 Other database choices for IBM Power Virtual Server

You can run these databases on IBM Power Virtual Server by bringing your own licenses.

1.6.4 Development and test environment

For an organization to build, test, and validate an application before going live into production,
development and test environments are necessary. They are where developers make new
features, test their performance, and debug problems without affecting the live production
environment.

Creating a development and test environment in an on-premises location can be a difficult

and time-consuming process. Developers must work with the infrastructure team to find
resources for their environment. Sometimes, new servers must be purchased, requiring time
to acquire funding, and order and install the equipment. When the equipment is no longer
needed, you must find another project that can use that equipment.

Moving development and test to the cloud can provide a productivity benefit for the
development staff and lead to reduced expenses for the business. IBM Power Virtual Server
is ideal for creating a temporary sandbox environment for testing before deploying production
applications. For example:
򐂰 You need a remote environment to test software or hardware updates. You have a
temporary need for some system resources.
򐂰 You must assess, plan, or test next-generation hardware or OS versions.
򐂰 You are interested in an isolated infrastructure, and you need it temporarily for testing
applications.
򐂰 You want to test hardware before a hardware refresh.

Chapter 1. Hybrid by Design 33

 Using IBM Power Virtual Server for your development environment provides the following
benefits:
򐂰 Dynamic resource allocation
Cloud platforms enable you to quickly scale up or down computing resources based on
project demands, which ensures that you have the necessary capacity for peak workloads
without overinvesting in hardware.
򐂰 Flexible environments
You can create and configure different development and testing environments with varying
configurations (such as different OSs, databases, or software versions) to accommodate
diverse project requirements.
򐂰 Pay-as-you-go model
Cloud services typically follow a pay-as-you-go pricing model, meaning that you pay only
for the resources that you use. This approach can reduce upfront costs and eliminate the
need for long-term hardware commitments.
򐂰 Reduced overhead
Cloud providers manage infrastructure maintenance, updates, and security, reducing your
operational overhead and freeing resources for core development activities.
򐂰 Rapid provisioning
Cloud environments can be provisioned in minutes, enabling you to quickly set up new
development or testing environments. This approach accelerates development cycles and
enables faster time-to-market.
򐂰 Simplified management
Cloud platforms often provide simple interfaces and automation tools, simplifying the
management of development and testing environments.
򐂰 Remote access
Cloud-based environments can be accessed from anywhere with an internet connection,
enabling seamless collaboration among development teams regardless of their physical
location.
򐂰 Centralized repository
Cloud-based version control systems and artifact repositories can provide a centralized
location for storing and managing code, ensuring that everyone has access to the latest
versions.
򐂰 Data backup and recovery
Cloud providers often offer robust data backup and recovery services, helping to protect
your valuable assets and minimize downtime in a disaster.
򐂰 HA
A cloud infrastructure is typically designed for HA, ensuring that your development and
testing environments remain accessible even in the face of hardware failures or
disruptions.

In summary, the cloud offers a flexible, scalable, and cost-effective solution for development
and testing environments. By using cloud-based resources, organizations can accelerate
development cycles, improve collaboration, and enhance their overall agility and
competitiveness.

34 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

Modernizing your applications
The advantages of using IBM Power Virtual Server as a development environment are also
applicable to clients that are developing cloud-ready applications. IBM Power Virtual Server
provides an excellent platform to modernize your applications by using Red Hat OpenShift.

Clients can begin their modernization journey by deploying Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Power
Virtual Server by using the simplified IPI. IPI is designed to simplify and automate the
deployment of a Red Hat OpenShift cluster on Power. For more information about using
Red Hat OpenShift on Power, see Deploy Red Hat OpenShift.

IBM Power Virtual Server enables integration with on-premises environments to create a
hybrid cloud development environment where part of the environment is on-premises while
others are on the cloud. This approach is helpful in cases when organizations require an
on-premises infrastructure due to compliance or performance reasons but want to have the
flexibility of the cloud for testing new features.

Continuous integration and continuous deployment pipeline support

IBM Power Virtual Server environments can support the integration into a continuous
integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipeline. Developers may, by using their own
scripting and automation, automate the deployment of test environments and run automated
tests and promote builds to production seamlessly and in an automated workflow.

Example of a development and test environment in IBM Power Virtual Server

A software company development uses the IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud to
establish multiple test environments. Each environment emulates a different development life
stage, from simple unit testing to preproduction.

In the cloud, the development team provisions an isolated VM for different application
modules. They run their tests on IBM AIX VMs and scale up the resources with growing test
data complexity.

The company automates the deployment of new builds, execution of unit tests, and reporting
by integrating the IBM Power Virtual Server test environments into their CI/CD pipeline. This
increase in release cycles ensures that only high-quality code reaches production.

Conclusion
IBM Power Virtual Server provides agile development and testing in an economical, highly
scalable environment. The use of IBM Power Virtual Server for development accelerates
development cycles through on-demand provisioning, seamlessly integrated hybrid cloud,
and automation in workflows while taking ultimate control to the business by ensuring
maximum usage of budget spent on resources. Using IBM Power Virtual Server provides a
test environment for new applications or to validate updates, and provides the flexibility that
required by modern development teams.

Chapter 1. Hybrid by Design 35

36 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud
 2

Chapter 2. IBM Power Virtual Server Private

Cloud
Enterprises adopting innovative hybrid cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies need
flexible infrastructures that help ensure performance, security, and interoperability to meet
evolving IT demands. To stay competitive, reduce technology costs, and respond to changing
customer needs, organizations require platforms that enable quick adjustments in workload
consumption, whether on the cloud or onsite, prioritizing business outcomes over
infrastructure management. Generative AI (gen AI) applications hold potential for driving
business transformation, and enterprises taking a strategic approach to hybrid cloud might
maximize its benefits.

The IBM Hybrid Cloud strategy prioritizes client choice and flexibility. IBM recently expanded
the capabilities of IBM Power Virtual Server to allow deployment within client data centers.
This approach combines the benefits of cloud consumption and management with
on-premises data storage, addressing regional compliance and governance requirements.
IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud is designed to meet these goals.

Clients have the choice of fully managed, off-premises services or private on-premises
capabilities in their data center:
򐂰 Predefined server, storage, and network architecture in semi-configurable options.
򐂰 No re-platforming required.
򐂰 Consistent cloud user experience.
򐂰 Highly reliable infrastructure with leading business continuity and disaster recovery (DR).
򐂰 Superior IBM Power security and comprehensive cloud compliance.
򐂰 Flexible consumption, fully owned and operated by IBM, delivering industry-leading
service-level agreements (SLAs) by using in-country resources.
򐂰 A fully metered consumption model with no upfront cost, pay-as-you-use billing, and a
minimum monthly commitment.
򐂰 Intentional workload placement, integrating with IBM Cloud or on-premises, and benefiting
from a strong ecosystem for IBM i, AIX, and Linux.

© Copyright IBM Corp. 2025. 37

 The following topics are included in this chapter:
򐂰 2.1, “IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud design” on page 38
򐂰 2.2, “Technology components” on page 44
򐂰 2.3, “Pricing concepts” on page 67

2.1 IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud design

IBM Power Virtual Server is an IBM offering that provides cloud services for IBM Power
workloads in IBM Cloud data centers. IBM Power Virtual Server was originally offered in 2019
and has grown to 21 data centers worldwide and over 650 customers.

The new on-premises extension of IBM Power Virtual Server was created to provide
intentional workload placement while maintaining a consistent management experience.
IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud benefits clients that have the following needs:
򐂰 Data sovereignty requirements in a country with no IBM public cloud.
򐂰 Regulated or sensitive data and workloads that must remain on-premises.
򐂰 Workloads with ultra-short latency requirements to other on-premises infrastructures.

The newer IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud offering is designed to accomplish the
following goals:
򐂰 Maintain customer data and workloads on your own site.
Enterprises might have workloads or data that are regulated and cannot be hosted
off-premises. Sometimes, enterprises have workloads that are sensitive or with ultra-short
latency requirements that are better served onsite and close to other onsite workloads.
򐂰 Maintain customer data in-region and specific geographies in the location of their choice.
Country sovereignty regulations require some data and workloads to stay in the country.
According to a recent IBM Institute of Business Value study, 61% of cloud leaders cite
security or compliance as reasons for moving certain workloads from public clouds to
private clouds or on-premises data centers.
򐂰 Provide a seamless hybrid cloud experience.
Enterprises can foster a unified hybrid cloud landscape by seamlessly integrating
IBM Power Virtual Server running both at an IBM site and at a client site location with the
ability to manage all the virtual machines (VMs) and infrastructure through a unified user
interface. Clients can gain flexibility by using as a service with intentional workload
placement on-premises and off-premises.
򐂰 Deliver a predictable charging model with Committed Monthly Spend (CMS) combined
with flexible consumption with metered usage-based pricing.
Both IBM Power Virtual Server offerings (off-premises running at an IBM location and
on-premises running at the client site) include compute, memory, storage, and operating
system (OS) licenses that are fully metered by the hour, enabling clients to pay for how
much they use each month with no upfront payment.

38 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

 򐂰 Streamline IT operations.
Whether in the cloud or at an enterprise’s site, IBM manages the infrastructure, freeing
enterprises to focus on business outcomes and less on managing infrastructure. IBM
owns, delivers, and sets up the IBM Power Virtual Server in your data center of choice,
and provides a fully managed solution, including monitoring, security, firmware updates,
and infrastructure management.
򐂰 Provide enhanced security and control of data.
IBM Power Virtual Server is designed to provide comprehensive security for an IBM Power
infrastructure by integrating with IBM Cloud tools to manage security. This approach
alleviates the need to manage Power infrastructure security with the added benefit of
maintaining sensitive data and workload on-premises.

2.1.1 Same management interface as IBM Power Virtual Server

IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud is managed with the same interface that is used in
the public or off-premises version of the offering. This approach enables integration and
migration of workloads between the offering options.

Provisioning an IBM Power Virtual Server environment starts at the IBM Power Virtual Server
page in IBM Cloud. Before you can provision any cloud resources, you must set up an
IBM Cloud account with a valid username and password.

Figure 2-1 shows the initial window for provisioning IBM Power Virtual Server.

Figure 2-1 IBM Power Virtual Server provisioning window

The first thing that you need to select, depending on your requirements and how you are
planning to use these resources, is the type of instance to be created. There are two options
available:
1. Quick start for dev / test
2. Advanced for production

Chapter 2. IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud 39

 Clicking Quick start for dev/test provides a simplified process immediately creates
IBM Power Virtual Server resources that are intended for dev/test work in the cloud. Clicking
Advanced for production displays additional windows where you enter options, with an
emphasis on network and security configuration.

Next, there are two panes to be chosen from:

1. Create a workspace
2. Create a virtual server instance

A workspace is a logical container or cloud instance that is used to create and deploy virtual
server instances (VSIs). A workspace is tied to a specific IBM Power Virtual Server cloud
location (either off-premises or on-premises). An active workspace must be configured with
the correct region specified and allow resource grouping and utilization.

A VSI is a single-server image or logical partition (LPAR) that is defined in IBM Power Virtual
Server. The VSI definition includes defining processors, memory, networking and storage
resources that are defined for the specific LPAR. Multiple VSIs can be defined within a
workspace. If you have more than one physical location or region, you have multiple
workspaces that are defined.

Figure 2-2 shows a sample list of workspaces that are defined within an account. This list is
accessed by selecting the Workspaces tab in the left pane.

Figure 2-2 List of defined workspaces

Important: A workspace must be defined before you can create a VSI. At least one
workspace must be defined in each location that you want to run workloads within
IBM Power Virtual Server.

40 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

 If you do not have a workspace that is defined in the location that you want to define
IBM Power Virtual Server LPARs, then Create a Workspace from the initial IBM Power
Virtual Server provisioning window that is shown in Figure 2-1 on page 39. The process of
defining a workspace is detailed in 5.2, “Setting up your workspace” on page 121. This point
is when you differentiate between defining resources in the public cloud or in your own private
cloud infrastructure.

when your workspace is defined, define your VSIs within your workspace. Defining your VSI
is described in 5.3, “Setting up a virtual server instance” on page 123.

2.1.2 Security and data governance

IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud implements foundational security measures, covering
Security and Privacy by Design (SPbD), security controls, data management and encryption,
data privacy and jurisdiction considerations, and incident management.

IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud prioritizes adherence to privacy regulations,
particularly ones that govern application data placement and location, for customers
evaluating the service. To help ensure data jurisdiction, IBM Power Virtual Server Private
Cloud implements robust security principles and controls, keeping customer data exclusively
within their data center or premises.

The IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud architecture separates the tenant and
management networks. The tenant networks, which handle customer workload data and VM
communication, use both Ethernet and storage area network (SAN) Fibre Channel storage. In
contrast, the management network handles control plane traffic, as described in “Data
management and encryption” on page 42. This separation starts at the physical layer, where
each server has at least two Ethernet network interface controllers, with one dedicated solely
to management and control traffic. Only IBM Power Virtual Server site reliability engineering
personnel and service accounts can access the tenant network, with no access to the
management network. The tenant network also remains isolated from the internet, helping
ensure customer workload data on the SAN network and storage systems does not traverse
the management network.

Customer data remains in the client data center and is not transferred to the control or
management plane. All customer data that is stored in IBM FlashSystem servers is encrypted
while at rest.

IBM Security and Privacy by Design

IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud follows SPbD practices, which focus on threat
modeling, privacy assessment, security testing, static and dynamic code scans, and
vulnerability management, all of which are based on IBM Product Security Incident Response
Team (PSIRT) guidelines. The team maintains and reviews the threat model annually or after
architectural changes, as required by IBM SPbD.

Chapter 2. IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud 41

 Security controls
IBM and clients divide security responsibilities according to the joint responsibility model that
is shown in Figure 2-3.

Figure 2-3 Joint responsibility model

In this model:
򐂰 IBM handles logical controls within the blue boundary, including Power hardware and
firmware, Virtual I/O Servers (VIOSs), Network Installation Management servers,
IBM Power Virtualization Center (IBM PowerVC), NovaLink, Hardware Management
Console (HMC), physical network infrastructure, and storage infrastructure, including SAN
switches, storage controllers, and storage arrays.
򐂰 Clients handle logical controls within the red boundary, covering OSs, middleware,
applications, logical networking, and application data.
򐂰 Data center physical security controls, including physical access and environmental
controls, are a joint responsibility between customers and IBM Power Virtual Server.

For more information, see IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud: Security overview.

Data management and encryption

IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud minimizes the data flow out of the customer data
center to the IBM Cloud data center Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) instance, limiting it to
infrastructure device configuration, control and management information, monitoring status,
telemetry, and security event data. This data transmission is crucial for the product's optimal
function and does not include customer workload data or sensitive personally identifiable
information, unless explicitly authorized by the customer. All communication between the
customer data center and the IBM Cloud VPC instance adheres to stringent security
protocols, employing Transport Layer Security (TLS) 1.3 or TLS 1.2 protocols along with the
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) approved ciphers and algorithms.

VM lifecycle events, such as VM creation and deletion, are communicated over a dedicated
management plane, strictly adhering to TLS 1.2 and later protocols for HTTPS traffic.
Connections to infrastructure devices for configuration management, patching, and problem
resolution are secured by using Secure Shell (SSH).

42 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

2.1.3 Pay-as-you-go model
The IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud commercial terms are as follows:
򐂰 Fully metered flexible capacity consumption (usage) with a minimum commit at the Point
of Delivery (Pod) level:
– Metering of actual usage on an hourly basis (core, memory (GB), and storage (GB)).
Monthly minimum commit with monthly true-up if monthly usage is less than the
monthly minimum commit.
򐂰 Contract terms of 3 or 5 years with 1-year renewal: Option to terminate after 12 months
with 60-day notice and pay only 50% of remaining commit.
򐂰 Single monthly bill one month in arrears: Capacity consumption details are available on
the IBM Cloud Portal (UI).
򐂰 Advanced support default with the Premium upgrade option: SLAs and SLOs are aligned
to IBM Cloud.
򐂰 Technology and upgrades:
– Add building blocks of compute and storage.
– Expand capacity into a Pod that is not fully populated.
– Increase the memory capacity only by adding new servers.
– Removing servers or storage from Pod is not supported.
– Pod upgrades to the latest technology only if deemed necessary by IBM.
򐂰 Countries that are planned for limited and general availability: US, Canada, Germany,
Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Austria, Denmark, UK, and Australia.

2.1.4 Dynamic provisioning

IBM Power Virtual Server offers infrastructure as a service (IaaS) in the public cloud or in a
customer's designated data center, which is known as IBM Power Virtual Server Private
Cloud. IaaS solutions are designed to quickly and efficiently allocate compute and storage
resources for client workloads. You can create a VSI or LPAR through a simple GUI, API calls,
or automation scripts in minutes.

IBM PowerVM provides the underlying virtualization function for IBM Power servers, efficiently
sharing server resources across multiple LPARs. You can dynamically modify each LPAR
configuration by adding or removing processors and memory while it runs. This dynamic
provisioning and deprovisioning also apply to storage configuration, enabling you to add
storage capacity to an operational LPAR. Sometimes, you can even remove storage capacity
if the application is not accessing data on those volumes.

This flexibility enables you to scale your infrastructure up or down to meet business
requirements. For example, you can quickly increase processing capability during peak
workload times and reduce it when the peak subsides, resulting in lower computing
expenses.

2.1.5 Scalable
IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud is an as a service offering that includes a prescriptive
set of physical infrastructure of compute, network, and storage. The physical infrastructure,
also known as the Pod, is deployed in the customer data center. The Pod is maintained and
operated by IBM site reliability engineers (SREs) and managed through the IBM Cloud
platform. Each Pod is associated with an IBM Cloud Satellite™ location that is owned by a
customer IBM Cloud account.

Chapter 2. IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud 43

 The architecture is set up to enable clients to scale their existing Pods by adding more
compute and storage within the existing racks. For medium Pods with two racks, the
architecture supports the expansion to four racks. It is also possible to add more Pods to
scale the environment horizontally to meet extra workload demands.

2.1.6 Implementation and migration

IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud is an as a service offering that provides customers
with a cloud experience with infrastructure in their data center. Here are some of its features:
򐂰 Quick deployment
򐂰 Automation interfaces
GUI, command-line interface (CLI), API, or Terraform interfaces make the management of
resources simple.
򐂰 Bring your own image
Customers may bring their own custom IBM AIX, Linux, or IBM i images.
򐂰 Dynamic resource adjustment
Configure and customize the number of cores, amount of memory, and storage volume
size on the virtual server.
򐂰 Private virtual server access
Customer can use a virtual private network (VPN) to access the virtual server.
򐂰 Pay-as-you-use billing
Based on specific needs, customers can choose to scale up or down resources
dynamically based on need.

