IBM Power Systems Virtual Server: designed to drive performance, security and automation

The more innovative and modernized enterprises become, the more critical the need is for security that doesn’t compromise performance. In the past year, the market has seen large-scale ransomware attacks make reputable businesses suffer from operational shutdowns, compromised data and even lawsuits — all costing millions of dollars. Worse than taking months to recover financially, these attacks can have lasting impacts on customer perception.

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End-to-end security continues to be a key aspect of IBM® Power® servers as well as our latest virtualized offering, IBM Power Systems Virtual Server. In this second installment of our blog series about IBM Power Systems Virtual Server, we’re looking at how large and small businesses that are new to Power solutions can benefit from this robust offering.

Multilayered security and uptime

It’s essential to approach your enterprise’s security with a proactive mindset. For many generations, IBM Power Systems has delivered renowned end-to-end security for on-premises environments, an approach that protects each layer of your IT hardware and software stack from both internal and external threats.

IBM Power Systems Virtual Server technology is a continuation of our commitment to deliver the security that today’s enterprises need in an ever-demanding online environment. We combined the security and isolation of an on-premises system with a virtualized environment’s reliability and innovation.

IBM Power System Virtual Server is powered by Power S Class and E Class enterprise systems that run IBM PowerVM® server virtualization which gives users the reliability and resilience that they require. We’ve designed this solution to help enterprises remain operational even during storms and disasters thanks to 14 global data centers across 7 countries, with even more locations coming. By incorporating both reliability and resilience into PowerVM® technology, high availability (HA) and disaster recovery (DR) are on a different level of performance for these virtualized machines. This is most clearly illustrated by the findings in the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). If you search its database for vulnerabilities found in the PowerVM server virtualization feature or PowerVM hypervisor, you’ll get zero results. This is the peace of mind we would like to offer to all our clients.

Develop cloud native applications with Red Hat OpenShift

Containerized workloads are changing the way we develop, deploy and manage applications for enterprises. When you combine this innovation with the power of open-source technology like Red Hat OpenShift, you have a solution designed to deliver game-changing results. We’re excited that our clients can provision Red Hat OpenShift clusters on IBM Power Systems Virtual Server, offering robust capabilities for application modernization and cloud native development. Utilizing a combination of tools and helper scripts, we have simplified the User Provisioned Install process to help you get a Red Hat OpenShift cluster up and running on IBM Power Systems Virtual Server in as little as a few hours. Red Hat OpenShift on Power supports a rich ecosystem of applications and middleware, including over 15,000 open-source software packages, Red Hat Application Services, IBM Cloud Pak® and ISV applications.

The obvious choice for SAP workloads

For enterprises with SAP workloads, the clock is ticking. Users must migrate to the SAP S/4 HANA system by 2027. When you consider this deadline alongside the ever-growing need to implement a hybrid strategy, it’s essential to go with IBM Power Systems Virtual Server — the only on-premises and off-premises certified Power solution for SAP HANA and SAP NetWeaver platform workloads, providing a truly hybrid cloud experience end to end.

Additionally, uptime for SAP workloads is a critical consideration. According to the ITIC 2020 survey, 88% of enterprises indicate that unplanned downtime costs USD 300,000 per hour — or USD 4,998 per minute, per server. Now, users are modernizing their SAP applications, provisioning workloads and maximizing uptime with the help of IBM Power Systems Virtual Server.

Smaller HANA t-shirt sizes will be made available on IBM Power Systems Virtual Server later this year, which means there will be over 50 SAP-certified HANA instances. These smaller instances range from 128GB in memory to 768GB with 4 cores. Power is developed to provide the flexibility to address the needs of our customers.

IBM Cloud connection

We are excited to provide an automated way to connect IBM Power Systems Virtual Server instances to IBM Cloud® resources that include classic and VPC networks. Cloud connections create a Direct Link Connect (2.0) instance to connect your IBM Power Systems Virtual Server instances to IBM Cloud resources. The IBM Power Systems Virtual Server 10Gb/s Direct Link Connect 2.0 is designed to enable access to IBM Cloud resources with much higher performance and in a streamlined, user-friendly way.

Multitenant environments

Achieve high levels of performance without wasting resources. Enterprises can run IBM AIX® and IBM i workloads. On the Linux® side of workloads, our clients have the freedom to provision both SAP SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 12 and 15 OVA boot images and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8.1 and 8.2 capabilities. These workloads can run with as little as a quarter of a core, allowing the ability to scale and to run workloads on-premises and off-premises — lowering cost while increasing application modernization.

Versatile payment options

Pay-as-you-go and savings plan subscription options enable you to pay however best fits your enterprise’s needs. For the pay-as-you-go option, enterprises have the flexibility to use data center capacities and resources as needed. Meanwhile, savings plans offer up to a 30% discount for 1-year commitments and up to 45% discounts for 3-year commitments.

Low infrastructure maintenance

Your focus should be on your mission-critical workloads. That’s why IBM takes the task of infrastructure management and maintenance off our clients’ hands. We can also help you achieve modernization and expansion to hybrid cloud with IBM Systems Lab Services and IBM Garage™.

Developing and testing

We know that the availability of non-production configuration is essential for enterprises as they strive toward innovation. The scalability of IBM Power Systems Virtual Server allows our clients to run multiple sandbox environments simultaneously without larger capital budgets. They can also spin logical partitions (LPARs) up and down as needed, and use bursting capabilities during needed periods.

A look at our roadmap

If you’re new to Power servers, there hasn’t been a more robust offering that will drive change for your business — nor a better time to get started. Here are some things that our clients will experience soon.

◉ Updates focused on ISO27k standards for privacy

◉ SOC 2 amenability

◉ Payment Card Industry (PCI) amenability

◉ Virtual private network as a service (VPNaaS)

◉ IBM Cloud credit management

◉ Network automation features

◉ Backup and restore services

IBM Power Systems Virtual Server in action

A client of ours is one of the largest logistics operators in Spain, Portugal and beyond that delivers goods for clients in verticals, including automotive, pharmaceutical, healthcare and electronics. When the COVID-19 pandemic caused a spike in demand on the online shopping front, the client needed an environment that allowed for the drastic scalability it was experiencing without putting more stress on its IT team, which was already struggling with bandwidth. With IBM Power Systems Virtual Server, the client achieved this scalability and easily managed the spike in traffic. The best part — our client can now focus on providing great results for its customers across the globe while we manage its infrastructure.

Source: ibm.com