IBM PowerVM Reviews

I use the solution in my company or our banking sectors, so it is used for our banking customers and for their core banking systems. Most of the critical systems use IBM PowerVM.

In terms of the technology used in the product, I feel that there are some areas where improvements are required. The tool should offer better clustering options.

I have been using IBM PowerVM for fifteen years. My company operates as a systems integrator company. My company has a partnership with IBM and VMware.

My company provides technical support, so in terms of IBM PowerVM, we are technically equipped. At the same time, IBM also offers support for PowerVM. The support is easily reachable.

I have worked with VMware. I don't think there is a direct comparison between VMware and IBM. Mostly for VMware, it's Windows Linux workload on Intel. For IBM PowerVM, critical applications run on AX and IBM i. Basically, the tool is for critical applications.

VMware offers better clustering options compared to IBM PowerVM.

The product's deployment phase is straightforward since my company has been doing that for the longest time.

For a simple environment, the solution can be deployed in one to two days, but for a complex environment, it takes one to two weeks.

I cannot say there's an impact in terms of cost efficiency since it is more on the reliability side. On the cost side, the tool offers more through lesser downtime or lesser need for maintenance, and that has probably impacted the cost of the tool for the customers.

The tool is competitively priced, especially right now. It is not only the IBM PowerVM you purchase but also the hardware since, in terms of compatibility, they are built for each other.

In terms of reliability, IBM PowerVM is one of the best tools. The tool offers a reliable virtualization technology.

The most beneficial part of the product for system scalability revolves around the area of LPARs and IBM PowerHA.

Most of the time, our customers don't use the tool's live partition mobility to streamline operations because the system rarely goes down. If our customers need to move to another tool, they can just switch to a disaster recovery site.

I have faced no challenges in managing multiple virtual machines with IBM PowerVM. Most of our customers have, like, less than ten virtual machines or LPARs, so managing them is fairly simple.

So far, there has been no focus on the AI part in areas like software or the database. The AI part is new in the Philippines, so we don't have any use cases related to it at the moment.

I recommend IBM PowerVM to others, especially for critical applications. I would not recommend the tool to startup companies or those who can just move to the cloud.

I rate the tool an eight out of ten.

As a consultant, I primarily use IBM PowerVM for solutions related to SAP and Oracle.

The valuable feature of the solution is the technical aspects, focusing on elements like processor infinity. This involves automatically assigning resources and setting priorities. For instance, specific processes can be prioritized over others, ensuring that higher-priority tasks can utilize resources from lower-priority systems in case of limited resources.

SRM for site recovery is a feature that should be included. The only missing element is the disaster recovery tooling.

I have been using the solution for the past 20 years.

The solution is stable. I rate it an eight out of ten.

The solution is scalable, and all my customers using it are enterprises.

The support is great.

Positive

The initial setup is quite straightforward, using standard deployment tools. Automation is possible. While I'm more focused on planning as an architect, the setup can typically be completed within a few hours, often ready for use by lunchtime after the deployment request is made in the morning.

The solution is expensive. You have to usually purchase the hardware and acquire licenses for a specific portion. This includes some room for inbox growth. Additionally, you need to buy all the necessary software and maintenance on top of that.

If you have enterprise requirements and seek a stable platform, IBM proves to be a suitable choice for overall enterprise solutions. Overall, I rate it a nine out of ten.

The solution is comprised of robust technology and is RISC architecture. The hardware is excellent. We never have any issues with it.

The stability is excellent. It's 99% stable. It offers amazing uptime.

The solution is very secure. It does a good job of protecting against cybersecurity threats. We feel safe in this environment.

IBM, as a principle itself, is available here in Pakistan, which is quite helpful. Technical support is great. The parts availability and their engineers, and even their support level at the backend, including a proper research team that can cater to any sort of the issues, are all available here.

They do have the high availability models, they have the HACMP, and they have the GPFS, and they have the Live Partition Mobility. The technology is advancing fast. 

If one can afford commercial offering with respect to the licensing cost and things, their research is going in the right direction in order to hopefully make it more affordable down the line. 

Whenever you go to the virtualization, you may experience performance issues. They need to better cater to virtualization with respect to performance. I'm not saying I'm facing any performance issue, however. It's more of a theoretical concern, as people say you have to compromise with respect to the performance whenever you move to virtualization.

The licensing could be better. The pricing and the licensing fees are very high with respect to the number of core licenses. So price factor on the Intel-based architecture is much less compared to IBM, for example. 

We have not confirmed their roadmap with respect to the cloud. Since IBM has acquired Red Hat, they may promote Red Hat for the cloud version. We don't know whether they are introducing AIX for their cloud platform as well or not. That we would love. Otherwise, we need to move to the Linux environment. In any case, they need to be more transparent with their plans for the cloud.

I've been dealing with the solution for a very long time. It's been more than a decade at this point.

The stability really is quite good. We never seem to have any issues whatsoever. The uptime is excellent. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable. 

Technical support has been excellent. I would rate them at a ten out of ten. They are extremely helpful and responsive, and they have a presence in our company, which makes it easy to not only get help but to get replacement parts as needed. They are excellent and we are extremely satisfied with the level of service they offer to customers. 

They have a very good Call Home feature. It's more proactive support. Sometimes if a system has some issue and they know beforehand, they will inform you that your system might face issues. They really try to be more proactive in their approach to support rather than the typical reactive support you might get.

When there wasn't any virtualization, there were a number of boxes that were pretty much the same at IBM. As the technology grew, with machines offering 24 GB memory or 64 GB, or 512GB, the processor limitation became smaller. Virtualization came in around 2005 and onwards, and things were now become less complex now in terms of setup. 

