IBM PowerVM Reviews

Overall, I like IBM's performance and stability.

Compared to VMWare, the price could be lower.

I have been using it for five years.

It is a stable solution.

Technical support is fine.

It took about one day to setup. We can't compare with VMWare because VMWare can be setup in one click.

IBM PowerVm has a high cost.

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.

Our primary use case is to migrate the server from a standalone server to a VM server. 

The case fileserver on the webserver is the most valuable feature. 

The performance should be improved. 

They should reduce the cost to purchase the hardware of the physical server.

It is a stable solution. 

It's easy to scale. 

I have never contacted customer support. We have a service provider that we contact to help with the implementation and support.  

I didn't have any issues with the deployment. 

My colleagues are the ones who deal with pricing. 

I would rate it an eight out of ten. I would recommend IBM PowerVM to someone considering it. 

I wouldn't rate it a ten because it has things it can improve on. 

We are a system integrator and IBM PowerVM is one of the solutions that we implement for our clients. I am not a solution architect, but I provide assistance with PowerVM.

It is primarily used for business-critical operations like SAP or Oracle databases.

The most valuable feature is the flexibility in terms of managing the hardware resources such as RAM, CPU, and the network. 

The interface is not user-friendly in places, so it could use some improvement.

If PowerVM were cheaper then it would better compete with VMware vCenter.

I have been using this solution for five or six years.

We have not seen any issues and I think that stability-wise, this is quite a good solution.

The solution architect in our team has not complained about the scalability.

We have involved technical support in the past when we have had issues and I think that they are good.

We are also supporting VMware vSphere and Microsoft Hyper-V.

Customers generally choose IBM PowerVM when they have a great demand for stability. However, they sometimes choose VMware because it is cheaper.

With respect to the initial setup, if you know the terminology then it isn't too complex. It should nonetheless be done by somebody with a technical background.

The deployment takes approximately 14 days.

The price varies from case to case and you have to negotiate it for every project. Pricing and licensing policies are not completely transparent.

My advice to anybody who is researching this type of solution is to choose PowerVM if they want something that is really stable. I think that it is the only answer because the other solutions have perhaps evolved too quickly. We have seen issues with VMware and especially with Hyper-V. Hyper-V is not a mature platform.

I would rate this 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.

PowerVM is used to virtualize IBM Power Servers. It is for IBM Power Servers. It needs specific experience and needs to be professionally managed. Our customers needed proficiency and practical experience with it and it's not easy to find experienced engineers for it. 

The stability is the most valuable aspect of this solution. IBM is the most powerful and stable platform.

The price is high. 

I would like for them to add more automation features. 

Scalability is good. 

We use IBM technical support mainly for critical cases. Their response is very good from their side. 

I would rate it an eight out of ten. 

To make it a ten, I would like for them to add automation and configuration tools in order to help use the manager. 

We use this solution for virtualization in an on-premises deployment.

The feature that I like most is the versatility. 

This solution is very secure when compared to others.

This is a very flexible solution.

This is a portable solution that you can locate wherever you want.

Any improvements that can be made in the interface will go a long way to helping us work better.

This solution is very stable.

We are very happy with the scalability of this solution.

We have this solution deployed countrywide, so we have a lot of people using it at one time.

In terms of administration, there are only a few of us.

I have been in touch with the technical support for this solution, and support from IBM is always the best. Once you log a service request, they get back to you as quickly as possible. We get the results we want, mostly.

The initial setup of this solution is straightforward whether you do it from the interface, or instead type in commands.

We began with this solution by ourselves, but we have enlisted the assistance of a partner who does all of the updates.

This solution is by IBM and they are a vendor who does what they say they're going to do.

I recommend IBM and this solution any day. Without hesitation, I would suggest to anybody that they try it.

Overall, I am happy with this solution, although more research and any new additions are always welcome.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

What I like about this solution is that it is easy to configure.

I would like to see an improvement in the management of the program.

The stability of this solution is very high and you don't have to be afraid that you may lose data.

I would say the technical support is average - it isn't bad, but it isn't good either. I am used to technical support in Europe and America, where it is very good.

The initial setup was quite complex, because I use the solution for visualization. 

The program has very limited solutions for the virtualization of containers, so I the next version I would like to see that improved. I will still, however, give a nine out of ten rating.