2.2 Technology components

IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud is an as a service offering with a highly prescriptive
infrastructure (compute, storage, and network) at the customer's location (on-premises).
Management is performed through IBM Cloud interfaces (GUI, API, CLI, or Terraform). The
various IBM Cloud regions (such as Dallas, Washington DC, London, Frankfurt, and Sao
Paulo) host the IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud control plane software (Power
Service Broker), and the client locations are configured to connect to the nearest IBM Cloud
region.

Figure 2-4 on page 45 shows a high-level view of IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud.

44 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

 Figure 2-4 IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud high-level view1

2.2.1 Pods
A Pod is a physical component that is in a client data center and contains the compute,
storage, and network components. A Pod contains one or more racks where each of the
components are installed. The racks are interconnected to provide a self-contained
infrastructure, including both customer usable components, spare components, and
management components.

At the time of writing, the following Pod sizes are available:

򐂰 Small: One rack of IBM Power10 (IBM Power S1022 and IBM Power E1050) processors,
storage, networking, and management components
򐂰 Medium: Either 2 or 4-racks of IBM Power10 (IBM Power S1022, Power E1050, or IBM
Power E1080) processors. storage, networking, and management components.

1 https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/power-iaas?topic=power-iaas-private-cloud-architecture

Chapter 2. IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud 45

 Small Pods
Small Pods are designed as an entry configuration that supports either the Power S1022
processor or the Power E1050. When using the Power S1022, the small Pod supports up to
297 customer available cores and 36 TB of memory. With the Power E1050, a small Pod
supports up to 340 customer available cores and 32 TB of memory. A small Pod provides
either 438 TB or 876 TB of usable storage.

Table 2-1 shows the different capabilities of the small Pod.

Table 2-1 Small Pod attributes

Attribute Value

Client-usable hosts Min: 6

Power S1022 2 TB Max: 9

Client-usable hosts Min: 5

Power S1022 4 TB Max: 9

Client-usable hosts Min: 2

Power E1050 Max: 4

Client-usable cores per Pod

Power S1022 (2U): 40 total, 33 usable Min: 198 – Power S1022 (2 TB)
Min: 165 – Power S1022 (2 TB)
Max: 297 – Power S1022

Power E1050 (4U): 96 Total, 85 usable Min: 170 – Power E1050

Max: 340 – Power E1050

Client-usable memory per Pod

Power S1022 (2U) 2 TB or 4 TB options Min: 12 TB –Power S1022 (2 TB)
Max: 36 TB–Power S1022

Power E1050 (4U) 4 TB or 8 TB options Min: 8 TB – Power E1050

Max: 32 TB – Power E1050

Racks per Pod 1

Redundant HMC No

Client usable storage per Pod Min: 438 TB

Assumes 2x compression Max: 876 TB
One to two IBM FlashSystem 5200 controller
Twelve 19.2 TB drives per controller

Max power consumption Rack 1: 24.7 kVA

Estimated max weight Rack 1: 1748 lbs

46 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

Figure 2-5 shows a small Pod setup.

Figure 2-5 Small Pod

Medium Pods
Medium Pods support any of the Power10 models, the Power E1080, the Power E1050, or the
Power S1022, providing flexibility. Depending on the configuration, the medium Pod consists
of either two racks or four racks. A medium Pod can provide up to 1287 usable cores by using
the Power S1022; up to 1615 usable cores by using the Power E1050; or up to 535 usable
cores by using the Power E1080. A medium Pod provides up to 160 TB of memory (by using
the Power E1080).

Up to 3.5 PB of storage is available with two racks and up to 7 PB is available with four racks
in the medium Pod. Also, the medium Pod provides a redundant HMC.

Table 2-2 shows the attributes of the medium Pod.

Table 2-2 . Medium Pod details

Attribute Value

Client-usable hosts Min: 12

Power S1022 Max: 15 (2-rack)
Max: 39 (4-rack)

Client-usable hosts Min: 5 (2-rack)

Power E1050 Min: 8 (4-rack)
Max: 7 (2-rack)
Max: 19 (4-rack)

Chapter 2. IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud 47

 Attribute Value

Client-usable hosts Min: 2 (4-rack)

Power E1080 Max: 5 (4-rack)4

Client-usable cores per Pod

Power S1022 (2U): 40 total, 33 usable Min: 396 – Power S1022
Max: 495 – Power S1022 (2-rack)
Max: 1287 – Power S1022 (4-rack)

Power E1050 (4U): 96 total, 85 usable Min: 425 – Power E1050 (2-rack)
Min: 680 – Power E1050 (4-rack)
Max: 595 – Power E1050 (2-rack)
Max: 1615 – Power E1050 (4-rack)

Power E1080 (10U): 120 total, 107 usable Min: 214 – Power E1080 (4-rack)
Max: 535 – Power E1080 (4-rack)

Client-usable memory per Pod

Power S1022 (2U) 2 TB or 4 TB options Min: 24 TB –Power S1022 (2 TB)
Max: 60 TB–Power S1022 (4 TB) (2-rack)
Max: 156 TB–Power S1022 (4 TB) (4-rack)
Power E1050 (4U) 4 TB or 8 TB options
Min: 20 TB – Power E1050 (4 TB)
Max: 56 TB – Power E1050 (8 TB) (2-rack)
Max: 152 TB – Power E1050 (8 TB) (4-rack)

Power E1080 (10U) 8 TB, 16 TB, or 32 TB options Min: 16 TB – Power E1080 (8 TB)
Max: 160 TB – Power E1080 (32 TB) (4-rack)

Racks per Pod 2 or 4 (must add in pairs)

Redundant HMC Yes

Client usable storage per Pod Min: 1.75 PB (24 drives per controller, 2-rack)
Assumes 2x compression Max: 3.5 PB (48 drives per controller, 2-rack)
2 IBM FlashSystem 9500 controllers (2-rack) Max: 7.0 PB (48 drives per controller, 4-rack)
1 – 4 IBM FlashSystem 9500 controllers (4-rack)
Twenty-eight or forty-eight 19.2 TB drives per
controller

Max power consumption Rack 1: 22.3 kVA

Rack 2: 22.3 kVA
Rack 3: 24.6 kVA
Rack 4: 24.6 kVA

Estimated max weight Rack 1: 1581 lbs

Rack 2: 1581 lbs
Rack 3: 1593 lbs
Rack 4: 1593 lbs

48 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

 Figure 2-6 shows the configuration of a medium Pod with four racks.

Figure 2-6 Four-rack medium Pod diagram

2.2.2 Compute
The compute nodes that are used in the IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud use
IBM Power10 processors. The IBM Power10 processor is the newest generation of
IBM POWER processors, providing highly available (HA), high-performance systems that are
specifically built with security in mind.

The IBM Power10 processor was introduced to the public on 17 August 2020 at the 32nd
HOT CHIPS1 semiconductor conference. At that meeting, the new capabilities and features of
the latest IBM POWER processor microarchitecture and the Power Instruction Set
Architecture (ISA) 3.1B were revealed and categorized according to the following Power10
processor design priority focus areas:
򐂰 Data plane bandwidth
Terabyte per second signaling bandwidth on processor functional interfaces, petabyte
system memory capacities, 16-socket symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) scalability, and
memory clustering and memory inception capability.
򐂰 Powerful enterprise core
New core micro-architecture, flexibility, larger caches, and reduced latencies.
򐂰 End-to-end security
Hardware-enabled security features that are co-optimized with PowerVM hypervisor
support.

Chapter 2. IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud 49

 򐂰 Energy-efficiency
Up to threefold energy-efficiency improvement in comparison to IBM Power9 processor
technology.
򐂰 AI-infused core
A 10 - 20x matrix-math performance improvement per socket compared to the
IBM Power9 processor technology capability.

The IBM Power10 processor session material that was presented at the 32nd HOT CHIPS
conference is available through the HC32 conference proceedings archive at this web page.

IBM Power S1022 server (9105-22A)

The Power S1022 (9105-22A) 2U rack-mounted server is a powerful one- or two-socket
server that is available with one or two processors per system, with the following options:
򐂰 One or two 12-core Power10 processors running at a typical 2.90 - 4.0 GHz (maximum)
򐂰 Two 16-core Power10 processors running at a typical 2.75 - 4.0 GHz (maximum)
򐂰 Two 20 core Power10 processor running at a typical 2.45 - 3.90 GHz (maximum)

All processor cores can run up to eight simultaneous threads to deliver greater throughput.
When two sockets are populated, both must be the same processor model.

The Power S1022 server is available in small and medium Pods. Within the Power Virtual
Cloud Private configuration, it comes with the features that are shown in Table 2-3.

Table 2-3 Resource specifications for IBM Power S1022

Attribute Value

Applicable Pod sizes Small and medium

Rack space 2U

Total cores 40

Total usable cores 33

Memory options 2 TB
4 TB

Hardware-based transparent memory encryption Yes

VIOS configuration 2 LPARs

3 cores per VIOS
16 GB memory per VIOS

NovaLink configuration 1 core

16 GB memory

Network adapters Small: 25 GbE (2X)

Medium: 100 GbE (2X)

Fibre Channel adapters 64 Gbps, 2-port (2X)

Max kVA 1.513

Amps 7.57

Watts 1,468

BTU per hour 5010

Weight 71 lbs

50 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

Figure 2-7 shows the Power S1022 server from the front and the back.

Figure 2-7 Power S1022 server

For more information regarding the IBM Power S1022, see IBM Power10 Scale Out Servers
Technical Overview S1012, S1014, S1022s, S1022 and S1024, REDP-5675.

Power E1050 server (9043-MRX)

The Power E1050 server is ideal for cloud deployments because of its built-in virtualization,
flexible capacity, and high usage. The machine type model number of the Power E1050
server is 9043-MRX. It is a single enclosure server that is four EIA units tall (4U). It can be
configured with two, three, or four dual-chip modules (DCMs). Three processor options are
available:
򐂰 Twelve cores running at a typical 3.35 - 4.00 GHz (max) frequency range
򐂰 Eighteen cores running at a typical 3.20 - 4.00 GHz (max) frequency range
򐂰 Twenty-four cores running at a typical 2.95 - 3.90 GHz (max) frequency range

The Power E1050 server is available in small and medium Pods. Within the Power Virtual
Cloud Private configuration, it comes with the features that are shown in Table 2-4.

Table 2-4 Resource specification for Power E1050

Attribute Value

Applicable Pod sizes Small and medium

Rack space 4U

Total cores 96

Total usable cores 85

Memory options 4 TB
8 TB

Hardware-based transparent memory encryption Yes

VIOS configuration 2 LPARs

5 cores per VIOS
32 GB memory per VIOS

NovaLink configuration 1 core

16 GB memory

Chapter 2. IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud 51

 Attribute Value

Network adapters Small: 25 GbE (4X)

Medium: 100 GbE (4X)

Fibre Channel adapters 64 Gbps, 2-port (4X)

Max kVA 3,109

Amps 15.55

Watts 3,016

BTU per hour 10,292

Weight 153 lbs

Figure 2-8 shows the Power E1050 from the front and the back.

Figure 2-8 Power E1050

For more information about the Power E1050, see IBM Power E1050 Technical Overview and
Introduction, REDP-5684

Power E1080 server (9080-HEX)

The Power E1080, also referred to by its 9080-HEX machine type-model designation,
represents the most powerful and scalable server in the IBM Power portfolio. It is composed
of a combination of central electronics complex enclosures that are called nodes (or system
nodes) along with other drawers to support additional I/O adapters or internal disk capacity.
The Power E1080 is designed with reliability, scalability, and security that is built in and has
fully integrated encryption capability, and advanced AI capabilities.

52 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

The Power E1080 server provides the following hardware components and characteristics:
򐂰 10-, 12-, or 15-core Power10 processor chips that are packaged in a single chip module
per socket.
򐂰 One, two, three, or four system nodes with four Power10 processor sockets each.
򐂰 Redundant clocking in each system node.
򐂰 Up to 60 Power10 processor cores per system node and up to 240 per system.

In IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud, the Power E1080 server is available only in
medium Pods. The configuration that is supplied in IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud
includes two system nodes, each with four 15-core 3.55 - 4.00 GHz (max) processors for a
total of 60 cores in each system node. This configuration provides a total of 120 processors
per system, of which 107 are available for customer deployments. There are three memory
configurations that are available: 8 TB, 16 TB, and 32 TB for configuration flexibility.

Table 2-5 shows the features of the Power E1080.

Table 2-5 Resource specification for the Power E1080

Attribute Value

Applicable Pod sizes Medium

Rack space 10U

Total cores 120

Total usable cores 107

Memory options 8 TB
16 TB
32 TB

Hardware-based transparent memory encryption Yes

VIOS configuration 2 LPARs

10 cores per VIOS
48 GB memory per VIOS

NovaLink configuration 1 core

16 GB memory

Network adapters 100 GbE (4X)

Fibre Channel adapters 64 Gbps, 2-port (4X)

Max kVA 7.621

Amps 38.10

Watts 7,392

BTU per hour 25,229

Weight 410 lbs

Chapter 2. IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud 53

 Figure 2-9 shows an Power E1080 system node. A Power E1080 that is built for
IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud has two of these system nodes and a System Control
Unit, which contains additional components for reliability and serviceability.

Figure 2-9 Power E1080

For more information about the Power E1080 server, see IBM Power E1080 Technical
Overview and Introduction, REDP-5649.

Additional compute components

The Pod contains an HMC and display and an IBM System Management node (9105-22A).

2.2.3 Storage
Storage within the Pod is provided by IBM FlashSystem controllers that are connected by
using SAN switches to the compute nodes to provide storage. Small Pods have options for
either one or two IBM FlashSystem 5200 storage controllers with a capacity of 435 TB per
controller. Medium Pods have options for either two or four IBM FlashSystem 9500 storage
controllers with a capacity of 1.75 PB per controller.

The underlying Brocade-based SAN fabric connects the compute nodes at 64 Gbps and the
storage nodes connect at 32 Gbps, with redundancy built in at both the port and switch levels.

IBM FlashSystem 5200

For small Pods, storage is provided by SAN-attached IBM FlashSystem 5200 storage
controllers. Each controller enclosure has dual, redundant storage controllers that connect to
the SAN by using Fibre Channel connections. The control enclosure supports 12 FlashCore
Modules (FCMs). The FCM design uses the NVMe protocol, a PCIe Gen4 interface, and
high-speed NAND memory to provide high throughput and I/O operations per second (IOPS)
with consistent and predictable latency. The FCM supports hardware-based data
compression and self-encryption.

54 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

At least one IBM FlashSystem 5200 controller is required in each small Pod. You can choose
two of them. This approach enables support for up to 876 TB of allocatable storage.

Figure 2-10 shows the IBM FlashSystem 5200 (4662-6H2). The IBM FlashSystem 5200 is
always populated with twelve 19.2 TB FCMs.

Figure 2-10 IBM FlashSystem 5200

Table 2-6 shows the attributes of the IBM FlashSystem 5200 as configured in the Pod.

Table 2-6 IBM FlashSystem 5200 attributes

Attribute Value

Applicable Pod sizes Small

Rack space 1U

Total capacity per controller 438 TB

Drives per controller 12

Network management connections 1 GbE (2X)

Fibre Channel connections 32 Gbps (8X)

Max kVA 0.928

Amps 4.64

Watts 900

BTU per hour 3,072

Weight 43 lbs

For more information about the IBM Storage FlashSystem 5200, see IBM Storage
FlashSystem 5200 Product Guide for IBM Storage Virtualize 8.6, REDP-5617.

IBM FlashSystem 9500

Storage for medium Pods is provided by the IBM FlashSystem 9500. The IBM FlashSystem
9500 is a storage controller with dual redundant controllers and supports up to 48 storage
devices. The storage controllers attach through SAN connections to the SAN switches that
are built in to the Pod. For IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud Pods, each controller is
configured with either twenty-four or forty-eight 19.2 TB FCMs providing either 876 TB or
1.75 PB per controller. A medium Pod must have at least one IBM FlashSystem 9500 and can
have up to four for a total maximum storage capacity of 7 PB.

Chapter 2. IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud 55

 Figure 2-11 shows the IBM FlashSystem 9500 (4666-AH8) that is used in medium Pods.

Figure 2-11 IBM FlashSystem 9500 that is used in medium Pods

Table 2-7 shows the attributes of the IBM FlashSystem 9500 in medium Pods.

Table 2-7 IBM FlashSystem 9500 attributes

Attribute Value

Applicable Pod sizes Medium

Rack space 4U

Total capacity per controller 876 TB (24 drives)

1.75 PB (48 drives)

Drives per controller 24

48

Network management connections 1 GbE (2X)

Fibre Channel connections 32 Gbps (32X)

Max kVA 3.403

Amps 17.01

Watts 3,300

BTU per hour 11,263

Weight 155 lbs

For more information about the IBM FlashSystem 9500, see IBM Storage FlashSystem 9500
Product Guide: Updated for IBM Storage Virtualize 8.7, REDP-5742.

56 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

Storage tiers
IBM Power Virtual Server provides a tier-less storage offering that removes the notion of a
disk type and replaces it with a storage pool. Each storage pool can support multiple storage
tiers. The storage tiers are based on different IOPS levels.

Storage tiers are designed to provide different levels of storage pricing. The client is charged
more for higher performance and less for lower performance or inactive data. Storage tier
pricing is based on IOPS.

Tier 0, Tier 1, and Tier 3 performance are based on IOPS per GB, meaning that the
performance of your storage volumes is connected to the size of the volume. This approach
works well for many workloads, but there are some workloads that have a smaller amount of
data and are hampered by the IOPS per GB calculation. For these workloads, IBM Power
Virtual Server provides the Fixed IOPS tier, which provides 5000 IOPS per data volume,
regardless of the size.

Note: The Fixed IOPS tier is available only for volumes with a size of 200 GB or less.
Above 200 GB, using Tier 0 provides higher performance (200 GB @ 25 IOPS/GB = 5000
IOPS).

Table 2-8 shows the supported storage tiers with their corresponding IOPS.

Table 2-8 Storage tiers within IBM Power Virtual Server

Tier level IOPS Performance

Tier 0 25 IOPS per GB A 100-GB volume receives 2500 IOPS, which

is 2.5x faster than Tier 1 and 8.3x faster than
Tier 3.

