William Joseph Armstrong

Advanced virtualization capabilities of POWER5 systems

IBM POWER5TM systems combine enhancements in the IBM PowerPCTM processor architecture with greatly enhanced firmware to significantly increase the virtualization capabilities of IBM POWERTM servers. The POWER hypervisor, the basis of the IBM Virtualization EngineTM technologies on POWER5 systems, delivers leading-edge mainframe virtualization technologies to the UNIX® marketplace. In addition to being able to create computing-intensive partitions with dedicated resources (processors, memory, and I/O adapters), customers can harness idle processor capacity to configure micropartitions with virtualized resources in order to consolidate many AIXTM, i5/OSTM, and Linux® servers onto a single platform. The POWER hypervisor provides support for virtualized processors, an IEEE virtual local area network (VLAN)- compatible virtual Ethernet switch, virtual small computer system interface (VSCSI) adapters, and virtual consoles. Many of these features are dependent upon, or take advantage of the new facilities provided in the POWER5 processor, including the hypervisor decrementer, a fast page mover, and simultaneous multithreading support. The technology behind the virtualization capabilities that are available on the POWER5 servers, enabling customers to better utilize the industry-leading computing capacity of the POWER5 processor, is discussed in this paper.

IBM POWER6 partition mobility: moving virtual servers seamlessly between physical systems

This paper presents the IBM Power Architecture™ extension for enhanced virtualization that is first implemented in the POWER6™ processor. Virtual partition memory enables all of the memory of a virtual server running in a logical partition to be made virtual by the POWER Hypervisor™ firmware. The Processor Compatibility register allows backward compatibility by providing a mode in which a POWER6 processor behaves like a POWER5™ processor. Enhancements to the timebase facility enable updates to the virtual timebase of a logical partition while maintaining consistency with other partitions in the system. These fundamental enhancements are explained and their role in implementing the new partition mobility junction is described. Partition mobility allows the seamless migration of virtual servers from one physical POWER6 microprocessor-based system to another.