IBM Cloud Docs
Release notes

Release notes

Use these release notes to learn about the latest changes to the IBM® Power® Virtual Server.

April 2024

March 2024

  • Reserve an IP address from the Power Virtual Server user interface. The IP address that you reserve are not assigned to a virtual server instance. For more information. see Reserving IP addresses.
  • New AIX 7.3 TL2, and 7.2 TL5 SP7 operating system images are available. For more information, See the FAQ documentation.
  • New IBM i 7.5 TR3, IBM i 7.4 TR9, and IBM i COR operating system images are available. For more information, See the FAQ documentation.
  • New data center CHE01 is available. The following are some capabilities that differ for this data center:
    • CHE01 supports up to 5 GB Direct Link connections compared to other datacenters that supports up to 10 GB.
    • To use Transit Gateway, you will need to connect to CHE01 using a different data center that supports Transit Gateway. For more information, see Managing IBM Cloud connections.
    • IBM Cloud Monitoring and Power Edge Router network connectivity are currently unavailable for CHE01.
  • SUSE part numbers for each tier are available. For more information, see the part numbers table in Pricing for Power Virtual Servers.
  • Flexible I/O operation per second (IOPS) is now available in the DAL12, DAL13, SAO01, SAO04, WDC04, and WDC06 data centers. For more information, see Flexible IOPS.
  • IBM Cloud Monitoring service is now avilable in DAL13 and FRA04. For more information, see Monitoring metrics for Power Virtual Server.
  • PER is now available in the OSA21, SYD05, and TOK04 data center. For more information, see Getting Started with Power Edge Router.

February 2024

  • PER is now available in the SAO01 data center. For more information, see Getting Started with Power Edge Router.
  • You can now provision the SLES 15 SP5 images. You are required to install an additional software package as a prerequisite for SAP and Netweaver workloads.
  • You can now choose to use IBM provided Linux images with your own license. While provisioning the boot image, select the OS image that is listed under the Client supplied subscription section. The stock non-Full Linux Subscription (FLS) images are available across all the data centers. For more information see, Full Linux® subscription for Power Virtual Servers.
  • Flexible IOPS is now available in the FRA04, LON06, and MAD02 data centers. For more information, see Flexible IOPS.
  • Global Replication Service (GRS) is now available in WDC07 and DAL10 data center pair.
  • You can now migrate your workspace that uses a Direct Link connection to a PER workspace through a support ticket. For more information, see Migrating to Power Edge Router.
  • IBM Cloud Monitoring service is now avilable in OSA21, DAL10, and WDC07.

January 2024

  • Certain stock images for SAP will be updated with new Ansible packages. Until then it is recommended that you do not use the following images to create a new Power Virtual Server instance for use with SAP workloads:

    • RHEL8-SP8-SAP
    • RHEL8-SP8-SAP-NETWEAVER
    • RHEL9-SP2-SAP
    • RHEL9-SP2-SAP-NETWEAVER

  • The Power Virtual Server workspaces provisioned in London, São Paulo, Osaka, Washington D.C., Montreal, and Toronto will send events to activity tracker instances in their respective regions effective from 29 January 2024. For more information, see Activity tracker regions.

  • PER is now available in DAL12 and FRA04. For more information, see Getting Started with Power Edge Router.

  • The direction going forward for VPN connectivity capability of the Power Virtual Server will be to use the existing IBM Cloud VPC VPN for a one cloud experience, improved reliability, and high availability connections.

    The VPNAAS_CONNECT_APPLICATION_INSTANCE_HOURS part ID of the Power Virtual Server is designed only for Power Virtual Server and will be withdrawn by the end of March 2024.

    Existing users can choose to continue to use Power Virtual Server VPN until the end of service or upgrade to their preferred IBM Cloud VPN for VPC service.

    By January 18, 2025 IBM will no longer deliver standard support for the Power Virtual Server VPNaaS product, thus if you choose not to take the recommended action and run into issues, IBM will not support with end of life for parts occurring six months later on July 14, 2025. Additionally, after March 2024 new connections can no longer be provisioned with the Power Virtual Server VPN thus you are encouraged to upgrade to the IBM Cloud VPC VPN at your earliest convenience and ideally before March 2024.