Tier 1 10 IOPS per GB A 100-GB volume receives 1000 IOPS, which

is 3.3x faster than Tier 3.

Tier 3 3 IOPS per GB A 100-GB volume receives 300 IOPS.

Fixed IOPSa 5000 IOPS regardless A 100-GB volume receives 5000 IOPS.
of size
a. Fixed IOPS is limited to volumes with a size of 200 GB or less, which is the break-even size
with Tier 0 (200 GB @ 25 IOPS/GB = 5000 IOPS).

Data resiliency
IBM Power Virtual Server provides a HA storage environment with redundant SAN
connections to the storage controllers and RAID protection to protect from storage media
failures. Also, IBM Power Virtual Server supports two methods of data replication to avoid
application outages due to site failures such as power failures and other issues such as fires
or floods that prevent access to the data stored in the Pod; application or system-based data
replication; or asynchronous storage replication.

Chapter 2. IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud 57

 Application or system data replication
System and application replication replicates the data over the network to an IBM Power
Virtual Server Pod in another physical location or even to a Power VSI in an IBM data center.
You can do this task by using the following tools:
򐂰 Cluster tools, such as IBM PowerHA® SystemMirror® for AIX or IBM i, and HA clustering
solutions that use PaceMaker on Linux.
򐂰 Other system replication tools such as MIMIX or Maxava.
򐂰 Database replication technologies, such as IBM Db2 Mirror for i.

When you use system-based or application-based tools, data is copied to a server in a

remote location, and in an outage the tools restart the application on the remote server if a
failure occurs (often described as a role swap). When the site recovers, the data is migrated
back to the primary site and the applications restart at the primary site.

Asynchronous storage replication with Global Replication Services

Global Replication Services (GRS) is the IBM Power Virtual Server offering that provides
asynchronous storage replication. Replication at the storage layer is where the primary
storage controller in the Pod in your IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud instance
connects over the network to a storage controller in a remote location (either in another
IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud Pod or in a Power VSI in an IBM data center).

If there is a site failure, the applications restart on a server in the remote location and
production can resume. When the site recovers, the storage replication restarts to copy the
data from the remote site back to the primary site. When the data fully replicates, the
applications can restart in the primary location.

The primary advantage of storage replication is that the data replication does not take any
additional compute resources from your application or database servers, which can either
reduce the consumption costs of your IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud or provide
additional compute resources for other applications and services. GRS replicated volumes
are charged at twice the rate of equivalent tier volumes.

For more information about GRS, see “Storage replication by using Global Replication
Services” on page 99.

SAN Fabric
A Storage Area Network is built in to the design of the Pod. It is not customer-accessible. The
design of the SAN is done by using best practices and provides switch-level redundancy
within the Pod. In addition, each component of the SAN is designed with port-level
redundancy to eliminate any single point of failure within the SAN.

58 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

Figure 2-12 shows a SAN setup for small Pods.

Figure 2-12 Small Pod SAN design

Figure 2-13 shows the SAN design for the medium Pod. When only two racks are configured
in a medium Pod, all the servers, the storage controllers and the SAN switches are installed in
those two racks. When racks three and four are added to the medium Pod, those racks
contain additional servers and the third and fourth storage controllers (if configured). Racks
three and four also contain additional SAN switches that are used to connect the servers in
those racks. These switches are connected through inter-switch links (ISLs) to the switches in
racks 1 and 2. All storage controllers are connected to switches in rack 1 and rack 2.

Figure 2-13 Medium Pod SAN design

Chapter 2. IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud 59

2.2.4 Network
The IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud Pod comes with networking components for the
following connections:
򐂰 Interconnections for data traffic between the virtual servers running in the Pod.
򐂰 Connections for data traffic between the virtual servers running in the Pod and the client
data center network.
򐂰 Connections to the IBM Cloud network for control and management.
򐂰 Connections to the servers for management and control.
򐂰 Connections to the storage controllers for management and control.
򐂰 Connectivity to the HMCs for management and control.

Other than the connections to the client data center and the IBM Cloud control points, the Pod
is self-contained, and no other connectivity is supported.

Network components
Depending on which Pod configuration is being installed, the components that are used are
different. Here is a list of the components that are used in the Pod:
򐂰 Cisco ASR1001 Router
򐂰 Cisco APIC M4 Server
򐂰 Cisco 400G Spine Switch (N9K-C93600CD-GX) (medium Pod only)
򐂰 Cisco Leaf 25G Switch (N9K-C93180YC-FX)
򐂰 Cisco Leaf 100G Switch (N9K-C93600CD-GX) (used as spine on small Pod)
򐂰 Cisco Leaf 1G Switch (N9K-C9348GC-FXP)
򐂰 Cisco 1G Switch (N9K-92348GC-X), OOBM (medium Pod only)
򐂰 Vertiv Avocent ACS Serial Console

Network internal design

The networking topology in the Pod is a leaf-spine design. Leaf-spine is a two-layer network
topology that is composed of spine and leaf switches. A spine-leaf architecture helps data
center networks reduce network latency and hop count and improve network efficiency.
Servers and storage connect to leaf switches, which aggregate traffic from servers and
connect directly to the spine.

In a small Pod, the connections between the compute nodes and the Cisco Application
Centric Infrastructure (Cisco ACI) fabric use the 25 Gb leaf switches. The 25 Gb leaf switches
connect into 100 Gb spines. The customer connections are between either the ASR1k or the
25 Gb border leafs.

On a medium Pod, the connections between the compute nodes and the ACI fabric use the
100 Gb leaf switches. All leafs in the ACI fabric connect up to 400 Gb spines. The customer
connections also use either the ASR1k or the 25 Gb border leafs.

60 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

 Figure 2-14 shows the networking components and connectivity options for the customer data
center switches. The customer data center connection can be either Layer 2 or Layer 3, and
support 10G, 25G, or 100G.

Figure 2-14 External connections for networking

Network external design

Based on what is shown in Figure 2-14, customers must provide IBM with either an
IBM Cloud Direct Link or internet connectivity with a 1 Gb connection and less than 200 ms
latency. This connection is used for the control plane that IBM uses to maintain the Pod.

For connections into the Pod, you can use either an L2 or L3 connection connecting to the
ASR1k or directly into the ACI Fabric.

2.2.5 Operating system licensing

For AIX, IBM i, and Linux, OS licenses are included in the cost of the processor cores.
IBM Power Virtual Server on-premises provides a complete Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
offering experience with RHEL stock images. The offering includes support from IBM and
access to RHEL bug fixes from Satellite servers that are hosted in IBM Cloud. At the time of
writing, you must bring your own licenses for all the other OS images. For more flexibility, you
can always bring your own custom Linux image that is tested and deployed. The AIX stock
images are supported on Power10 with AIX OS.

Chapter 2. IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud 61

 IBM i
When you select IBM i, in addition to the IBM i OS, the following Licensed Program Product
and IBM i OS features are included in the IBM Power Virtual Server offering:
򐂰 5770-SS1 IBM i processor and unlimited users
򐂰 5770-SS1: IBM i Option 23, OptiConnect
򐂰 5770-SS1: IBM i Option 44, Encrypted Backup Enablement
򐂰 5770-SS1: IBM i Option 45, Encrypted ASP Enablement
򐂰 5770-SS1 IBM i Option 18 Media & Storage Extensions
򐂰 5770-SS1 IBM i Option 26 Db2 Symmetric Multiprocessing
򐂰 5770-SS1 IBM i Option 27 Db2 Multisystem
򐂰 5770-SS1 IBM i Option 38 PSF for IBM i Any Speed Printer Support
򐂰 5770-SS1 IBM i Option 41 HA Switchable Resources
򐂰 5770-SS1 IBM i Option 42 HA Journal Performance
򐂰 5770-SS1 IBM i Options: all other IBM i Options that are included with IBM i at no
additional charge. Examples:
– Option 8, AFP Compatibility Fonts
– Option 12, Host Servers
– Option 13, System Openness Includes
򐂰 5770-DG1: HTTP Server for i
򐂰 5770-JV1: Developer Kit for Java
򐂰 5770-NAE: Network Authentication Enablement for i
򐂰 5733-SC1: Portable Utilities for i
򐂰 5770-TC1: TCP/IP
򐂰 5770-TS1: Transform Services for i
򐂰 5770-UME: Universal Manageability Enablement for i
򐂰 5770-XE1: IBM i Access for Windows OS
򐂰 5733-ACS: IBM i Access Client Solutions
򐂰 5733-ARE: IBM Administration Runtime Expert
򐂰 5798-FAX: IBM Facsimile Support for i
򐂰 5770-SM1: IBM System Manager for i
򐂰 5770-DFH: IBM CICS® Transaction Server for i
򐂰 5770-MG1: IBM Managed System Services for i
򐂰 5770-AF1: Advanced Function Printing for i
򐂰 5761-AMT: IBM Rational® Application Management Toolset
򐂰 5761-AP1: Advanced DBCS Printer Support
򐂰 5733-B45: AFP Font Collection for i
򐂰 5770-BR1: Backup Recovery and Media Service
򐂰 5770-BR2: Backup Recovery and Media Service
򐂰 5761-DB1: System/38 Utilities
򐂰 5761-CM1: Communications Utilities
򐂰 5761-DS2: Business Graphics Utility
򐂰 5648-E77: InfoPrint Fonts
򐂰 5769-FN1: AFP DBCS Fonts
򐂰 5769-FNT: AFP Fonts
򐂰 5722-IP1: Infoprint Server for i
򐂰 5770-JS1: Advanced Job Scheduler for i
򐂰 5770-PT1: Performance Tools
򐂰 5770-QU1: Query for i
򐂰 5770-ST1: IBM Db2 Query Manager and SQL Dev Kit for i
򐂰 5733-XT2: XML Toolkit
򐂰 5770-XH2: IBM i Access for web
򐂰 5770-XW1: IBM i Access Family

62 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

 Each Licensed Program Product in the package contains all the features, which include the
optional features. For example, the 5770-BR1 solution includes the network feature and the
advanced features in addition to the base product.

2.2.6 IBM Cloud Catalog

IBM Cloud Catalog serves as a comprehensive interface that enables businesses to explore,
select, and deploy cloud-based services and products. This marketplace simplifies the cloud
journey by offering a centralized location where users can find and deploy relevant IBM Cloud
solutions, including IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud. Whether users are looking for
compute, storage, or networking solutions, the IBM Cloud Catalog provides access to both
IBM native and partner services.

Figure 2-15 shows a screen capture of the catalog.

Figure 2-15 IBM Cloud Catalog

The catalog also supports a seamless integration of preconfigured templates and custom
configurations for cloud services, helping ensure that businesses can meet their technical and
operational needs.

Chapter 2. IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud 63

 Key features of IBM Cloud Catalog
Here are some key features and capabilities of the IBM Cloud Catalog:
򐂰 Efficient search and discovery
Use the search function to quickly search for cloud services by entering keywords or
product names, such as “AI,” “Containers,” or “Storage,” or “Db2”, as shown in Figure 2-16.

Figure 2-16 Catalog search

The search function supports fast, intuitive access to products, helping ensure that users
can locate relevant services.
򐂰 Comprehensive category filters
The Category Sidebar is in the left pane. You use it to filter your search based on product
categories. You can select categories, such as the following ones:
– Compute
– Networking
– Storage
– Enterprise Applications
– AI and Analytics
Figure 2-17 show the Category sidebar.

Figure 2-17 Catalog filters

By filtering by category, you can quickly go to services that fit your specific business
needs.

64 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

 򐂰 Product display and detailed information
In the center of the interface is a Product Grid, where each cloud offering appears as a tile
with key details, as shown in Figure 2-18.

Figure 2-18 Product grid area

Here are some examples of the product tiles:

– Product Name
– Provider (IBM or a third-party partner)
– Description: A brief overview of the product's purpose
– Tags indicating deployment options, certifications, and other essential product features
򐂰 Powerful filtering and sorting
The filtering and sorting features enable users to refine their searches further, as shown in
Figure 2-19.

Figure 2-19 Filter and sort options in the catalog

Choosing a category helps reduce the number of options that are found. Those options
can be sorted based on characteristics such as the following ones:
– Price
– Popularity
– Newest releases
– Industry
– Compliance
You can focus on products that align with your specific technical requirements or financial
constraints.
򐂰 Responsive and flexible interface
The IBM Cloud Catalog interface is responsive, meaning that it adapts to different screen
sizes and devices. Whether accessing the catalog from a desktop, tablet, or smartphone,
you can easily browse, configure, and deploy services, which helps ensure flexibility for
teams working remotely or onsite, helping ensure that cloud resources are available
wherever they are needed.

Chapter 2. IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud 65

 Navigating the IBM Cloud Catalog for IBM Power Virtual Server Services
Figure 2-20 illustrates the process to select and implement IBM Power Virtual Server services
by using IBM Cloud Catalog.

Figure 2-20 Using IBM Cloud Catalog

To use the IBM Cloud Catalog effectively for IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud
deployment, complete the following steps:
1. Browse services.
Start by selecting IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud from the available services in
the catalog. The available services include products that are related to compute, storage,
and networking. You can either browse the predefined IBM Power Virtual Server service
templates or configure your own.
2. Select a configuration.
Choose from a preconfigured template or build a custom configuration. This flexibility
helps ensure that the services align with the organization's operational and scalability
needs.
3. Estimate costs.
Use the Cost Estimator to calculate the expenses that are associated with different
configurations. This step is critical for managing cloud budgets and aligning with financial
goals.
4. Deploy services.
When the configuration and cost estimation are complete, deploy the services. The
deployment can be automated or manual, depending on the organization's requirements
and chosen configurations.
5. Manage and monitor.
After deployment, IBM Cloud provides tools to monitor resource usage, manage services,
and help ensure that everything is running smoothly. These tools include real-time
monitoring dashboards and alert systems to help ensure optimal performance.

66 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

 Best practices for using IBM Cloud Catalog
When you use cloud services through the IBM Cloud Catalog, here are some best practices
to consider:
򐂰 Regularly review service costs: Frequently use the Cost Estimator to help ensure that you
are staying within your budget.
򐂰 Use preconfigured templates: If you are new to IBM Power Virtual Server, start with a
preconfigured template to simplify the deployment process.
򐂰 Monitor resources: Use the monitoring tools that are provided in IBM Cloud to track your
resource usage and performance in real time.

IBM Cloud Catalog is a powerful tool that simplifies cloud service selection, configuration, and
deployment. For businesses that use IBM Power Virtual Server, the catalog offers a seamless
interface for managing hybrid cloud infrastructures, helping ensure that organizations can
scale efficiently while maintaining full control over their environments.

2.3 Pricing concepts

There are two main concepts that affect the pricing of IBM Power Virtual Server Private
Cloud:
򐂰 Metered consumption charges
Consumption charges are based on the following items:
– Number of processors that are allocated to virtual servers. The pricing varies by
processor type (Power S1022, Power E1050, or Power E1080).
– Amount of memory allocated. The pricing varies by processor class (scale-out
(Power S1022) or scale-out (Power E1050 or Power E1080)).
– Amount of storage. Pricing based on the storage tier that is allocated.
– OS licenses.
Consumption billing is based on allocated resources monthly. This billing is prorated
based on an hourly rate for virtual servers whose configuration is changed during the
month.
򐂰 Minimum monthly commitment
The minimum monthly commitment is determined by the configuration that is installed on
your data center floor and the term commitment.
– The term commitment can be either 3 years or 5 years. Renewals are available for a
1-year term. The minimum monthly commitment is less when choosing the 5-year
term.
– There is an option to terminate after 12 months (with 60 days notice) and pay only 50%
of the remaining commitment.
– The amount that is charged per month is the actual metered consumption charges for
your defined virtual servers unless that amount is less than the minimum monthly
commitment, in which case you are billed the minimum monthly commitment.
• Single monthly bill in arrears.
• Capacity consumption details are available on the IBM Cloud Portal.
• Each client’s billing is different. Use the pricing estimator to model your expected
usage.

Chapter 2. IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud 67

2.3.1 Total cost of ownership versus cost of acquisition
Most clients have had the building blocks that are used to create a solution like IBM Power
Virtual Server since 2019 but have not invested the development resources and time to
create a self-provisioning portal that enables cloud-like service delivery. It requires millions of
dollars of development and integration testing to create, enhance, and maintain a “cloud
service delivery” capability in addition to the cost of the servers, storage, network,
development pipelines, and management software.

This approach requires a large, dedicated team of experts at IBM to design and maintain an
IaaS solution that evolves as the technology components and services evolve (follow-on
generations of IBM Power, storage evolution, faster networks, quantum-safe encryption,
continuous service delivery, and other enhancements).

A recent study by Precision IT2 examined the total cost of ownership (TCO) for migrating a
customer’s existing IBM Power servers to an on-premises native cloud solution. The study
compared IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud to several other vendor solutions for a
five-year TCO and found that the IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud was the best option.

The study reached the following conclusions:

򐂰 IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud offers a “compelling solution” for clients looking for
an on-premises hybrid cloud option offering cloud benefits such as cloud management,
operation expenditure (OpEx) pricing, and scalability with the security and control of an
onsite solution.
򐂰 IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud offers superior scaling to x86-based alternatives
while maintaining the advantages of private cloud governance and security.

IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud requires a 3 - 5-year commitment to a minimum
monthly charge with no upfront capital costs. This approach enables clients to configure the
target solution that they want and implement a private cloud rapidly with a monthly bill (the
greater of the minimum commitment or actual usage) that is billed in arrears with a typical
3-year crossover instead of purchasing the elements and developing the cloud services. This
approach enables clients to start small and expand as required by the business, enabling
same-day delivery of new services compared to the months that would be required if they
were using equipment that must be ordered and deployed.

2.3.2 Pricing tools

IBM provides an estimation tool that is integrated into the assessment and ordering process.
The tool is available to estimate pricing for IBM Power Virtual Server, both off-premises and
on-premises. Doing a pricing estimate is the first step in the customer journey to
implementing IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud, as shown in Figure 2-21.

Figure 2-21 Customer journey

2 https://fk2816.p3cdn1.secureserver.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Precision-IT-White-Paper-v10.pdf

68 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

The estimator can be found at the Estimate cost website, which is shown in Figure 2-22.

Figure 2-22 IBM Power Virtual Server estimator

At the estimator website, select On-premises in the Location Type drop-down menu at the
upper left. Choose the cloud data center that will be the connection point for your on-premises
Pod from the Location drop-down menu in the upper middle. The right pane shows the
estimated price and the configuration details, which change as you change the selections in
the pricing tool.

