Over the last several years, IBM's research teams have developed many autonomic computing technologies that make it easier for customers to manage their IT systems. Unfortunately, the computer giant has never woven these technologies into a package that makes them easy for small and medium-size companies to use. That will change this week when IBM ships the first release of such a package with its eServer i5 systems. The name of that package is the IBM Virtualization Engine, and its debut on the i5 is the opening move in a much broader strategy.
IBM's Virtualization Engine is an integrated family of autonomic computing facilities that will eventually run on all four of the company's server brands and all of its major storage products. While it includes the i5's logical partitioning (LPAR) hypervisor, it also includes facilities to manage virtual hardware resources, deploy those resources wherever they are needed, and monitor the health of multiple systems. Where possible, IBM will use the Virtualization Engine to standardize how these functions are performed across its server and storage brands. As such, the new offering represents a strategy to replace a patchwork of brand-specific management tools with a single platform of common facilities based on open standards.
In addition, IBM's Virtualization Engine is an initiative to integrate On Demand capabilities into every server and storage system that the company sells. IBM understands that if IT systems are to respond instantly to sudden changes with little or no human intervention, all system components must communicate seamlessly across an enterprise "nervous system." This is only possible if all components utilize a common set of management technologies. Virtualization Engine provides these technologies at the hardware level. It also provides interfaces to the technologies that software systems can invoke to augment their On Demand capabilities.
Dismantling the Engine
The Virtualization Engine includes two types of facilities. The first type, known as systems technologies, provides virtualization and Capacity on Demand services for individual servers. The second type, known as systems services, provides management functions that span multiple servers and storage systems. The following paragraphs examine both types of facilities.
For iSeries users, most of the Virtualization Engine's systems technologies will sound quite familiar. They include facilities to create virtual I/O subsystems and Ethernet networks as well as facilities to manage Capacity on Demand resources such as standby processors. They also include the hypervisor that creates LPARs running i5/OS, Linux, and AIX 5L. Speaking of AIX, customers who want to run the UNIX operating system on the i5 will be able to do so starting on August 27. That is when IBM will ship a version of AIX 5L for POWER V5.2 that will run on i5 servers with two or more processors only (no single-processor Model 520s allowed).
Though these systems technologies may be familiar to iSeries users, the way in which the eServer i5 and Virtualization Engine manage them is entirely new. While the iSeries manages its virtual resources through OS/400-based tools running in a primary LPAR, the i5 eliminates the primary LPAR and replaces it with a Hardware Management Console (HMC). The HMC--a facility that has its origin in a pSeries offering with the same name--manages LPARs and other virtual resources as well as all Capacity on Demand features. Administrators access the HMC through a Linux workstation that comes with the i5. A single workstation can access HMC facilities running on multiple i5 servers and can also function as a control console for i5/OS LPARs.
While the Virtualization Engine's system technologies will ship this week with the first i5 models, its system services will not ship until later this year. Here are some brief descriptions of these services:
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IBM Director Multiplatform. This facility is a cross-platform version of the IBM Director product that currently runs on xSeries servers. Like its predecessor, IBM Director Multiplatform monitors hardware assets across multiple systems, generates alerts when those assets experience problems, and initiates actions to remedy those problems. However, IBM Director Multiplatform extends the original product's capabilities beyond Intel-based servers to POWER servers and mainframes. It will also work in conjunction with the PM eServer iSeries service to generate several new reports on LPAR usage.
- Systems Provisioning. This service is an integrated version of Tivoli Provisioning Manager, a product that automates the deployment and configuration of servers, software, storage, and network devices. The service will reduce the time that iSeries professionals need to deploy system images not only on the iSeries, but also across their IT infrastructures.
- IBM Enterprise Workload Manager (EWLM). This facility monitors the performance of applications that run across multiple servers and mobilizes resources to balance workloads when they do not meet quality of service requirements. IBM is building capabilities into its middleware--including WebSphere and DB2--to provide performance data to EWLM.
- IBM Grid Toolbox for Multiplatforms. This extended version of the current Grid Toolbox Version 3 enables companies to create resource pools that provide computing capacity across a grid. While most grids provide capacity for scientific and technical computing workloads, IT vendors are beginning to use them for commercial workloads.
Though these systems services are already available as individual products, IBM's Virtualization Engine brings them together in a pretested, integrated package that runs in a consistent manner across multiple hardware platforms. It also provides a consistent set of open interfaces to these services, a fact that will encourage software vendors to invoke these services in their applications. As a consequence, iSeries customers will increasingly see these services in the solutions that they deploy.
Over the next few years, Virtualization Engine will assume an increasingly prominent role as IBM's systems management platform of choice. To ensure this outcome, the company will make the offering a standard feature of its servers and storage devices, starting with the POWER5-based pSeries models that it will announce later this summer. As such, Virtualization Engine will change how customers manage their IBM hardware. While those changes may force administrators to learn new tools and skills, there is a good chance that the long-term benefits will outweigh the short-term inconveniences. That makes Virtualization Engine a package that iSeries customers should watch closely.
Lee Kroon is a Senior Industry Analyst for Andrews Consulting Group, a firm that helps mid-sized companies manage business transformation through technology. You can reach him at
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