  • IBM Cloud Monitoring service is now avilable in SYD04, SAO04, and DAL12.

December 2023

  • New data center availability
    • MAD04 is available. It is a PER-enabled Power10 data center that supports IBM Cloud Monitoring service.
    • SAO04 is available for PER.
  • Cost estimator tool
    A new cost estimator tool for Power Virtual Server is available. You can access it from the Power Virtual Server home page. To learn more about the cost estimator tool, see Getting started with the cost estimator tool.
  • Dedicated hosts
    A new dedicated host capability is available. You can provision IBM Power S922 and S1022 servers for your dedicated use. For more information, see Dedicated host.
  • VPC VPN service
    The VPC VPN is a robust service that replaces the legacy Power Virtual Server VPN. To learn more on VPC VPN, see Creating a Virtual Private Cloud VPN connection.
  • Flexible IOPS
    Power Virtual Server now offers a tier-less storage service with the name Flexible IOPS. With Flexible IOPS, you can now change the IOPS level for your existing volumes and clone volumes to your choice of IOPS level, and much more. See: Flexible IOPS.
  • New RHEL versions are available. See the FAQ page for details on the latest version.
  • Update on the new SAP HANA large t-shirt profiles feature
    The latest RHEL 9.2 for SAP, RHEL 8.8 for general purpose and SAP, and current RHEL 8.6 for general purpose and SAP OS images are being updated to support the larger t-shirt profiles. Until further notice, use t-shirt profiles with less than 64 cores for RHEL 9.2, RHEL 8.8, and RHEL 8.6 OS images. For more information, see the SAP documentation on OS for IBM Power Virtual Server.
  • New Global Replication Service (GRS) pairs support The respective data center pairs MAD02 and FRA04 along with MAD04 and FRA05 now supports GRS.

November 2023

  • WDC06 and MAD02 data center are now available for PER. MAD02 is a PER-enabled Power10 data center.
  • Availibity of IBM Cloud Monitoring service is now extended in FRA04, FRA05, LON04, LON06, MAD02, SAO01, and TOK04.

September 2023

  • Power Virtual Server and SysDig Integration : You can now seamlessly monitor your platform metrics within the IBM Cloud environment by using the IBM Cloud Monitoring service. For detailed instructions on how to access and use this integration, refer to the documentation: Monitoring metrics for Power Virtual Server.

The data center where you can monitor your platform metrics currently are WDC06, SYD05, and WDC04 with other data center coming soon.

  • Introduction of Power Virtual Server S1022 processor : The Power10 S1022 (9105-22A) is now available in WDC07 data center. As we progress, additional data centers are made available.

    SAP Netweaver is not certified for use with S1022 systems, making them suitable exclusively for nonproduction workloads.

  • IBM i 7.3 service extension pricing : Effective 1 October 2023, IBM i 7.3 on Power Virtual Server is at the end of normal support and will be in service extension. Service extension pricing is automatically added to the IBM i charge for IBM i 7.3 usage.

  • Addition of New Global Replication Service data center pair : Power Virtual Server expanded the Global Replication Service (GRS) capabilities by adding a new data center pair - DAL13 and WDC04. This enhancement is available on the Tier 1 storage support within the GRS framework. See: Locations that support global replication service.

June 2023

  • The Power Virtual Server enhances the management of stock images in the backend. This enhancement eliminates identical versions (copies) of stock images and improves the performance of copying a stock image in your account by using an image reference. Find more information in the FAQ doc page.

    We are currently rolling out the feature to eliminate stock image copies in all data centers in phases. If your data center has already received the update, you notice that the export option for stock images is no longer available because you are using the reference of the stock image.

  • IBM Power Virtual Server is sequentially rolling out a Power Edge Router (PER) solution that is available in DAL10 data center.

    PER improves network communication across different parts of the IBM network. See, Getting Started with Power Edge Router for more information.