Note: When you select On-premises, you see a warning, as shown in Figure 2-23. It
warns you about losing any information that you entered for an estimate before selecting
On-premises. If you saved all your previous entries, you may safely select Change
location type.

Figure 2-23 Warning for the estimator

Chapter 2. IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud 69

 Choosing your compute and storage resources
Choose the compute components that you want included in your Pod, as shown in
Figure 2-24.

Figure 2-24 System selection

The three choices are the ones that are described in 2.2.2, “Compute” on page 49. Choosing
Power E1080 automatically starts the creation of a medium Pod because the Power E1080 is
supported only in a medium Pod.

When you choose the system type, you must choose additional details, such as the memory
and the number of systems that you want to include. The tool identifies the minimum number
of systems that must be included based on these selections. If you choose more systems
than can be supported in a small Pod, the tool switches to a medium Pod instead. The pricing
estimate automatically updates as you make different selections.

In addition to the compute resources, you can define the storage options that you want to
configure. The menu shows the storage capacities that are available. If you choose
IBM FlashSystem 9500, the tool automatically changes you to a medium Pod. If you choose
IBM FlashSystem 5200, you keep the small Pod configuration. If you select IBM FlashSystem
5200 when the number of systems that are included is larger than what is supported in a
small Pod, the tool shows an error and prompts you to reduce the number of systems.

Selecting the commitment term

Now, you define whether you want to price the system as either a 5-year or a 3-year
commitment, as shown in Figure 2-25. You can toggle between the two options to see the
pricing differences between these options. The commitment term and associated terms are
described in 2.3, “Pricing concepts” on page 67.

Figure 2-25 Commitment term selection

70 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

Metered consumption cost
Pricing for IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud is based on consumption with a minimum
monthly commitment. The usage of resources is metered and reported. The client is charged
only for consumption of resources that exceeds the minimum committed expense. The pricing
tool has a section to model consumption pricing to estimate your billing.

Figure 2-26 shows the Metered consumption cost estimator, which becomes available after
you successfully define your configuration.

Figure 2-26 Model consumption

When you select Model consumption, the window that is shown in Figure 2-27 opens. You
can input the expected usage of compute (cores), memory (TB), and storage (TB across the
different storage tiers). You see the minimum monthly commitment and the expected metered
usage that would be billed based on your defined configuration.

Figure 2-27 Modeled metered consumption window

Chapter 2. IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud 71

72 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud
 3

Chapter 3. Planning considerations

A successful implementation of IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud on your premises
requires careful planning. This chapter provides insight into some of the considerations that
you must plan for as you decide to implement an on-premises IBM Power Virtual Server Point
of Delivery (Pod). Your IBM team works with you to make the implementation successful and
help ensure that the solution meets your requirements.

The following topics are included in this chapter:

򐂰 3.1, “Planning overview” on page 74
򐂰 3.2, “Prerequisites” on page 75
򐂰 3.3, “Application assessment” on page 78
򐂰 3.4, “Sizing” on page 78
򐂰 3.5, “Network connectivity” on page 83
򐂰 3.6, “Compliance” on page 91
򐂰 3.7, “Planning for integration” on page 92
򐂰 3.8, “Management” on page 102

© Copyright IBM Corp. 2025. 73

3.1 Planning overview
Using IBM Power Virtual Server for your workloads requires some planning, whether you are
planning on using IBM Power Virtual Server off-premises or IBM Power Virtual Server Private
Cloud (on-premises). Some tasks must be considered for either choice:
򐂰 Determining the network connectivity
򐂰 Deciding which applications must be migrated
򐂰 Sizing your IBM Power Virtual Server virtual servers to match the workload
򐂰 Choosing how to migrate the workloads
򐂰 Determining backup and recovery, and disaster recovery (DR) requirements

The major difference between the two options is that the on-premises option requires a more
precise sizing to help ensure that you choose the right starting configuration to provide the
best return on investment (ROI) for your environment. Choosing a Pod configuration that is
too large means that you are paying more for the solution than what is required. Choosing a
Pod that is too small limits your expansion.

Figure 3-1 provides an overview of the planning process:

򐂰 Size your workload.
򐂰 Choose your configuration.
򐂰 Determine the cost of the solution.
򐂰 Validate that you have the appropriate data center resources to install the solution.
򐂰 Have the appropriate network connectivity to support the solution.

Figure 3-1 Lifecycle of an IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud1

IBM personnel work with your team to help ensure that your implementation is successful.

1 https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/allowlist/power-iaas?topic=power-iaas-getting-started

74 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

3.2 Prerequisites
Before implementing IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud in your data center, help ensure
that the following prerequisites are met.

3.2.1 Base prerequisites

IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud is an IBM owned infrastructure that is installed and
operated by IBM in a client data center.
򐂰 The client is responsible for maintaining the data center.
– Floor space
– HVAC
– Access security
򐂰 The client provides access to IBM service technicians to install and maintain the servers
and storage.
򐂰 The client provides network connectivity.
– Connection to the IBM Cloud data center for control and management
– Connection between the Pod networking to the client networking for customer data and
workflow
For more information about networking connections, see 2.2.4, “Network” on page 60.

3.2.2 Minimum size

Ensure that the IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud configuration is not oversized for the
workloads that are moving to the offering. If you have multiple smaller workloads, you might
want to consolidate them into a single Pod to provide a better ROI. Consider the minimum
configuration for a Pod.

Small Pod
The minimum compute configuration of a small Pod is one of the following ones:
򐂰 Six IBM Power S1022(40c) with 2 TB memory each
򐂰 Five Power S1022(40c) with 4 TB of memory each
򐂰 Two IBM Power E1050(96c) with 8 TB of memory each

Medium Pod
The minimum compute configuration of a medium Pod is one of the following ones:
򐂰 Twelve Power S1022(40c) with 2 TB or 4 TB memory each
򐂰 Five Power E1050(96c) with 4 TB or 8 TB each
򐂰 Two Power IBM E1080(2CEC-120c) with 8 TB, 16 TB, or 32 TB each

Chapter 3. Planning considerations 75

3.2.3 Supported workloads and operating systems
IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud uses IBM Power10 servers. The workloads that you
want to move to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud must be able to run on IBM Power10
servers and be hosted by a supported operating system (OS).

IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud is an excellent choice for enterprise applications such
as Oracle and other databases.

The following OSs are supported by the IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud offering. If
you are running on previous versions of these OSs, you must upgrade them to supported
versions.
򐂰 AIX
The minimum version of AIX that is supported on the supported servers in IBM Power
Virtual Server Private Cloud is as follows:
– Power S1022: 7.2 or later
– Power E1050: 7.2 or later
– Power E1080: 7.2 or later
The following stock images are available when you create a virtual machine (VM):
– AIX 7.3 TL1 SP2
– AIX 7.2 TL5 SP6
– AIX 7.2 TL5 SP8
– AIX 7.3 TL2 SP1
򐂰 IBM i
IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud (On-premises) supports IBM i 7.3, or later.
The following IBM i stock images are available when you create a VM:
– IBM i 7.5 TR4
– IBM i 7.5 TR3
– IBM i 7.4 TR10
– IBM i 7.4 TR9
– IBM i 7.3 TR13
򐂰 Linux
IBM Power Virtual Server (On-premises) supports Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) with
RHEL stock images that include support from IBM and access to RHEL bug fixes from
Satellite servers hosted on IBM Cloud. This capability is referred to as the Full Linux
Subscription (FLS) model. For more information, see Full Linux subscription for IBM Power
Virtual Server (On-premises).
FLS provides access to RHEL OS fixes and updates through activation keys for Power
servers, which are hosted on an IBM satellite server within the IBM Cloud environment. To
register for FLS, select one of the stock (RHEL OS) images that are provided by IBM.
The following list is an example of the FLS offerings:
– Stock images: RHEL 8.4, RHEL 8.6, and RHEL 9.2.
– Support: You pay IBM for support.
– Patches: You receive keys for satellite servers to obtain Linux patches from Linux
distribution (Linux distros).

76 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

3.2.4 Proximity to IBM Cloud data centers
The client data center that is used for IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud (see the list of
supported data centers later in this section) must be close enough to the IBM Cloud data
centers to provide a low-latency connection between the data centers. The network latency
between the client data center and IBM must be less than a 200-ms round-trip delay.

The following IBM Cloud regions can host connections from the Pods for IBM Power Virtual
Server Private Cloud (On-premises) in your data center. Your selection of the IBM Cloud
region is one of the factors for pricing. Select the IBM Cloud region that is closest to the
physical location of your data center.
򐂰 Dallas
򐂰 Frankfurt
򐂰 London
򐂰 Madrid
򐂰 Osaka
򐂰 Sao Paulo
򐂰 Sydney
򐂰 Tokyo
򐂰 Toronto
򐂰 Washington, DC

Important: The network latency between your data center and the selected IBM Cloud
region must maintain a network round-trip time (RTT) of less than or equal to 200 ms.

3.2.5 Countries supported

At the time of writing, IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud is available only in the following
countries:
򐂰 United States
򐂰 Canada
򐂰 Netherlands
򐂰 Denmark
򐂰 Austria
򐂰 Germany
򐂰 Belgium
򐂰 Luxembourg
򐂰 Switzerland
򐂰 United Kingdom
򐂰 Australia

Chapter 3. Planning considerations 77

3.3 Application assessment
Before you move workloads to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud, do an assessment of
the application environment to help ensure that you can successfully migrate those
workloads. Here are some of the things that must be evaluated:
򐂰 Is the workload running on IBM Power?
If the workloads are running on IBM Power, then the process of migration is simplified.
Although it is possible to migrate workloads running on x86 platforms to IBM Power, it
does take more planning.
򐂰 Is the workload running on a supported OS?
Migrating a workload from an OS that is older and not supported on IBM Power Virtual
Server requires that you update to a supported OS version. Sometimes, this situation also
means updating to newer versions of middleware products such as the database
manager.
򐂰 Is the workload a stand-alone application or is it split between different systems that
require interconnections and data flow?
If your application requires connections to servers that are not running on IBM Power, you
must plan for continued connectivity to those resources after the migration.
򐂰 What are the availability and DR requirements for the workload?
IBM Power Virtual Server provides many capabilities for workloads that require high
availability (HA), such as automatic failover and data replications. Plan to support these
requirements.
For example, if you need DR, you might want to use IBM Power Virtual Server Private
Cloud in a second data center, or consider using IBM Power Virtual Server off-premises
for recovering the workloads. The key is that these solutions require special planning to be
successful.

These examples are just some examples of the things that you must consider. IBM has
several offerings available to help you build a migration plan. For more information,
see IBM Technology Expert Labs.

3.4 Sizing
Sizing your workload to determine the configuration of your IBM Power Virtual Server Virtual
Server Instance (VSI) consists of two distinct components: sizing the compute requirements
(CPU and memory), and sizing the storage requirements.

3.4.1 Compute sizing

Collecting data from your existing IBM Power servers provides the information that you need
to correctly size your IBM Power Virtual Server environment. Data can be gathered by using
tools such as NMON and TOP, or you can use scan reports from your existing Hardware
Management Consoles (HMCs) to get information about the existing CPU utilization and
memory allocation.

After choosing the size of your logical partition (LPAR), monitor the performance and adjust
as necessary. It is possible to dynamically scale LPAR cores and memory 0.25x - 8x.

78 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

 CPU cores
When sizing for CPU, size for typical LPAR processor utilization, not the maximum allocation.
Do not include any Virtual I/O Server (VIOS) LPARs in your sizing. Sizing on IBM Power
Virtual Server often saves from 25% - 50% of CPU compared to your existing on-premises
utilization because IBM Power Virtual Server does not need the control plane and capacity
headroom.

If you are not running on Power10 based servers, then you must convert the CPU numbers on
your existing IBM Power technology to the IBM Power10. You can use a loose estimate.

Optimize your cores by LPAR loosely based on the numbers in Table 3-1.

Table 3-1 Estimated core conversion factors

Existing technology Power10 technology

One IBM Power7 core 0.3 Power10 core

One IBM Power8® core 0.5 Power10 core

One IBM Power9 core 0.75 Power10 core

Processor type
Processors can be defined as shared uncapped, shared capped, or dedicated. For most
LPARs, shared uncapped cores are the appropriate choice. Use shared capped cores for
compliance or independent software vendor (ISV) license purposes, and use dedicated cores
only as required based on usage in your private on-premises environment.

Memory sizing
Memory is charged from allocated memory at the LPAR, not from the memory utilization that
is shown by the OS. In general, the memory size for your IBM Power Virtual Server LPAR is
the same as your implementation. If you allocate more than 64 GB of memory per core, then
there is an extra charge for the memory. Avoid this 1.5x memory premium if possible.

Choosing the processor model

Consider using the Power S1022 unless you need the additional cores, memory, or
performance of the Power E1050 or Power E1080. IBM i on the Power S1022 supports only
up to four cores. For partitions larger than four cores, use the Power E1080.

3.4.2 Storage sizing

There are two components in sizing your storage configuration: amount of storage and the
storage performance requirement or tier.

Storage tier selection guidance

Consider starting with Tier 3 storage. All the storage is IBM FlashSystem storage, so the
difference between the tiers is the number of I/O operations per second (IOPS) that are
supported. Storage tiers are described in “Storage tiers” on page 57. Tier 0 supports the most
IOPS per GB, followed by Tier 1 and then Tier 3.

Chapter 3. Planning considerations 79

 Consider the following items:
򐂰 Use Tier 3 storage for non-production LPARS, application servers, web servers, and other
low IOPS workloads.
򐂰 Use Tier 1 storage for production, mission-critical servers, or databases.
򐂰 Use Tier 0 for high-performance databases.
򐂰 Fixed 5 K IOPS is for databases with high-performance requirements that are less than
200 GB.

Storage tiers can be mixed. The storage tier of a LUN can be dynamically changed.

Storage sizing
Storage volume sizes are based on usage. Aim for 70 - 75% usage of allocated storage on
your volumes. For example, if you have a volume that is allocated at 20 TB with only 30%
utilization, then it can be optimized to 10 TB.

IBM Cloud Object Storage

IBM Cloud Object Storage is not a primary storage for IBM Power Virtual Server. Instead, use
IBM Cloud Object Storage for the following scenarios:
򐂰 Archiving
򐂰 Long-term storage and backup repository
򐂰 Capturing and exporting a VM
򐂰 Importing a boot image

3.4.3 Scalability and flexibility

Scaling is the ability to dynamically adjust computing resources such as CPU, memory,
storage, and network capacity in response to changing workloads. With IBM Power Virtual
Server, either off-premises in the public cloud or on-premises in Private Cloud, businesses
can scale their infrastructure up or down based on demand, helping ensure that they maintain
optimal performance while avoiding unnecessary costs.

IBM Power Virtual Server offers both vertical scaling (where resources within an existing VM
are scaled up or down) and horizontal scaling (where VMs are added to distribute workloads
and later removed when the workload requirements go down). This flexibility enables
organizations to handle fluctuating workloads efficiently without needing to over-provision
resources.

Vertical scaling
Vertical scaling in IBM Power Virtual Server involves increasing or decreasing the resources
that are allocated to an individual LPAR. This process can include scaling the number of
processors, the amount of memory, or even increasing storage capacity to handle larger
workloads.

Vertical scaling is useful when a single application or LPAR requires more resources to
process higher workloads, such as during peak usage periods for transactional systems or
data-intensive applications.

For example, a retail company running an inventory management system on an AIX LPAR
might increase the processing units and memory allocation during the holiday season when
transactional data is higher, helping ensure smooth and fast operations without downtime.

80 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

Horizontal scaling
Horizontal scaling in IBM Power Virtual Server involves creating more LPARs to distribute the
load across multiple instances. Instead of increasing resources on a single LPAR, horizontal
scaling adds more LPARs to share the workload, improving redundancy and fault tolerance.

Horizontal scaling is ideal for clustered applications, distributed databases, and other systems
where workloads can be spread across multiple LPARs for better performance and reliability.

For example, a financial services company might create multiple LPARs running instances of
their trading application in IBM Power Virtual Server to handle increased market activity
during high-volume trading periods. By adding more LPARs, they can distribute the
processing load across these instances, improving overall system performance and
preventing any single point of failure.

Scaling in IBM Power Virtual Server

In IBM Power Virtual Server, resources are allocated to LPARs from a shared pool, enabling
flexible and dynamic scaling. Consider the following items:
򐂰 The hypervisor (PowerVM) manages the allocation of physical resources to LPARs,
enabling efficient use of the underlying hardware.
򐂰 IBM Power Virtual Server supports both dedicated and shared processor LPARs, offering
flexibility in how processing resources are allocated.
򐂰 Memory can be dynamically added to LPARs in IBM Power Virtual Server, enabling
dynamic vertical scaling of memory resources.

Here are some of the key benefits of IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud:
򐂰 Dynamic provisioning
Dynamic provisioning enables businesses to add or reduce resources in real time without
shutting down VMs. This flexibility helps companies respond to sudden workload spikes
without causing downtime or disruption to services.
IBM Power Virtual Server can automatically scale workloads by using preconfigured
policies. For example, resources can be provisioned automatically when CPU utilization
reaches a certain threshold, ensuring that workloads have the necessary resources.
򐂰 Pay-as-you-go flexibility
IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud offers a pay-as-you-go model, which helps ensure
that businesses pay only for the resources that they use. Scaling resources dynamically
enables organizations to avoid the costs that are associated with over-provisioning
hardware for worst-case scenarios.
This model is valuable for seasonal businesses or ones with variable workloads, such as
retail during holiday seasons or financial services during tax season.

Chapter 3. Planning considerations 81

 򐂰 Resource monitoring and management
IBM Power Virtual Server includes integrated monitoring tools that enable businesses to
track resource usage across their VMs. These tools provide insights into CPU, memory,
and storage utilization, helping IT teams make informed decisions about scaling.
IBM Cloud Monitoring integrates seamlessly with IBM Power Virtual Server environments,
providing real-time metrics and enabling automated alerts when resources must be
scaled.
򐂰 Hybrid cloud scaling
For organizations that use a hybrid cloud strategy, IBM Power Virtual Server supports
seamless scaling between on-premises and cloud environments. Workloads can be
moved to the cloud during periods of high demand and scaled back to on-premises
infrastructure when demand decreases.
This approach is useful for businesses that need to meet regulatory requirements for data
residency while still enjoying the flexibility of cloud-based scaling.