In terms of the number of boxes, they have reduced everything to only one or two boxes. You only have to cater to the maintenance of one box, or you have to manage many SLA contracts. And with respect to the data center, the power consumption is much less. 

Basically, previously, everything was much more complex. However, there has been a paradigm shift within the technology, and the complexity level is not as high as it once was.

The pricing is too high. there are other options on the market that are priced at less of a cost. IBM needs to begin to compete with them a bit more.

We are a customer and an end-user. We don't have a business relationship with IBM.

We are using the latest version of the solution, although I cannot speak to the exact version number.

I'd rate the solution at a ten out of ten due to its very proactive support and robust hardware. They are excellent and we are very happy with them overall.

I'd likely recommend the solution, however, it depends. If I've been using IBM for a long time and needed to move to, for example, Linux, it would be a difficult task. There are certain skillsets needed. You'd need some sort of support model. IBM, however, supports SAP HANA very well. You just need to be clear on future plans. That said, I give full marks to IBM as it really is a great system. So long as you don't need the cloud just yet, it's great. 

We use it to create logical partitions. 

The tool's performance is top-notch. 

The solution is quite pricey. 

I would rate the solution a nine out of ten. 

Our primary use case of PowerVM is for our core banking system. We split our servers into multiple partitions, each one has a specific task for the project. 

It's in English, so its exceptional qualities make the control environment more flexible, easier, more stable, and easy to recover after issues. Overall, it has many advantages over using different servers.

IBM now makes provides us with quality GUI tools to make the experience easier and successful.

I don't have an issue with the current configuration or with the GUI. I worked on both with the team. 

I would like for IBM to be more focused on the cloud. 

I have been using PowerVM for the last six years. 

It is very stable. 

The scalability is very good. 

It's easy to set up. It has easy protocols to setup. To some extent, it can be difficult. If you follow the guide provided by IBM I think it would be easy to undermine the environment. 

You have to implement it in two phases. You have to implement partitions which carry our loads of our function of our environment. Implementation of this is easy. To adjust administration, according to the requirements of publication of the organization, you have to consider some steps for it to work as storage. If you have the steps you should follow, it will be easy.

It took one week to fully deploy. 

It took two people to deploy the solution. 

I think everybody is going to be migrating to cloud and I think that IBM can make things easier if they also did this. 

I would rate IBM PowerVM nine out of ten. 

In the next release, I hope to see an extension of both the end part with the GUI.

The most valuable feature of IBM PowerVM is the performance of the database workload.

IBM PowerVM could improve the price because it is expensive.

I have been using IBM PowerVM for approximately 15 years.

IBM PowerVM is stable.

The scalability of IBM PowerVM is good.

We have approximately 2,000 IT managers and database administrators using this solution in my company.

The support from IBM PowerVM is okay.

I rate the support from IBM PowerVM a four out of five.

Positive

The initial setup of IBM PowerVM is complex. The deployment process took a couple of days.

We used a third party to do the implementation of the solution.

The price of the solution could improve, it is expensive.

I would recommend this solution to others because of its stability.

I rate IBM PowerVM a seven out of ten.

It is a complete solution. The virtual fibre, virtual network and SRIV are all stable and fit heavy load requirements. Therefore, the solution is suitable for its purpose and targets specific customers, which requires high stability and a high profile.

The solution should be advanced to fit with the container constantly.

We have been using this solution for eight years.

It is a very stable solution.

It is scalable and flexible.

IBM has very strong technical support and is among the best in the market.

I rate this solution an eight out of ten. Using this solution depends on the customer's requirements, and if they are looking for a stable and high-performance solution, then IBM PowerVM is a good choice.

We primarily use this solution for virtualization to consolidate workloads efficiently.

The most valuable features in this solution are you do not get degradation in the performance like you could get in other solutions. There is a physical adapter that is better than a virtual one and you can assign adapters to a VM. The IBM Live Partition Mobility (LPM) feature lets you keep partitions running during data moves between the source and clusters. When using this solution with VMware you have the option in the vMotion not to share anything, such as storage or servers and you can have them on different platforms. 

This solution is lacking the ability to have servers act as a cluster, such as in VMware. IBM has come out with a feature similar to VMware's vCenter but it is not as mature. They need to add LPM shared-nothing feature, such as in vMotion.

IBM is a hardware company. They have always had the view of, why implement something in software that I can implement in hardware. The virtualized hardware can do many things whereas these other vendors are software vendors that can only work on hardware. However, this sometimes makes IBM less advanced in terms of software because they rely more on the hardware. That is why they need to look at VMware as a model for advancing their PowerVC offering to match VMware's vCenter. Similar to what Red Hat did. Red Hat Manager is very close to vCenter, they are trying to mimic the options.

I have been working with this solution for approximately 17 years.

This solution's stability is good. 

There are issues with VMware when it comes to scalability. For example, when using SAP HANA with Power or VMware you are going to have a lot of restrictions. In IBM PowerVM, the design and memory are different, and the latency is much more. It is even beyond the maximum latency accepted by SAP, they do not have such restrictions. We have found in VMware and SAP HANA used to use four terabytes but now have six terabytes. This solution supports up to 28 terabytes.

The technical support is good.

The setup is easier than VMware. In VMware, you have to restore the vSAN tool, install the ESXi, register your ESXi, and install the license. With IMB PowerVM you do not need to do all of that. You are able to create your VM from the beginning, you do not need to do the full infrastructure set up first and then create your VM.

I have evaluated many other solutions, such as VMware vSphere and SAP HANA and I have found IBM PowerVM is better than VMware. For example, if you compare SAP HANA with IBM PowerVM versus SAP HANA with VMware, according to SAP HANA themselves you lose 10% of performance if you work on VMware. With IBM PowerVM all the workload is done in the hardware, it is not a software layer like in VMware.

I rate IBM PowerVM ten out of ten.