May 2023

  • IBM Power Virtual Server now supports two new data centers WDC07 (Washington DC) and SAO04 (São Paulo).
  • IBM Key Protect is now supported on AIX and Linux workloads. For more information, see Integrating Power Virtual Server with IBM Cloud Key Management Services.
  • Effective 1 May 2023, AIX 7.1 on Power Virtual Server is covered for software support. In Power Virtual Server, starting March 2024, Service Extension pricing is automatically added to the AIX charge for AIX 7.1 usage. AIX 7.1 Service Extension was announced on January 24, 2023. For more information see, Service Extension for IBM AIX 7.1.

March 2023

  • Update on the new SAP HANA large t-shirt profiles feature: IBM supports SLES15 SP4 for SAP and RHEL8.6 for SAP OS images with all other features on all t-shirt profiles with fewer than 64 cores. These SLES15 SP4 for SAP and RHEL8.6 for SAP OS images are while being updated to support the larger t-shirt profiles. Until further notice, use the larger t-shirt profiles with the SLES15 SP3 for SAP OS image or the RHEL8.4 for SAP OS image. For more information, see the SAP documentation on OS for IBM Power Virtual Servers.

    The RHEL8.6 for SAP OS image is available in DAL10, DAL12, FRA04, FRA05, LON04, LON05, MON01, SYD05, TOR01, WDC04, and WDC06. The image is available in all data centers by 3/27/23.

  • Power Virtual Server cost estimator: Effective 3/23/23, two of the latest large SAP HANA t-shirt profiles mh1-90x16200 and mh1-100x18000 are available options in the cost estimator. In April 2023, the latest largest profile mh1-125x22500 will also be available in the estimator.

  • Access your event logs and notifications: You can now access your event logs and notification from the Event logs page on the Power Virtual Server user interface. For more information, see Managing events logs and notifications

February 2023

December 2022

September 2022

  • You can share a group of processors between multiple virtual machines that allows you to group your applications together by using the shared processor pool. For more information, see Managing shared processor pool.

  • Power Virtual Server allows you to automate the complete data recovery solution by using the API and CLI interfaces of a global replication service. For more information, see Managing a global replication service.

  • You can choose to deploy Epic workloads on a VM for more cost savings. For more information, see Configuring a VM for Epic workloads.

  • The full Linux subscription on Power Virtual Server now supports SLES 15 SP4 (General).

August 2022

  • You can use FalconStor VTL in Power Virtual Server for data protection and cloud migration as a Service for IBM i. See Managing Virtual tape library.

July 2022

June 2022

  • Power Virtual Server now supports Linux (RHEL and SLES) stock images for non-SAP applications by using full Linux subscription. See Full Linux® subscription for Power Virtual Servers.
  • IBM i 7.5 is supported on Power Virtual Servers.
  • With virtual appliances independent software vendors (ISV) can offer OVA (ISV software plus operating system of your choice) for quick deployment of Power Virtual Server workloads. See Managing virtual appliances.

April 2022

March 2022

December 2021

October 2021

September 2021

  • You can now use Capturing and exporting a virtual machine to view the new Job feature and view restrictions for VM capture, image import, and image export.
  • You can now use Mixed storage to attach storage volumes to a PVM instance from different storage tiers and pools.

June 2021

  • You can now use Placement groups to add your servers into groups and apply affinity or anti-affinity policies.

May 2021

March 2021

  • You can now deploy a Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8.1 and 8.2 virtual machine (VM) on a VM instance. For more information, see Using RHEL within the Power Virtual Server workspace.
  • Power Virtual Server provides a community-supported CentOS image under the Linux operating system. However, IBM does not provide any support for this image. For more information, see Configuring a Power Virtual Server instance.
  • You can now choose an OSA21 data center to deploy your Power Virtual Server.

February 2021

  • You can now choose a MON01 data center to deploy your Power Virtual Server.
  • The Power Virtual Server offering now supports IBM i 7.1. For more information, see Minimum PTF levels for IBM i.
  • You can clone a volume or multiple volumes to create a consistent full copy of the volume. For more information, see Cloning a volume.
  • You can resize the memory and core counts to a maximum of 8 times of the specified values, and to a minimum of 1/8 times of the specified values when the VM was provisioned. For more information, see Resizing the virtual machine core count and memory.