Scaling strategies in IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

There are multiple strategies for scaling infrastructure in IBM Power Virtual Server to adjust to
expanding workloads:
򐂰 Proactive scaling involves planning for predictable increases in demand. Businesses can
schedule increases in resources based on known events, such as planned marketing
campaigns, product launches, or seasonal spikes. An example of proactive scaling is
when an e-commerce company increases VM capacity ahead of a major sales event to
help ensure that the site can handle the expected surge in traffic without performance
degradation.
򐂰 Reactive scaling enables businesses to respond to unexpected spikes in workload.
IBM Power Virtual Server can automatically provision extra resources based on preset
thresholds, such as CPU or memory utilization exceeding 80%. As an example of reactive
scaling, consider a media company that is streaming a live sports event. The company
might experience an unexpected surge in viewers. IBM Power Virtual Server can
automatically add more VMs to handle the load, helping ensure uninterrupted service for
viewers.
򐂰 Auto-scaling in IBM Power Virtual Server enables automatic adjustment of resources
based on real-time demand. Workloads can be dynamically scaled without manual
intervention, helping ensure optimal performance and cost-efficiency. A cloud-based
gaming company uses auto-scaling to manage fluctuating player numbers, automatically
increasing server capacity during peak gaming hours and reducing it during off-peak
times.

Effectively managing resources

IBM Power Virtual Server can dynamically adjust the resources that are assigned to an
application to enable a business to scale up resources during high-demand events and later
scale back down to maintain a cost-effective solution.

82 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

 To be effective at managing resource utilization to meet business requirements, an enterprise
needs to consider the following items:
򐂰 Monitor resource utilization.
Use IBM Power Virtual Server monitoring tools to regularly assess resource utilization and
performance metrics. Set up alerts and automated scaling triggers to help ensure that you
are not over-provisioning or under-provisioning resources.
򐂰 Implement scaling policies.
Define clear scaling policies that align with your business objectives. For example, set
thresholds for when to scale up or down, and determine whether to prioritize vertical or
horizontal scaling based on the type of workload.
򐂰 Test scaling scenarios.
Regularly test your scaling strategies by simulating high-load conditions. This approach
helps identify potential bottlenecks or issues with resource allocation, enabling you to
fine-tune your scaling policies.
򐂰 Manage costs.
Continuously review the costs that are associated with scaling. Use the IBM Cloud Cost
Estimator to track resource usage and forecast expenses based on your scaling needs.

Conclusion
Scaling in IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud offers businesses the flexibility to
dynamically adjust resources based on workload demands, helping ensure that applications
run efficiently while maintaining cost control. Whether scaling vertically to enhance the
performance of individual VMs or horizontally to distribute workloads across multiple
instances, IBM Power Virtual Server provides the tools that are needed for seamless
scalability. By using dynamic provisioning, proactive and reactive scaling strategies, and
auto-scaling, businesses can optimize their cloud environments for performance, reliability,
and cost-efficiency.

3.5 Network connectivity

Establishing connectivity between the Pod in your data center and IBM Cloud requires
planning, site preparation, and understanding the network architecture. You must also help
ensure that you meet the prerequisites to be successful.

3.5.1 Network prerequisites

To facilitate the IBM Power Virtual Server Pod infrastructure connectivity, you must evaluate
the following network requirements:
򐂰 The data center site must provide network cables to connect the IBM Power Virtual Server
(On-premises) network infrastructure and the data network at the site.
򐂰 The site must provide two uplink cables to connect the IBM Power Virtual Server
(On-premises) network infrastructure to the IBM Cloud region through IBM Direct Link
connections or through virtual private network (VPN) connections.
򐂰 Contract with a service provider to provide the following services:
– Provide redundant connections to the IBM Direct Link connection or VPN connection.
– Provide the last mile connection from the point-of-presence (PoP) of your service
provider to the customer data center.

Chapter 3. Planning considerations 83

3.5.2 Network architecture
Figure 3-2 provides an overview of the network architecture that is used to connect to the
client data center and your IBM Power Virtual Server Pod.

Figure 3-2 Network architecture

There are two networks of interest:

򐂰 Control plane network
The control plane network is used for communication between IBM Cloud and the Pod that
is in your data center. This network is used only for setting up and controlling the
operations of the virtual servers running in the Pod. No user data is transmitted over this
network.
򐂰 Data plane network
The data plane network is used when clients are accessing the applications running on
the virtual servers or for server-to-server communication between the different servers
and services running in the Pod and in your business network.

84 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

Control plane network
The control plane network is crucial for communication between your local IBM Power Virtual
Server data center (the Pod) and the IBM Cloud. It enables the Service Broker to manage
VMs effectively by starting APIs on IBM Power Virtualization Center (IBM PowerVC). To help
ensure reliable connectivity, this network includes multiple paths and can be established
through either IBM Cloud Direct Link 2.0 Connect or a VPN.

Before installing the Pod, provide the necessary network-specific information to facilitate the
setup of either the IBM Cloud Direct Link 2.0 Connect or VPN connection.

IBM Cloud Direct Link 2.0 Connect

IBM Cloud Direct Link 2.0 Connect is a technology that connects remote data centers with
IBM Cloud. It facilitates the linking of a Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) on IBM Cloud to a router
that is connected to your Pod in your data center. By using IPsec over VPN, also known as
last-mile connectivity, this solution helps ensure a secure connection to the Pod's router while
minimizing data center environment exposure.

The control plane network is configured for redundancy, providing multiple pathways to
maintain reliable connectivity between the Pods and IBM Cloud regions. IBM facilitates the
setup of the IBM Cloud Direct Link 2.0 Connect by using details that are provided for
third-party network providers (like Megaport or Equinix). Attributes such as service keys are
collected during the ordering process, enabling third-party providers to establish remote
connectivity between IBM Cloud and your data center.

IBM Cloud Direct Link 2.0 Connect serves as an alternative to traditional site-to-site VPN
solutions, offering enhanced security, privacy, and consistent high-throughput connectivity
between your remote network and IBM Cloud environments. For more information, see the
Getting Started with IBM Cloud Direct Link guide.

The connectivity between IBM Cloud and the Pod consists of two main components:
1. Shared connectivity
Involves the integration of IBM Cloud network infrastructure with the third-party network
provider infrastructure.
2. Internet-based connectivity
Often referred to as “last-mile connectivity,” this connection typically uses an IPsec VPN.
Contract a service provider to establish this last-mile link.

Establishing this connectivity requires collaboration between you, IBM, and the third-party
network provider.

Chapter 3. Planning considerations 85

 Virtual private network
VPN connections between IBM Cloud and the Pod can be established in multiple ways:
򐂰 Site-to-site VPN connectivity
A VPN gateway can be created on the VPC housing the service broker, which provides an
internet-facing IP address. You can also set up a VPN client in your data center with its
own internet-facing IP address. This configuration creates an IPsec VPN tunnel between
the two endpoints, enabling the VPN client to extend connectivity to the IBM Power Virtual
Server (on-premises) routers.
򐂰 VPN connectivity by using the IBM Cloud Classic environment
You can deploy a Juniper vSRX Virtual Firewall in an IBM Cloud Classic environment. This
firewall can connect to the VPC containing the service broker through a transit gateway.
Alternatively, a similar VPN setup can be configured in your data center linking through an
IPsec VPN tunnel to the IBM Power Virtual Server (on-premises) routers. It is a best
practice to keep your data center infrastructure's connection to the Pod routers minimal.
You may configure one or more virtual routers in your environment and establish a Border
Gateway Protocol (BGP) deployment by using the IBM Power Virtual Server (on-premises)
routers.

Data plane network

The data plane network becomes active when the Pods at your data center are linked to your
local IBM Power Virtual Server network. You can access the virtual servers inside the Pod
directly through your own network, not through IBM Cloud. Each Pod includes essential
software components like HMC and IBM PowerVC, and the necessary storage and network
devices such as Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (Cisco ACI) and routers, enabling it
to connect with IBM Cloud.

Important: When you create a network within a Pod, help ensure that the network does
not overlap with other existing networks in the same workspace within the Pod. If you
create an overlapping network, an error message is displayed.

As part of the network planning, review the following use cases and identify the use cases
that are applicable to you. You can communicate about such requirements before the
installation so that you do not have to open separate support tickets to implement the
use-cases and configurations.
򐂰 Private network within a Pod
With this use case, you can establish a private network within a Pod that enables
communication between the applications that are in the Pod. You can establish a private
network within the Pod by using the IP address allocation method Classless Inter-Domain
Routing (CIDR). CIDR enables network routers to route data packets to the respective
device based on the indicated subnet.
You can deploy VMs in a Pod that has a default configuration by using one of the following
patterns:
– Affinity: In this pattern, VMs are deployed on the same physical host. Therefore, the
VMs can communicate with each other on the same host through the attached
Ethernet switch.
– Anti-affinity: In this pattern, VMs are deployed on different physical hosts. A custom
configuration is required on the externally connected Ethernet switch to enable
communication between VMs that are deployed on different physical hosts.

86 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

 As an example, assume that you have a database server and a web server that must
communicate exclusively with each other. You can connect both servers to the same
private network to enable communication between them. Figure 3-3 describes the private
network within a Pod type of network setup.

Figure 3-3 Private network within a cloud use case

򐂰 Outbound-only
With this use case, you can establish a private network that enables communication
between applications within the Pod and with external destination points. However, the
applications within the Pod are not accessible from the destination points on the external
network. You can establish an outbound-only network connectivity through a dynamic
Network Address Translation (NAT) gateway configuration, resembling a network that is
established by using routers. Figure 3-4 shows this use case.

Figure 3-4 Outbound-only use case

Chapter 3. Planning considerations 87

 򐂰 Bidirectional external connectivity through BGP
With this use case, you can establish a network that enables communication between the
applications within the Pod and with the destination points on the external network. By
setting up the Layer 3 Firewall rules, you can enable both inbound and outbound
connections. Configure the BGP manually between the Pod router and the corporate
network. Using the BGP configuration, establish a connection between the private network
and the corporate network. To configure BGP manually, contact the IBM Cloud Support
Center.
As an example of this use case, there is a database server that is running inside the Pod
that must connect to a database server from another application that is outside the Pod
but within your corporate network. Using Layer 3 inbound access, you can securely route
the traffic between the servers by using corporate firewalls or routing rules because the
corporate network can access the Pod subnets through a BGP connection. Figure 3-5
describes the bidirectional external connectivity by using BGP.

Figure 3-5 Bidirectional access with BGP protocol

򐂰 Bidirectional external connectivity through static routes

This approach is a variation of “Bidirectional external connectivity through BGP” on
page 88, but this case uses static routes instead of BGP. Routing still occurs at Layer 3,
but a static route is defined between the edge routers: one in the Pod and the other in the
corporate network. The static route establishes a connection between the Pod subnet and
the corporate network. Figure 3-6 on page 89 describes the bidirectional external
connectivity with a static route type of network setup.

88 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

Figure 3-6 Bidirectional connectivity through static routes

򐂰 Bidirectional external connectivity at ACI Layer 2

This use case uses a Layer 2 network connection between applications within the Pod and
with destination points on the external network. By connecting to one of your existing
corporate networks in this case, you bypass the router and connect to the ACI. You can
establish this type of connectivity when you want the same IP address space on both
internal and external networks. All other external network use cases involve two distinct
subnets. Figure 3-7 describes the bidirectional external connectivity by using ACI Layer 2
firewall type of network setup.

Figure 3-7 Bidirectional connectivity by using ACI Layer 2

Chapter 3. Planning considerations 89

 򐂰 Network connectivity for FLS
With this use case, you can establish a network between a VM in the Pod and the Red Hat
Satellite server on IBM Cloud. The VM has the stock image of RHEL with FLS. Connect
the VM in the Pod to a proxy network in the corporate network environment and connect
the proxy network to the Red Hat Satellite server on IBM Cloud by using either an
IBM Cloud Direct Link 2.0 Connect or VPN connection. The VM in the Pod can access the
Linux satellite server to retrieve software fixes and other artifacts. Figure 3-8 describes the
network connectivity between a VM and a Red Hat Satellite server on IBM Cloud setup.

Figure 3-8 Connection to Red Hat Satellite server in IBM Cloud

򐂰 Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) network inside the Pod

This use case provides a DHCP protocol server within the Pod to dynamically assign an IP
address to a VM.

Restriction: The presence of the DHCP network within the Pod is mandatory when you
are using Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform on the IBM Power Virtual Server
(On-premises) environment. The DHCP network is intended for use only in Red Hat
OpenShift Container Platform.

IBM Power Virtual Server Pods can be configured to include a private and
hardware-based DHCP network. The edge router within the Pod is configured with the
DHCP pool and gateway. You can deploy VMs in the DHCP network. The VMs are
assigned IP addresses from the DHCP server. You can attach only one DHCP network
interface card (NIC) to a VM. If you attach more than one DHCP NIC to a VM, only one
NIC acquires the IP address from the DHCP server that is assigned to the VM.

Important: When creating a DHCP network, the first four IP addresses are reserved.
Configure a network that has more than four IP addresses. For example, if the subnet
mask is 255.255.255.248, the total number of IP addresses is eight. You cannot create
a network with a subnet mask beyond 255.255.255.248 because it has fewer than or
equal to five IP addresses.

90 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

 All these network use cases can be set up initially when the Pod is set up and defined. If you
need to add or modify one of these use case implementations, then you can do so at any time
by opening a service ticket.

For more information about setting up networking for your IBM Power Virtual Server Pod, see
Networking overview.

3.6 Compliance
For customers evaluating IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud, adherence to privacy
regulations, including ones governing the placement and location of application data, is
paramount. Acknowledging the significance of data jurisdiction, IBM Power Virtual Server Private
Cloud implements robust security principles and controls to help ensure that customer data
remains exclusively within their data center or premises.

The IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud infrastructure meets the minimum regulatory
compliance profiles that are necessary for operations across various regions and aligns with the
IBM Secure Engineering and Security and Privacy by Design (SPbD) processes. These
standards encompass the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), National Institute of
Standards and Technology (NIST), General Data Protection Law (LGPD) (a Brazilian privacy
regulation), and California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) (a US State of California privacy law). If
customers are interested in seeking compliance with additional profiles that are applicable to IBM
Power Virtual Server (public) infrastructure, such as SOC2, Payment Card Industry Data Security
Standard (PCI DSS), HIPAA, or IBM Cloud for financial services, they can reach out to their IBM
representative to discuss the required steps. All these regulatory profiles incorporate physical
controls, thus relying on the implementation of controls within the customer's data center.

Figure 3-9 shows the list of IBM Power Virtual Server certifications at the time of writing.

Figure 3-9 IBM Power Virtual Server Compliance certifications

Chapter 3. Planning considerations 91

3.7 Planning for integration
Integrating IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud into an organization’s existing IT
infrastructure requires careful planning and coordination. Effective integration helps ensure
that workloads, data, and applications can function seamlessly between on-premises
systems and cloud environments while maintaining performance, security, and compliance
standards. Planning for integration involves considerations that are related to networking,
data migration, security, management, and application compatibility.

3.7.1 Network connectivity

For businesses adopting a hybrid cloud strategy, helping ensure seamless network
connectivity between an on-premises infrastructure and IBM Power Virtual Server Private
Cloud is critical. IBM Power Virtual Server supports IBM Cloud Direct Link, a high-speed,
low-latency connection that provides secure, reliable access between on-premises
environments and the IBM Cloud.

IBM Power Virtual Server also supports integration with VPNs and VPCs, enabling secure
communication between cloud-based and on-premises resources. This approach helps
ensure that sensitive data can be transferred securely across locations without exposing it to
the public internet.

Plan for bandwidth requirements, latency tolerance, and redundancy to help ensure
consistent performance across hybrid environments. Also, organizations should help ensure
that their internal network security policies align with cloud networking configurations.

3.7.2 Data migration

Data migration is a key part of the integration process, particularly for businesses moving
large workloads to the cloud. Planning involves evaluating the size, type, and sensitivity of the
data to be migrated, and the bandwidth and time that are required for migration.

Data must be migrated to your Power VSIs by using a network-based transfer tool similar to
what is used for any on-premises migration. There are many data migration strategies that
you can use:
򐂰 For file-based migration, you can use IBM Cloud Object Storage as an intermediary
location to store files from your on-premises environment. You can retrieve and send your
files to the IBM Power Virtual Server environment from this location. Create IBM Cloud
Object Storage buckets to transfer data over the public internet or privately secured links.
For more information, see IBM Cloud Object Storage: FAQ.
򐂰 Using your current backup tools, you can create a backup copy of your data to IBM Cloud
Object Storage. This backup is used to build your Power VSI.
򐂰 IBM Power Virtual Server supports FalconStor Virtual Tape Library (VTL), which can be
used to back up and restore your data.
򐂰 Databases can be migrated by using built-in replication capabilities that are provided by
the database vendor.
򐂰 IBM PowerHA can be used to mirror systems (AIX and IBM i) to IBM Power Virtual Server.
Red Hat and SUSE provide a HA clustering option that uses Pacemaker. For IBM i, there
are multiple third-party solutions such as Mimix and Maxava.
򐂰 IBM Aspera is supported and provides fast, secure, and efficient data transfer to the cloud,
which can reduce the amount of time that is required for your data migration.

92 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

 Plan for potential challenges like downtime, data consistency, and application compatibility
during migration. Test the migration process in a sandbox environment to help ensure smooth
execution.

For example, a healthcare organization planning to migrate patient records from its
on-premises IBM i system to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud uses IBM Aspera to
securely transfer data, helping ensure that the migration completes quickly with no loss of
data integrity.

3.7.3 Backup
In addition to being able to back up your VMs through the network into your existing locally
hosted backup solution, IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud also offers a comprehensive
suite of tools and services for backing up data to IBM Cloud Object Storage. These solutions
are designed to extend existing backup strategies seamlessly into IBM Cloud, providing an
efficient and secure method of protecting critical business data.

For cloud backups, using your existing backup solution in IBM Power Virtual Server is
possible assuming that the solution can back up to network-attached solutions such as
IBM Cloud Object Storage. In addition, IBM Power Virtual Server supports the VTL solution
from FalconStor, which emulates tapes to the system for backups while providing capabilities
for writing the data over the network to IBM Cloud Object Storage.

Here are some solutions for backing up to IBM Cloud Object Storage based on the type of OS
hosting the workloads:
򐂰 IBM i workloads
For IBM i, Backup Recovery and Media Service (BRMS) with IBM Cloud Storage Solutions
for i can be used for backing up data to the cloud (to IBM Cloud Object Storage). This
method can be adopted for smaller LPARs or VMs based on bandwidth and other factors.
However, a FalconStor StorSafe VTL solution (see “FalconStor Virtual Tape Library” on
page 95) with BRMS is a best practice when there is a moderate to large amount of data
to be backed up, many LPARs to be backed up, or when backup and restore performance
matters most. In addition, a VTL solution is an essential capability for hybrid deployments.
򐂰 AIX and Linux workloads
For AIX and Linux workloads, backup software such as IBM Storage Protect can be
configured to have its backup storage pool send and store backups to IBM Cloud Object
Storage.

Appropriate network connectivity, preferably IBM Cloud Direct Link with bandwidth that is
adequately sized, is an essential factor to consider based on your backup and restore window
requirements.

Best practices for implementing a backup solution in IBM Power Virtual

Server
Consider the following guidelines for planning an efficient backup solution:
1. Define retention policies.
Establish data retention policies that align with regulatory requirements and business
needs, helping ensure compliance while managing storage costs effectively.
2. Optimize backup scheduling.
Schedule backups during non-peak hours to avoid affecting production workloads.
Implement incremental backups to reduce bandwidth usage and optimize cloud storage.

Chapter 3. Planning considerations 93

 3. Test backup and restore processes regularly.
Conduct regular tests of the backup and restore processes to help ensure that data
recovery is swift and reliable, verifying that the backups work as expected under different
scenarios.
4. Implement encryption and compliance standards.
Use IBM's encryption capabilities to protect sensitive data and help ensure compliance
with relevant regulations such as GDPR, HIPAA, and PCI DSS.
5. Provide optimal connectivity for transferring backups to IBM Cloud Object Storage.
Help ensure that the network connectivity between the on-premises location hosting the
workloads to IBM cloud is sized and configured with adequate bandwidth for ensuring that
backups can be sent and received within the expected backup/restore window.

Backup media options

There are three primary media options that are available for use in backing up your data:
򐂰 A block disk, which is provided by the IBM FlashSystem storage in your Pod.
򐂰 IBM Cloud Object Storage, which is network-attached object storage.
򐂰 A VTL solution that emulates a tape library, which is network-attached by using iSCSI
connections.

Locally attached disk

A locally attached disk can be a good solution for backing up relatively small amounts of data.
If you back up data on high IOP tiers to lower IOP tiers within your Pod, this approach might
be cost-effective for your requirements. However, for most environments, this solution is not
effective.

IBM Cloud Object Storage

IBM Cloud Object Storage is a HA, durable, and secure platform for storing unstructured data.
Unstructured data (sometimes called binary or “blob” data) refers to data that is not highly
structured in the manner of a database. Object storage is the most efficient way to store
PDFs, media files, database backups, disk images, or even large structured datasets.

The files that are uploaded into IBM Cloud Object Storage are called objects. Objects can be
anywhere from small (a few bytes) to large (up to 10 TB). They are organized into buckets that
serve as containers for objects, which can be configured independently from each other in
terms of locations, resiliency, billing rates, security, and object lifecycle. Objects themselves
have their own metadata in the form of user-defined tags, legal holds, or archive status. All
data that is stored in IBM Cloud Object Storage is encrypted, erasure-coded, and dispersed
across three locations (with the distance between locations ranging from within a single data
center, across a multi-zone region, or even across multiple multi-zone regions). This
geographic range of dispersal contributes to a bucket's resiliency. All requests and responses
are made over HTTPS. Figure 3-10 illustrates backing up your data to IBM Cloud.

Figure 3-10 Backing up to IBM Cloud

94 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

FalconStor Virtual Tape Library
FalconStor VTL is an optimized backup and deduplication solution that provides tape library
emulation, high-speed backup and restore, data archival to IBM Cloud Object Storage for
long-term storage, global data deduplication, enterprise-wide replication, and a long-term
cloud-based container archive, without requiring changes to the existing environment.

Here are some of the StorSafe VTL benefits:

򐂰 Up to 95% data reduction. FalconStor reduces the storage capacity that is required by
backup data in the client-managed environment and in the cloud by up to 95%.
򐂰 Ransomware protection. Recover data from any point in time with air-gapped, immutable
backups.
򐂰 Off-site protection. For off-site protection, StorSafe VTL exports virtual tapes as physical
tapes, and tracks their location with a management dashboard. Virtual tapes can remain in
the library for fast restores or can be stubbed when exported to local object storage.
򐂰 High performance. Improve performance for both backup and recovery.
򐂰 Modern. FalconStor is compatible with existing backup software, hardware, and
operational procedures.

For more information about FalconStor, see the FalconStor StorSafe VTL site.

FalconStor VTL is offered through the IBM Cloud Catalog for both IBM Power Virtual Server
for both IBM data centers and client locations. For more information, see
the FalconStor Deployment Guide.

General backup strategies

VMs that are hosted in IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud can also be integrated
seamlessly with existing backup solutions such as IBM Storage Protect, enabling
organizations to extend their backup strategies into IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud
without needing new tools or backup software.

Backup strategies for IBM i

There are many products that you can use to back up your data in an IBM i environment.
However, IBM i has a built-in backup solution (BRMS), which is the choice of many clients.

Using Backup Recovery and Media Services

A common IBM i backup strategy is to use BRMS and IBM Cloud Storage Solutions.
Together, these products automatically back up your LPARs to IBM Cloud Object Storage.
The IBM Cloud Storage Solutions for i product can be integrated with BRMS to move and
retrieve objects from remote locations, including IBM Cloud Object Storage. Usually, this
process involves backing up to virtual tapes and image catalogs.

Note: You need extra storage for the LPAR to host the image catalogs until they are moved
to IBM Cloud Object Storage.

Chapter 3. Planning considerations 95

 The typical IBM i customer uses the following flow to back up LPARs and objects:
1. Use the 5733-ICC product to connect to IBM Cloud Object Storage (~2 times the disk
capacity to hold the backup images).
2. Connect to IBM Cloud Object Storage by following the steps that are mentioned in Using
IBM Cloud Object Storage.
3. Complete the backup to IBM Cloud Object Storage by choosing the speed and resiliency
that is required.

Backup strategies for AIX and Linux

You can continue to use your backup software in IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud to
either perform backups locally over the LAN or, if supported, write the backup data to
IBM Cloud Object Storage. Another option is to use the FalconStor VTL solution as a backup
target for your existing backup solution. The FalconStor VTL solution provides tape emulation
for your backups.

Solution for a hybrid cloud backup strategy

IBM Power Virtual Server facilitates a hybrid cloud backup strategy where on-premises
systems can be backed up to the cloud or a copy of the backups can be replicated to
IBM Cloud by using VTL replication or backup replication technologies (such as IBM Storage
Protect replication). This solution adds an extra layer of protection beyond local backups,
safeguarding data from physical disasters, theft, or hardware failure.

FalconStor StorSafe VTL replication

By using FalconStor StorSafe VTL, backup solutions can direct backups into the FalconStor
StorSafe VTL that is hosted in IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud. Also, a corresponding
FalconStor StorSafe VTL can be provisioned in IBM Power Virtual Server public cloud (in IBM
Cloud) with VTL replication that is configured between the two VTLs, helping ensure a copy of
all backups that are taken on-premises are replicated into the FalconStor StorSafe VTL in
IBM Power Virtual Server public cloud (in IBM Cloud). Also, this method provides the
capability to render hybrid cloud deployment. It also has the following benefits:
򐂰 Cost-effective, cold-site DR.
򐂰 An alternative solution to off-site physical tape vaulting.

Figure 3-11 shows a sample of a hybrid deployment that uses FalconStor StorSafe VTL.

Figure 3-11 A hybrid deployment that uses FalconStor StorSafe VTL

96 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

 Conclusion
By using IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud, businesses can use a scalable, secure, and
flexible backup solution that aligns with modern IT requirements. IBM Power Virtual Server
helps ensure that data remains protected and readily recoverable, enabling organizations to
focus on their operations without the risks that are associated with data loss or system
failures.

3.7.4 Disaster recovery

Business continuity is of utmost importance for enterprises that run mission-critical
workloads, and their resiliency depends on how quickly enterprises can recover (recovery
time objective (RTO)) from a disaster event and how much data they can recover (recovery
point objective (RPO)) after the event. Disaster events can be hardware or software failures,
or catastrophic incidents, such as fires, storms, earthquakes, and others. A highly reliable,
secured DR solution is a must.

DR is a critical component of business continuity planning, focusing on restoring services and

minimizing downtime after an unexpected event such as system failure, cyberattacks, or
natural disaster. DR addresses the loss of the ability to run your business at its primary site
due to any event or situation that causes the primary site to become unavailable.

There are varying levels of DR, with each offering different levels of recovery. Advanced
configurations involving continuous data replication can provide quick recovery with a
near-zero RPO. RPO represents the amount of data (expressed in a measure of time) that
cannot be recovered and must be reentered or re-created. Less advanced options involve
saving point-in-time copies, which are then restored. These less advanced options provide an
RPO equal to the time since the last save operation, so recovery takes longer. In general, the
cost of managing DR options is inversely related to the RPO of the solution. In other words,
the smaller the RPO, the greater the cost.

As you design your solution, consider your availability requirements and how to respond to
potential interruptions in the service. One option is to use Power VSIs in an IBM data center
as a DR location. Another option is to use a second IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud
Pod in a different location.

The DR solution must provide for the replication of your application data to the recovery
location and enable the applications to restart in that location. You can restart your workload
on a different host in the cloud if a hardware failure occurs. Using IBM Power Virtual Server,
either on-premises or off-premises, for your DR location can reduce your recovery costs
because the cloud resources do not require an initial capital investment and you pay for the
resources only when they are used.

Chapter 3. Planning considerations 97

 Best practices for implementing DR with IBM Power Virtual Server
As a best practice, account for the following items as you plan and implement your DR
solution for IBM Power Virtual Server:
1. Regular testing
Regularly test the failover and failback processes to help ensure that the DR setup works
as expected. IBM Power Virtual Server provides the tools to simulate disaster scenarios
and verify recovery procedures.
2. RPO and RTO considerations
Define your RPO and RTO based on your business needs. IBM Power Virtual Server can
help organizations achieve low RPO and RTO targets through continuous replication and
fast failover mechanisms.
3. Compliance and data sovereignty
Help ensure that the chosen DR region complies with regulatory requirements, particularly
for industries like healthcare and finance. IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud enables
businesses to select DR locations that meet GDPR, HIPAA, or other regional data
protection regulations.

Data replication
Data replication is a critical component of your DR plan. There are multiple methods of
helping ensure that you have a copy of your application data.

For applications with minimal data change, you may use backup tools such as IBM Storage
Protect or BRMS to back up the data to either IBM Cloud Object Storage or to a VTL solution
such as FalconStor. However, the RPO and RTO of a backup and restore solution is unlikely
to meet the DR requirements of most systems.

There are two classes of data replication solutions that can be considered for continuous
replication of your data to the DR location:
򐂰 Software replication
򐂰 Storage replication

Software replication
Software replication solutions use either system-level tools (described as clustering tools) or
application or database-level replication tools. IBM Power Virtual Server supports many
software replication tools:
򐂰 IBM PowerHA SystemMirror for AIX
PowerHA SystemMirror for AIX can be used to manage DR solutions for AIX instances by
using Global Logical Volume Mirroring (GLVM). GLVM replicates or mirrors data between
different AIX instances at the logical volume layer. As data is written to a mirrored logical
volume, the data is also sent over the network to the remote system, and GLVM maintains
the data consistency. PowerHA is responsible for moving the applications to the remote
AIX instance if there are failures in the primary. Using PowerHA, your system
administrators can synchronize your data back to the primary site when service is restored
and move the applications back to the primary location. For more information, see Using
PowerHA SystemMirror using GLVM on IBM Power Virtual Server.

98 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

򐂰 IBM PowerHA SystemMirror for IBM i
Similar to the AIX solution, PowerHA SystemMirror supports IBM i replication by using
geographic mirroring. IBM PowerHA System Mirror for i provides end-to-end integrated
clustering solutions for high availability and disaster recovery (HADR). PowerHA is an
integrated extension of the IBM i OS and offers environmental, application, and data
resiliency solutions for managing access and storage if there are planned or unplanned
outages. Geographic mirroring is integrated directly with the storage management
component in the IBM i OS. As the system writes data from main memory to disk, the
same data is sent over TCP/IP to the target system to be written to disk, helping ensure
identical data at the byte level replicated between both systems. For more information, see
IBM i Disaster Recovery with IBM Power Virtual Server.
򐂰 Application-specific replication
Applications might have replication mechanisms that can sync multiple environments.
These options are commonly used for application-specific replication:
– Db2 high availability and disaster recovery (HADR)
– Rocket iCluster HADR
– Maxava HA
– Migrate 23
– MIMIX
– Oracle Data Guard
– Oracle GoldenGate
For more information about implementation guidance about these products into IBM
Power Virtual Server, contact the appropriate vendors.

Storage replication by using Global Replication Services

The Global Replication Services (GRS) enablement in IBM Power Virtual Server Private
Cloud enables asynchronous replication of data between the primary location infrastructure
and the secondary location infrastructure. The two infrastructure locations have the identical
set of capabilities that IBM Power Virtual Server in the IBM data center provides.

The infrastructure in the IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud in which your workspace is
located has the primary volumes of the replication pairs. The infrastructure in the secondary
location has the auxiliary volumes. The IBM Cloud infrastructure internally uses
IBM FlashSystem Global Mirror Change Volume (GMCV) as a storage technology that
provides asynchronous replication.

Each time a replicated volume is created, four copies of volumes are created across the
infrastructure:
򐂰 Primary volume in the primary infrastructure
򐂰 Primary change volume in the primary infrastructure to store the delta changes
򐂰 Auxiliary volume in the secondary infrastructure
򐂰 Auxiliary change volume in the secondary infrastructure to update the delta changes

Provide the required network configuration between the primary location and the secondary
location for replication, which includes the following prerequisites:
򐂰 The network bandwidth must be greater than or equal to 10 Gbps.
򐂰 The network latency must be less than or equal to 200 ms.

During the first sync, all data from the primary volumes is copied to the auxiliary volumes. For
subsequent syncs, only the delta changes are copied. The effective RPO depends on the
capability of the underlying network throughput and the application characteristics. If the
network throughput is insufficient to reach the defined RPO, then the time duration between
the synchronization increases.

Chapter 3. Planning considerations 99

3.7.5 Application compatibility
IBM Power Virtual Server supports a wide range of OSs, including AIX, IBM i, and Linux,
making it simpler to migrate legacy applications to the cloud without requiring refactoring.
However, you must evaluate each application's compatibility with the IBM Power Virtual
Server environment before migration.

For cloud-native or containerized applications, IBM Power Virtual Server integrates

seamlessly with DevOps tools and continuous integration and continuous deployment
(CI/CD) pipelines, enabling smooth deployment and testing in hybrid environments.

Businesses must assess application dependencies, performance requirements, and any

potential adjustments that are required for cloud deployment. Also, help ensure that licensing
for any proprietary software is aligned with cloud deployment models.

For example, a manufacturing company moves its legacy AIX-based supply chain
management system to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud, helping ensure that the
application’s dependencies are compatible with the cloud environment and that the
performance remains consistent post-migration.

3.7.6 Security and compliance

Security is paramount when integrating cloud environments with on-premises systems.
IBM Power Virtual Server provides robust security features, including data encryption (at rest
and in transit), access controls, and firewall configurations to protect sensitive data.

Businesses in regulated industries such as healthcare, finance, and government must help
ensure that their cloud integration complies with industry standards like GDPR, HIPAA, and
PCI DSS. IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud supports compliance by providing tools to
manage data residency, audit trails, and secure data handling practices.

IBM Power Virtual Server integrates with IBM Cloud Identity and Access Management to
provide granular control over who can access specific resources. Role-based access controls
(RBACs) help ensure that users have access only to the data and systems that they are
authorized to interact with.

For example, a financial institution integrates its core banking applications with IBM Power
Virtual Server while helping ensure compliance with SOX and PCI DSS regulations. Data
encryption and secure access controls are implemented to protect sensitive customer
information throughout the integration process.

3.7.7 Management and monitoring

IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud offers tools like IBM Cloud Monitoring and IBM Cloud
Automation Manager for managing cloud resources and monitoring performance. These tools
help businesses maintain visibility into their cloud environments, optimize resource usage,
and automate routine management tasks.

By centralizing monitoring and management, businesses can track resource utilization,

performance metrics, and security incidents across both on-premises and cloud
environments. This approach helps ensure that any issues can be quickly identified and
addressed, minimizing disruptions.

100 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

 Help ensure that IT teams are trained in using cloud management tools and that clear
processes are in place for monitoring, troubleshooting, and scaling cloud resources as
needed.

For example, a retail business integrates its IBM Power Virtual Server cloud infrastructure
with its on-premises enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. Using IBM Cloud
Monitoring, the IT team monitors both environments from a single dashboard, helping ensure
real-time insights into system performance and resource allocation.

3.7.8 Steps for effective integration planning

To help ensure effective integration, complete the following steps:
1. Assess the current infrastructure.
Conduct a thorough assessment of the existing on-premises infrastructure, including
applications, workloads, network configurations, and security policies. Identify areas that
might need to be adjusted or updated to help ensure compatibility with the cloud
environment.
2. Define integration objectives.
Clearly define the objectives for the integration, such as improving performance,
enhancing scalability, or optimizing costs. These objectives help guide decisions around
cloud configurations, data migration strategies, and workload allocation between
on-premises and cloud environments.
3. Develop a migration and integration plan.
Create a detailed migration plan that outlines the steps, tools, and timelines for moving
data and workloads to the cloud. Include contingency plans for potential issues like
downtime or data migration failures.
4. Test the integration
Before fully deploying workloads to the cloud, test the integration in a pilot environment.
This approach enables businesses to identify and resolve any issues that are related to
network connectivity, data migration, or application compatibility before going live.
5. Monitor and optimize post-integration.
After the integration completes, continuously monitor the cloud environment to help
ensure that performance, security, and compliance objectives are met. Use monitoring
tools to track resource utilization and make adjustments as needed to optimize costs and
performance.

Example of integration planning in action

A multinational corporation is planning to integrate its existing on-premises ERP system with
IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud to improve scalability and performance. The IT team
begins by assessing the current infrastructure and identifying key applications that can be
migrated to the cloud. After defining the goals of the integration, they establish secure
network connectivity and migrate their data. The team tests the integration in a pilot
environment before migrating the full workload, helping ensure that the process runs
smoothly and without disruption to business operations.

Chapter 3. Planning considerations 101

3.7.9 Conclusion
Planning for integration with IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud is essential for helping
ensure a smooth transition from on-premises infrastructure to a hybrid cloud environment. By
addressing key areas such as network connectivity, data migration, application compatibility,
security, and management, businesses can fully use the benefits of cloud computing while
maintaining control over their IT operations. With proper planning and execution,
IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud can provide the scalability, flexibility, and security that
is needed to meet the demands of modern enterprises.

3.8 Management
With IBM Power Virtual Server, IBM manages the complex setup of servers, storage, and
networking, adhering to best practices for a reliable, high-performance infrastructure. You
retain control of your applications and data while IBM and IBM Business Partners continue to
introduce enhanced options to increase value.

IBM also helps ensure that the firmware and platform (from the virtualization layer down) are
kept up to date, providing timely security and resilience updates, along with integrated Live
Partition Mobility (LPM) technology to minimize downtime.

Figure 3-12 shows the responsibility assignment matrix for IBM Power Virtual Server.

Figure 3-12 Responsibility matrix for IBM Power Virtual Server

102 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

IBM site reliability engineering focuses on several key areas to help ensure a robust and
optimized IBM Power Virtual Server experience:
򐂰 Monitoring and alerting
򐂰 Incident management
򐂰 Analysis (improvement cycle)
򐂰 Firmware and supporting code currency
򐂰 Security
򐂰 Compliance
򐂰 Deployment and provisioning

Availability and serviceability

Call Home is enabled for Power server HMCs and IBM FlashSystem storage. While software
subsystem and infrastructure logs remain within the Pod, diagnostic data is shared with
IBM Support as needed. All data flows are encrypted across the restricted IBM Power Virtual
Server Private Cloud Control Plane Network (PCCN).

Note: Client data is never accessible or transmitted over this network.

Client operations
Table 3-2 lists optional 'Day 2' operational technologies that enhance the IBM Power Virtual
Server Private Cloud solution.

Table 3-2 Client operational capabilities

Client operational capability Reference technology

Backup and restore 򐂰 IBM Storage Protect (formerly IBM Spectrum Protect).
򐂰 IBM i: BRMS to IBM Cloud Object Storage (recommend fewer
than 3 TB), and BYO FalconStor VTL over iSCSI.

HA 򐂰 AIX: PowerHA for AIX Enterprise Edition.

򐂰 IBM i: PowerHA Geographic Mirroring, and all third-party
logical replication technologies, such as MIMIX, iCluster, and
others.
򐂰 RHEL: Red Hat Enterprise Linux High Availability.
򐂰 SUSE: SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability.
򐂰 Infrastructure as a service (IaaS): Automated remote restart
that is provided by the underlying IaaS management layer.

DR 򐂰 AIX: PowerHA for AIX Enterprise Edition with GLVM

mirroring.
򐂰 IBM i: PowerHA Geographic Mirroring, and all third-party
logical replication technologies, such as MIMIX, iCluster, and
others.
򐂰 RHEL: Red Hat Enterprise Linux High Availability.
򐂰 SUSE: SUSE Linux Enterprise Clustered DR.

Observability and monitoring IBM Instana™ Observability:

(for both VMs and containers) 򐂰 Provides OS agents for AIX, Linux, and IBM i.
򐂰 Monitors Red Hat OpenShift clusters.

Security and compliance IBM PowerSC: Provides security and compliance capabilities for
AIX, Linux, and IBM i.

Chapter 3. Planning considerations 103

3.8.1 IBM services
If you need assistance with any aspect of your IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud
installation or operation, IBM Cloud Support team members are available to help you resolve
issues.

IBM Cloud Support plans

The IBM Cloud Services team is responsible for working with clients to resolve any issues
that they have in accessing or using IBM Power Virtual Server, either off-premises or
on-premises. The support team is available 24 x 7 and can be accessed in many ways.
Clients can choose to open cases online, through online chats, or on the phone.

Clients can choose an Advanced or Premium support plan to customize their IBM Cloud
Support experience for your business needs. The Advanced plan is the default. The level of
support that you select determines the severity that you can assign to support cases and your
level of access to the tools that are available in the Support Center.

Table 3-3 differentiates the two different offerings.

Table 3-3 IBM Cloud support plan offerings

Item Advanced Premium

Description For environments with a limited For mission-critical environments

number of business-critical with a strategic dependency on
applications. IBM Cloud.

Case management Prioritized case handling and Client engagement that is aligned
support experience that is aligned with your business outcomes to
with your business needs. accelerate time-to-value.

Availability 24 x 7 access to the IBM Cloud 24 x 7 access to the IBM Cloud

technical support team through technical support team through
cases, phone, and chat. cases, phone, and chat.

Initial response time Severity 1 — 1 hour Severity 1 — 15 minutes

objectives Severity 2 — 2 hours Severity 2 — 1 hour
Severity 3 — 4 hours Severity 3 — 2 hours
Severity 4 — 8 hours Severity 4 — 4 hours

Additional support N/A IBM Technical Account Manager

IBM Technical Account Manager

Premium clients are assigned a Technical Account Manager that provides a personalized
experience, advising on processes, policies, and operations that are related to on-premises
services. The Technical Account Manager provides the following services to enhance your
IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud experience:
򐂰 Personalized client advocacy for private cloud services:
– The Technical Account Manager conducts a welcome call that is tailored for the clients'
services.
– They deliver a customized IBM Support Plan helping ensure that the IBM Support
engagement processes are understood.
– They are the key interface to IBM Support, IBM SRE Operations, and experts.
򐂰 Acceleration issue resolution: The Technical Account Manager coordinates across
IBM SRE Operations and IBM Support teams to reduce case resolution time.

104 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

򐂰 Personal onboarding assistance:
– The Technical Account Manager helps with onboarding services and serves as a client
advocate, aligning IBM resources to meet client needs.
– They help ensure that roles and responsibilities are understood.
򐂰 Advocate for on-premises infrastructure maintenance:
– The Technical Account Manager coordinates with IBM SREs to provide personalized
client communication about planned maintenance events.
– They help ensure that any maintenance activity is known and understood.
– They highlight key dates and times for actions.
򐂰 Expert coordination: The Technical Account Manager can help coordinate experts for
client-initiated events, including architectural support on maintenance events, and review
required critical functions and services.
򐂰 Quarterly review meetings:
– The Technical Account Manager hosts periodic reviews of on-premises services, which
are focused on business outcomes and planning activities.
– They review case activity and planned maintenance.

Opening a support case

To open a support case for Power Systems Virtual Server Private Cloud, complete the
following steps:
1. Log in to the IBM Cloud with your IBM Cloud account credentials, as shown in Figure 3-13.

Figure 3-13 Login window for IBM Cloud

Chapter 3. Planning considerations 105

 2. In the menu bar, click the question mark with a circle, and select Support center, as
shown in Figure 3-14.

Figure 3-14 Selecting Support center

3. From the Contact support section, click Create a case, as shown in Figure 3-15.

Figure 3-15 Create a case

106 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

 4. In the Category section, select the topic Workspace for Power Systems Virtual Server.
5. Select the subtopic that is most closely related to your issue, for example, Power VS On
Premises Related.
6. Complete the description details and other required fields.
7. Optional steps:
– Attach files and resources to provide more details about the issue that you are
experiencing.
– If you want a user in your account to be updated about the case, add them by using the
Contact watchlist.
– Select Email me updates about this case to receive support case notifications.
8. Click Next, review your case summary, and click Submit case. After you receive email
verification for the case, follow the instructions for further communication on the issue.

Important: To maintain security, do not include any personal information, sensitive data, or
device or service credentials in case responses. For example, do not include passwords,
API keys, secrets, or credit card information.

For more information, see Using the Support Center. After your support case is created, you
can view its progress at the Manage Cases page.

3.8.2 Unplanned network disconnection of the management control plane

If there is an unplanned network outage for the management network connecting the
IBM Cloud-resident Service Broker instance and the Pod infrastructure, the VMs continue to
run within the Pod.

Table 3-4 describes the implications of a Pod that is running in an unexpected, disconnected
mode that is due to an unplanned network outage where both the primary and secondary
management connections (Direct Link or site-to-site VPN) to IBM are lost.

Table 3-4 Impact of disconnected mode

Capability Impact of Comment
disconnected mode

Your workload and data No impact Client workload remains fully operational,
and data remains fully available.

GUI or API Minimal impact The GUI remains operational and uses the
(for read operations) last-known cached data. Incoming updates
for data, such as storage consumption,
remains fixed until the control plane
connectivity is reestablished.

GUI or API Unavailable For example, VM or volume creation.

(for write operations) Resource write operations are unavailable
until the control plane connectivity is
reestablished.

Command-line interface Minimal impact Read operations remain operational and

(CLI) write operations are unavailable until the
connectivity is reestablished.

Chapter 3. Planning considerations 107

 Capability Impact of Comment
disconnected mode

Billing and metering No impact Metering uses the last-known cached data.
(If the Pod disconnects, no write
operations can occur in the interim.)

Telemetry Unavailable In-Pod telemetry data is unavailable until

the control plane connectivity is
reestablished. (One exception is that
IBM Storage Insights caches information
for a selected period.)

DHCP service (for client No impact DHCP services are provided by the
data networks) Pod-resident network infrastructure and do
not require a connection to IBM Cloud.

IBM remote support Unavailable IBM Operations staff cannot remotely

connect to the Pod until communication is
reestablished.

108 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

 4

Chapter 4. Ordering and installation

Once you have determined that IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud is the appropriate
solution for your enterprise infrastructure and have completed the planning process to
determine the appropriate Point of Delivery (Pod) configuration for your requirements, the
next step is to work with IBM or your IBM Business Partner to order the Pod and have IBM
install it in your data center location. This chapter describes the ordering and installation
process for IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud.

The following topics are included in this chapter:

򐂰 4.1, “Process overview” on page 110
򐂰 4.2, “Finalizing the configuration” on page 111
򐂰 4.3, “Customer responsibilities” on page 113
򐂰 4.4, “IBM installation and decommission services” on page 116

© Copyright IBM Corp. 2025. 109

4.1 Process overview
IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud is listed in the IBM Cloud Catalog under the
IBM Power Virtual Server tile. Clients can use the Estimator in the GUI to define a
configuration and see an estimated monthly list price.

IBM is responsible for offering content, price, and billing that is metered hourly and billed
monthly. The offering is designed as an IBM Business Partner go-to-market offering. The
services infrastructure is in clients' data centers. The client is responsible for physical site
location (such as space, energy, and network connectivity). IBM is responsible for the
installation and configuration of the infrastructure. IBM owns and operates the Power
infrastructure. The client (or partner) provisions the virtual machines (VMs). IBM operates the
infrastructure up through the hypervisor layer, including all hardware and software
maintenance operations. The client (or partner) is responsible for the operating system (OS),
middleware, and applications. IBM supports all IBM managed components.

IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud requires a specific ordering and installation process,
which is described in this section.

Figure 4-1 provides an overview of the planning and installation lifecycle for an IBM Power
Virtual Server Private Cloud instance.

Figure 4-1 IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud planning and installation lifecycle

Table 4-1 presents sample scenario to illustrate the process and the people that are involved
in the planning, installation, and operation of an IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud
instance.

Table 4-1 Sample installation planning scenario

Persons that are involved Activity

Wade, the CTO at ABC Company, is looking to optimize IT operational

costs and improve efficiency for the next year. He is looking to maintain
data locally and offload the operations to vendors so that he can focus
on innovation.

Bruno, their Business Partner, recommends IBM Power Virtual Server

Private Cloud as a solution that can reduce costs, address IT skills,
improve IT operations, and enable Wade to focus on his applications.
Also, Bruno shares that despite being on-premises, IBM ships and
configures the necessary hardware and is responsible for maintaining
it in a full as a service model.

110 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

Persons that are involved Activity

Bruno connects with his IBM seller to get a more detailed quote that
includes any possible discounts and to prepare for an order.

The IBM manufacturing team receives the bill of materials with all the
details to assemble ABC Company's IBM Power Virtual Server Private
Cloud.

IBM Transport Layer Security (TLS) connects with ABC Company to

discuss floorspace planning, networking planning, and other items in
preparation for the IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud delivery
and setup.

TLS site reliability engineers (SREs) set up and configure the

infrastructure and then register the IBM Power Virtual Server Private
Cloud infrastructure with IBM Cloud.
The IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud instance appears as a
new IBM Cloud Satellite Location in the client's account and is ready
to run client applications.

4.2 Finalizing the configuration

During the initial planning (Chapter 3, “Planning considerations” on page 73), you did an
analysis of the workloads that you plan on deploying to IBM Power Virtual Server Private
Cloud and determined the appropriate Pod configuration to support that workload. Working
with your IBM representative, you received initial pricing that is based on your estimated
configuration. Now, finalize the configuration and submit the order for the Pods that IBM will
install in your data center.

To help ensure that your experience with IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud is
successful, IBM, and your IBM Business Partner if one in involved, work with you to validate
the order and schedule a technical review. When the technical delivery assessment (TDA)
completes and your configuration finalizes, the configuration is sent to IBM manufacturing to
build and ship your IBM Power Virtual Server Pod to your location.

Chapter 4. Ordering and installation 111

4.2.1 Technical delivery assessment
As part of the process to ensure that the proper configuration is being proposed and
delivered, IBM (and any associated IBM Business Partner) work with the client to do a TDA.
The IBM sales team and the client meet with a group of IBM Cloud experts to review the
client’s requirements and goals and assess whether the proposed solution meets
expectations. The TDA process looks at the client’s current environment:
򐂰 What existing IBM Power hardware is being replaced by the solution?
– How many logical partitions (LPARs)?
– What are the processor and memory requirements?
– What are the storage requirements?
򐂰 What applications are migrated to the new IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud Pod?
– What OSs are being used?
– What databases are involved?
– Are there any high availability or disaster recovery (HADR) requirements?
– Are there integration requirements with other applications and environments?
򐂰 What are the network requirements?

Then, the TDA ensures that specific prerequisites for the installation and management of the
Pod are met:
򐂰 Base prerequisites:
– Is the proposed installation in a currently supported country?
– Does the client location have continuous connectivity to IBM Cloud for management,
provisioning, Call Home, and support (IBM Direct Link Connect or site-to-site virtual
private network (VPN))?
– Does the client require external, direct storage area network (SAN) access to local
storage, or can the storage be accessed through the Internet Protocol network?
– Can the management network latency meet the 200 ms maximum delay?
򐂰 Physical planning:
– Can the facility support the 60 A single-phase or three-phase power drops that are
required for the racks?
– Can the facility support the cooling requirements of the racks?
– Are sufficient network drops available to connect to the racks, and can the Internet
Protocol network addresses be allocated?
򐂰 Sizing:
– Does the client expect their workload on Power to grow?
– Does the proposed sizing of the configuration provide room for anticipated growth?
– Does the proposed sizing meet the sizing for minimum commit?
– Is the IBM Power Virtual Server Private storage that is proposed sufficient for client?

112 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

 򐂰 Installation and service:
– Can IBM get access to the facility for maintenance and support of hardware?
– Can the client location accept delivery of full IBM 42U racks of equipment? (for
example, loading docks and elevators)?
򐂰 Compliance and security:
– Are there any compliance standards that are required (for example, FFIEC, PCI,
HIPAA, PII, and ISO)?
– Are there any data residency or data protection regulation (General Data Protection
Regulation (GDPR)) requirements for the Power servers and storage?

After any issues that are found by the TDA are addressed, the system can be ordered and
scheduled for delivery to the customer data center. When the Pods are delivered, IBM is
responsible for setting them up and connecting them to the IBM Cloud to enable management
of the environment, as described in 4.4, “IBM installation and decommission services” on
page 116.

4.3 Customer responsibilities

This section describes the different tasks that must be completed throughout the ordering and
installation process and assigns the responsibility for those steps to the customer or to IBM.

4.3.1 Prerequisites for installing the Pod

There are several prerequisites that must be met to complete the installation of an IBM Power
Virtual Server Private Cloud Pod. IBM works with the client to ensure that all requirements are
satisfied.

Preorder steps
This group of requirements must be satisfied before the order is accepted.

Customer responsibilities
1. Identify the closest IBM Cloud region to minimize network latency. To be successful, the
round-trip time (RTT) for a data packet must be less than 200 ms. For more information
about determining the RTT from your location to the chosen IBM Cloud region,
see Power IaaS Network Latency.
2. Confirm that the site and environmental conditions are suitable for Pod installation.
Validate that you have the floor space that is available, the power capacity that is required,
the appropriate heat and air conditioning capacity, and the appropriate security controls in
place. For more information, contact your IBM representative and consult the Power IaaS
Preinstallation Checklist.

IBM responsibilities
Provides information and resources to help with the site planning and environmental
requirements.

Chapter 4. Ordering and installation 113

 Order and preinstallation
After the order is placed, the following tasks must be complete before the installation.

Customer responsibilities
1. Complete the preinstallation checklist that is provided by IBM.
2. Prepare the data center site according to the checklist requirements, including space for
4/2U racks, floor load capacity, HVAC setup, and power source readiness.
3. Ensure that security measures and access controls are in place.
4. Route the power and network cables to the installation site.

IBM responsibilities
1. Provide a preinstallation checklist.
2. Conduct an installation readiness review.

Networking setup
Before installation, the following network setup tasks must be completed.

Customer responsibilities
1. Provide network-specific information such as the ASN and service key. For more
information, see Power IaaS Network Requirements.
2. Establish connections by using IBM Direct Link or a VPN.
3. Work with a service provider for last-mile connectivity.

IBM responsibilities
Help with the network use case identification and communication requirements.

Installation and activation

These tasks must be completed during the installation and activation stage after the Pod
arrives at the customer data center.

Customer responsibilities
Work with an IBM site reliability engineering team to perform the physical cabling and initial
configuration of the data plane network.

IBM responsibilities
1. Install, upgrade, and update the hardware and software for the Pod infrastructure.
2. Configure the network for validation testing.
3. Conduct provisioning tests over the control plane.
4. Activate the account post-testing, which marks the start of billing.
5. Ensure the visibility of the Pod Satellite location in the customer's IBM Power Virtual
Server (On-premises) account.

Postinstallation testing
After the installation, the following tasks and tests must be completed.

Customer responsibilities
Perform provisioning tests by using the service broker to ensure functions (VM provisioning,
IP address assignment, and basic command operations).

114 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

 IBM responsibilities
Provide support (through IBM Support Center) for any connectivity or installation issues
post-setup.

4.3.2 Additional customer requirements

This section addresses some additional areas that must be considered before the IBM Power
Virtual Server Private Cloud Pod can be installed.

Site readiness
򐂰 Ensure that the IBM Power Virtual Server Pod is protected with restricted access that is
consistent with your company data protection and physical access control policies.
򐂰 Ensure that electric power and communication facilities are available in adequate
quantities for operation. If these facilities are inadequate, contact the utility company to
determine whether additional services can be made available.

Site access requirements

Define an access route from your loading dock to your data processing area before the
delivery of your server. A preliminary check of the building is required to determine whether
adequate access for the normal delivery of supplies and servers exists. A small alley, a
narrow door opening, or limited access to the delivery area can become inhibitive to
installation. The loading dock, passageways, and elevators must be able to accommodate
heavy, oversized data processing support equipment such as air conditioning equipment. For
more information, see Planning Access.

Power requirements
Your on-premises site for IBM Power Virtual Server must be provisioned with A-side and
B-side power redundancy that meets the IBM Power Virtual Server rack connector and load
requirements. To determine the rack connector and load requirements, see Power
Requirements.

Network requirements
򐂰 The data center site must provide network cables to connect the IBM Power Virtual Server
(On-premises) network infrastructure and the data network at the site.
򐂰 The site must provide two uplink cables to connect the IBM Power Virtual Server
(On-premises) network infrastructure to the IBM Cloud region through IBM Direct Link
connections or through VPN connections.
򐂰 Contract with a service provider to accomplish the following tasks:
– Provide redundant connections to the IBM Direct Link connection or VPN connection.
– Provide the last-mile connection from the point-of-presence (PoP) of your service
provider to the customer data center.

Chapter 4. Ordering and installation 115

 IBM provides networking connection between the components within the Pod, but the client
must provide connections between the Pod and their internal data network at the site. In
addition, the customer is responsible for providing connections from the Pod to the IBM Cloud
region, as shown in Figure 4-2.

Figure 4-2 Networking architecture

Networking requirements are described in 3.5, “Network connectivity” on page 83. For more
information, see Network Requirements.

4.4 IBM installation and decommission services

IBM is responsible for deploying and managing IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud
installations and for removing the equipment when the contract expires.

4.4.1 Deployment services

Deployment services include the following components:
򐂰 Physical infrastructure installation
򐂰 Configuration into IBM Cloud
򐂰 Service activation

The client is responsible for providing and maintaining the physical facilities, including the
floor space, power, and HVAC components to enable the equipment to operate. The client is
also responsible for ensuring that the equipment racks can be delivered and that the racks
can be moved to and placed properly in the data center. This task includes ensuring that the
racks have a clear delivery path from the dock to the computer room floor and providing any
ramps and floor support as necessary.

116 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

 When the equipment is in place, IBM service technicians come to the client data center and
complete the final installation steps to ensure that the racks are in the correct location. If there
are multiple racks, they install the interconnecting cables.

After the racks are installed and the equipment is powered on, the IBM technicians work with
the IBM Cloud support team to connect the Pod to the cloud and activate the IBM Cloud
services.

4.4.2 End of services

At the end of the contract, IBM is responsible for deactivating the IBM Cloud connections and
removing the equipment from the client data center. IBM is responsible for the following tasks:
򐂰 IBM data disposal
򐂰 Services disconnect
򐂰 Hardware tear down and packaging
򐂰 Return to IBM

The client is responsible for migrating all client data from the Pod storage and deactivating all
applications before IBM personnel deactivate the Pod.

Chapter 4. Ordering and installation 117

118 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud
 5

Chapter 5. Setup and operation for IBM

Power Virtual Server Private
Cloud
This chapter shows examples of setting up and operating the IBM Power Virtual Server
Private Cloud. Managing IBM Power Virtual Server in the public cloud or in your data center is
done by using the same interfaces. This synergy enables you to choose the appropriate
location for your IBM Power Virtual Server workloads and migrate workloads between
on-premises and public cloud locations.

The following topics are included in this chapter:

򐂰 5.1, “Introduction” on page 120
򐂰 5.2, “Setting up your workspace” on page 121
򐂰 5.3, “Setting up a virtual server instance” on page 123

© Copyright IBM Corp. 2025. 119

5.1 Introduction
With IBM Power Virtual Server, you can run IBM Power based workloads in the cloud or on
your data center floor with the same management tools. The only difference between running
on IBM Power Virtual Server or IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud is the amount of time
that it takes to provision your first resources because you must work with IBM to order and
install the infrastructure for your IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud Pod.

IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud provides businesses with a flexible, scalable cloud
infrastructure that is tailored specifically for running IBM Power Systems workloads.
IBM Power Virtual Server Private enables enterprises to use cloud computing benefits while
maintaining control over critical workloads that require high security, performance, or
compliance with regulatory requirements. It can run mission-critical workloads, such as AIX,
IBM i, and Linux environments, enabling businesses to extend or replace their on-premises
infrastructure with cloud-based resources.

IBM Power Virtual Server Private offers robust security features, including data encryption
(both at rest and in transit), firewalls, and role-based access controls (RBACs). It also
complies with a range of industry regulations such as HIPAA, Payment Card Industry Data
Security Standard (PCI DSS), and General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), making it
suitable for industries like healthcare, finance, and government. By hosting sensitive
workloads in a dedicated environment, businesses can ensure compliance with stringent data
protection laws and maintain control over where their data is stored and processed.

IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud provides on-demand scalability, enabling businesses
to provision additional resources such as compute, memory, and storage when needed. This
approach helps ensure that organizations can scale their infrastructure to meet changing
business demands without additional capital investment. Resources can be scaled up or
down depending on workload requirements, making it highly adaptable to both predictable
and unexpected changes in demand.

IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud supports high availability (HA) for mission-critical
applications. It provides disaster recovery (DR) options, enabling businesses to replicate
workloads and data across multiple data centers for redundancy. This approach helps ensure
minimal downtime and business continuity if there are failures or disasters.

IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud is ideal for businesses pursuing a hybrid cloud
strategy. It integrates seamlessly with public clouds, enabling businesses to extend their
infrastructure to the cloud while keeping critical workloads on-premises or in a private
environment. Workloads can be moved easily between on-premises and cloud environments,
providing the flexibility to manage workloads where they are most efficient and cost-effective.

By adopting a pay-as-you-go model, IBM Power Virtual Server Private enables businesses to
manage costs effectively by paying only for the resources that they consume. This approach
avoids the need for over-provisioning resources and helps ensure that IT budgets align with
actual infrastructure usage. IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud reduces the need for
upfront capital expenditure (CapEx) and enables organizations to scale resources based on
business needs.

This section introduces how businesses can get started with IBM Power Virtual Server
Private Cloud, including the features, capabilities, and core benefits that it offers. By using
IBM Power Virtual Server Private, organizations can use cloud-like flexibility without
compromising control, security, or performance, making it an ideal solution for hybrid cloud
strategies.

120 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

5.2 Setting up your workspace
A workspace in IBM Cloud is a logical container to group a set of cloud resources. It can be
used to group resources for specific projects and to simplify management of your cloud
resources.

All the resources that are defined in a workspace are in a single cloud data center or location.
The location is specified when you create the workspace. You can define multiple workspaces
within a single data center or you can specify multiple workspaces across different data
centers. Resources cannot be moved or shared across workspaces.

With the availability of IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud, the Create Workspace
window has a new parameter to define the location. The Location type field enables you to
select the following items:
򐂰 The IBM data center (from one of the IBM data center locations)
򐂰 Client location (select a satellite location that is registered to your enterprise)

Figure 5-1 shows the Create Workspace window with Client location selected.

Figure 5-1 Selecting the IBM data center or Client location

Chapter 5. Setup and operation for IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud 121
 After you choose an IBM data center or Client location, the Location field is populated with the
options that are available for your IBM Cloud account. Figure 5-2 shows the client locations
list. Choose the location that contains the resources that you want to include in your
workspace.

Figure 5-2 Choosing a client location

When you select your location type for the satellite location, select Continue to enter
additional data about your workspace, as shown in Figure 5-3 on page 123.

122 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

 Figure 5-3 Additional information for workspace definition

The required fields are the Name and Resource group fields. The name is defined by you and
should be used to differentiate this workspace from others that you have in your environment.
The User tags and Access management tags fields are designed to help you manage your
IBM Cloud resources.

Authorized users can add tags to resources or service IDs in the account. By tagging your
resources, you can better organize, track, and manage costs that are associated with related
assets. Using a consistent tagging schema to link resources to specific teams enables you to
group and filter by those tags when analyzing costs in your exported usage report.

Access management tags help control access to resources. These tags can be predefined for
use in access policies that grant permissions to the resources that they are attached to. Only
the account administrator may create these tags, and they can delete them only if they are not
linked to any resources.

The last option that you see as you create your workspace is whether you want to
enable IBM Cloud Monitoring for your workspace.

5.3 Setting up a virtual server instance

The next step in setting up your IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud resources is to define a
virtual server instance (VSI), which is a machine logical partition (LPAR) that runs your business
applications or databases. This process is the same for resources in your private Pod or on the
public cloud. For more information than the documentation in this section,
see Creating an IBM Power Virtual Server.

Chapter 5. Setup and operation for IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud 123
 Note: Before you can create a VSI, select the workspace that will contain the VSI. Select
the workspace from the left pane by selecting Select workspace and then selecting the
workspace that you want to contain your new VSI.

Figure 5-4 shows the initial window that is used to define a VSI. Provide a name for your
instance and define how many instances that you want to create with these specifications
(Number of instances). Select the boot image to use for the instance, choosing from the
standard boot images that are provided by IBM or from boot images that you uploaded to the
IBM Cloud.

Figure 5-4 Creating a virtual server instance

More windows open as you continue, enabling you to define the compute, memory, storage,
and network resources for your instance.

In the General tab, the required fields are Instance name and Number of instances. The
name is a user-defined label that should help you identify the instance and its workloads.
Only alphanumeric characters, underscores, and dashes may be in the name. This approach
is equivalent to the LPAR name in your existing PowerVM environment. If you want to create
multiple VSI instances with the same parameters, select the number that you want to create.

Here are additional options that are available for selection:

򐂰 Add to a server placement group.
Server placement groups grant control over the host or server on which a new virtual
machine (VM) is placed. By using server placement groups, you can build HA within a
data center. You can apply an affinity or anti-affinity policy to each VM within a server
placement group. After you create a placement group, you can provision a new VM in the
placement group. When you set a placement group with an affinity policy, all VMs in that
placement group are provisioned on the same server. When you set a placement group
with an anti-affinity policy, all VMs in that placement group are provisioned on different
servers. When the checkbox is selected, a selection window opens, where you select the
server placement group. For more information, see Managing server placement groups.

124 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

򐂰 Add to a shared processor pool.
Shared processor pools within an IBM PowerVM environment enable efficient sharing of
processor cores across multiple LPARs. This approach can provide better efficiency and
reduce software licensing charges. When the checkbox is selected, a selection window
opens, where you select the shared processor pool. For more information, see Managing
the shared processor pool.
򐂰 Virtual server pinning.
VM pinning enables you to control the movement of VMs during disasters and other restart
events. Hard pinning is a best practice for applications with serial number-based licenses.
You can choose a soft pin or hard pin pinning policy to pin a VM to the host where it is
running. When you soft pin a VM for HA, IBM Power Virtualization Center (IBM PowerVC)
automatically migrates the VM to the original host. The IBM PowerVC migrate when the
host is back to its operating state. When you hard pin a VM, the movement of the VM is
restricted if the VM has a licensing restriction with the host. The VM movement is
restricted during remote restart, automated remote restart, Dynamic Resource Optimizer
(DRO), and live partition migration. The default pinning policy is none.
򐂰 Select a Secure Shell (SSH) key.
Select an SSH key to access the VSI after provisioning. For more information, see
Generating and using an SSH key.

When you are finished with this section, click Continue. You can come back and make
changes by selecting Edit in the upper right of the General tab.

Figure 5-5 shows the next window. Here, you enter information about the operating system
(OS) to run in the VSI.

Figure 5-5 Boot image selection window

In this example, we selected IBM i as the OS. Other available options are AIX and Linux.

You may provide your own license for Linux implementations. If you bring your own image,
you must obtain the subscription for Linux directly from the vendor. After you deploy your
Linux VM, log in to the VM and register it with the Linux vendor's satellite server. To reach the
Linux vendor satellite servers (where you can register and obtain packages and fixes), attach
a public network to your VM. To learn more about the registration process, see Registering
and subscribing to SLES or Registering and subscribing to RHEL.

Chapter 5. Setup and operation for IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud 125
 When you select your OS, you must select an image. Choose from a range of IBM supplied
options, or if you chose to bring your own license, an image with a BYOL suffix.

There are additional options that you can choose to help customize your installation,
depending on the OS.

Figure 5-6 shows the completed Boot image section this IBM i example.

Figure 5-6 Boot image selection window with entries

After you select your image, you see options for the storage tier that will be provisioned for
your boot volume. Storage tier options are described in “Storage tiers” on page 57. For each
OS, there might be additional selections, for example, in this IBM i instance, you can add
additional IBM product licenses.

Figure 5-7 shows some advanced configuration options that you can select.

Figure 5-7 Additional configuration options

With Specify cloud init user data, you can specify a script to run at initialization to further
customize your image. With Boot volume replication, you can set up the replication of your
boot image for HA.

126 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

Click Continue. A new window opens where you define the hardware profile of your virtual
server, as shown in Figure 5-8.

Figure 5-8 Machine profile selection window

For most OSs, you may customize your machine configuration as needed.

Click Continue. A new window opens where you define storage for your instance, as shown
in Figure 5-9. If you do not want to define the storage configuration now, you can come back
later and add the appropriate storage resources to the virtual server.

Figure 5-9 Defining storage for a virtual server

Chapter 5. Setup and operation for IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud 127
 Then, you define the network resources that are available to your virtual server as shown in
Figure 5-10. You can initially turn on the Public networks option and then later come back to
add additional network interfaces as needed.

Figure 5-10 Defining networking for your virtual server

If you want to make changes before initiating the provisioning of the virtual server, select Edit
in any of the sections. When the VSI is defined, click Create. The window shows a pricing
summary for the virtual server as it is configured. It can take several minutes for the instance
to be provisioned.

128 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud

Abbreviations and acronyms
ACI Cisco Application Centric LPM Live Partition Mobility
Infrastructure
NAT Network Address Translation
AI artificial intelligence
NIC network interface card
BGP Border Gateway Protocol
OpEx operation expenditure
BRMS Backup Recovery and Media
OS operating system
Service
PCCN Private Cloud Control Plane
CapEx capital expenditure
Network
CI/CD continuous integration and
PCI DSS Payment Card Industry Data
continuous deployment (CI/CD)
Security Standard
CIDR Classless Inter-Domain Routing
PEP2 Power Enterprise Pools 2
CLI command-line interface
Pod Point of Delivery
CMC Cloud Management Console
PoP point-of-presence
CMS Committed Monthly Spend
IBM PowerVC IBM Power Virtualization Center
CoD Capacity on Demand
PSIRT Product Security Incident
Db2 LUW Db2 Linux, UNIX, and Windows Response Team
DCM dual-chip module RBAC role-based access control
DHCP Dynamic Host Configuration RHEL Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Protocol
RPO recovery point objective
DR disaster recovery
RTO recovery time objective
ERP enterprise resource planning
RTT round-trip time
FCM FlashCore Module
SaaS software as a service
FHE fully homomorphic encryption
SAN storage area network
FLS Full Linux Subscription
SBOM Software Bill of Materials
GDPR General Data Protection Regulation
SIEM Security Information and Event
gen AI generative AI Management
GLVM Global Logical Volume Mirroring SLA service-level agreement
GMCV Global Mirror Change Volume SMP symmetric multiprocessing
GRS Global Replication Services SOC System and Organization Controls
HA high availability or highly available SPbD Security and Privacy by Design
HADR high availability and disaster SRE site reliability engineer
recovery
SSH Secure Shell
HMC Hardware Management Console
TCO total cost of ownership
IaaS infrastructure as a service
TDA technical delivery assessment
IBM International Business Machines
TLS Transport Layer Security
Corporation
VIOS Virtual I/O Server
IOPS I/O operations per second
VM virtual machine
IoT Internet of Things
VPC Virtual Private Cloud
IPI Installer Provisioned Infrastructure
VPN virtual private network
ISA Instruction Set Architecture
VSI virtual server instance
ISL inter-switch link
VTL Virtual Tape Library
ISV independent software vendor
LPAR logical partition

© Copyright IBM Corp. 2025. 129

130 Introduction to IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud
Related publications

The publications that are listed in this section are considered suitable for a more detailed
description of the topics that are covered in this paper.

IBM Redbooks
The following IBM Redbooks publications provide more information about the topics in this
document. Some publications that are referenced in this list might be available in softcopy
only.
򐂰 IBM Power10 Scale Out Servers Technical Overview S1012, S1014, S1022s, S1022 and
S1024, REDP-5675
򐂰 IBM Power E1050 Technical Overview and Introduction, REDP-5684
򐂰 IBM Power E1080 Technical Overview and Introduction, REDP-5649
򐂰 IBM Power Systems Cloud Security Guide: Protect IT Infrastructure In All Layers,
REDP-5659
򐂰 IBM Power Systems Private Cloud with Shared Utility Capacity: Featuring Power
Enterprise Pools 2.0, SG24-8478
򐂰 IBM Power Systems Virtual Server Guide for IBM i, SG24-8513
򐂰 IBM Power Virtual Server Guide for IBM AIX and Linux, SG24-8512
򐂰 IBM Storage FlashSystem 5200 Product Guide for IBM Storage Virtualize 8.6,
REDP-5617
򐂰 IBM Storage FlashSystem 9500 Product Guide: Updated for IBM Storage Virtualize 8.7,
REDP-5742
򐂰 SAP HANA on IBM Power Systems Virtual Servers: Hybrid Cloud Solution, REDP-5693

You can search for, view, download, or order these documents and other Redbooks,
Redpapers, web docs, drafts, and additional materials, at the following website:
ibm.com/redbooks

Online resources
These websites are also relevant as further information sources:
򐂰 IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud: Security overview
https://www.ibm.com/downloads/cas/6RP3MPL9
򐂰 IBM Power Virtual Server Private Cloud: Solution overview
https://www.ibm.com/downloads/cas/NNP2JPDA

© Copyright IBM Corp. 2025. 131

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