Building a SAN-less Private Cloud with IBM PowerVM and IBM PowerVC

Building a SAN-less Private Cloud with IBM PowerVM and IBM PowerVC

by Scott Vetter, Javier Bazan Lazcano, Stephen Lutz
Released July 2018
Publisher(s): IBM Redbooks
ISBN: 9780738457031

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Book description

This IBM® Redpaper™ publication describes a software-defined infrastructure (SDI) solution with IBM PowerVC. In IBM PowerVC SDI, you combine scale-out IBM Power Systems™ servers with software that creates the whole stack that is needed to provide virtual machines (VMs) for applications such as open source databases or Hadoop.

The SDI solution uses base IBM Power Systems technologies such as IBM PowerVM® NovaLink and the open source hypervisor kernel-based virtual machine (KVM). The solution combines with sophisticated storage technologies, such as IBM Spectrum™ Scale, and with the powerful networking capabilities that are provided by the Open vSwitch (OVS) technology. IBM PowerVC "hides" much of this software so that it is not apparent to your daily cloud operations. By using IBM PowerVC, you can manage scale-out SDI-based systems along with traditional PowerVM systems.

This publication describes how to install and configure the SDI solution using PowerVM and IBM PowerVC running on the Power Systems platform. This publication also presents the essentials to help existing Power Systems technical specialists use existing "under the covers" disk space to build a cost-effective cloud solution.

Table of contents

  1. Front cover
  2. Notices
    1. Trademarks
  3. Preface
    1. Authors
    2. Now you can become a published author, too!
    3. Comments welcome
    4. Stay connected to IBM Redbooks
  4. Chapter 1. Architecture of a software-defined infrastructure solution with IBM Power Systems servers and IBM PowerVC
    1. 1.1 Software-defined infrastructure
    2. 1.2 The motivation behind software-defined infrastructure
    3. 1.3 Use cases
      1. 1.3.1 Use case 1: Building a storage area network-less cloud
      2. 1.3.2 Use case 2: Building an iSCSI-backed cloud
      3. 1.3.3 More use cases
    4. 1.4 Rack topologies and components
      1. 1.4.1 Starter cloud
      2. 1.4.2 Mini cloud
      3. 1.4.3 Rack scale
      4. 1.4.4 Storage/management switches
      5. 1.4.5 Data switches
      6. 1.4.6 Network nodes
      7. 1.4.7 Understand the scaling requirements
    5. 1.5 Enabling technologies
      1. 1.5.1 IBM Spectrum Scale
      2. 1.5.2 PowerVM NovaLink
      3. 1.5.3 PowerVM Open I/O
    6. 1.6 Planning for a software-defined infrastructure
      1. 1.6.1 Necessary software
      2. 1.6.2 Environment planning
      3. 1.6.3 Storage
      4. 1.6.4 Hypervisor
      5. 1.6.5 Networking
  5. Chapter 2. Planning and implementing an IBM PowerVC software-defined infrastructure environment
    1. 2.1 Planning
      1. 2.1.1 Cloud compute nodes
      2. 2.1.2 Storage choice
      3. 2.1.3 Cloud installation
    2. 2.2 Installing PowerVM NovaLink for a system that uses PowerVM
      1. 2.2.1 Preparing the resources for a PowerVM NovaLink network installation
      2. 2.2.2 Installing a PowerVM NovaLink partition on an empty system that is under control of an HMC
    3. 2.3 Installing Ubuntu and PowerVM NovaLink for a system running KVM on Open Power Abstraction Layer
    4. 2.4 Installing Red Hat Enterprise Linux KVM on an IBM Power System server
      1. 2.4.1 Hardware requirements
      2. 2.4.2 Administrator’s workstation requirements
    5. 2.5 Preparing your Red Hat Enterprise Linux KVM on an IBM POWER8 server
    6. 2.6 Installing Red Hat Enterprise Linux KVM on the IBM Power System server
    7. 2.7 Installing and configuring IBM PowerVC
      1. 2.7.1 Adding IBM Spectrum Scale to IBM PowerVC
  6. Chapter 3. Implementing software-defined storage in IBM PowerVC
    1. 3.1 Preparing your compute nodes
    2. 3.2 Using multiple bridges in a software-defined storage environment
    3. 3.3 Adding compute nodes to IBM PowerVC
      1. 3.3.1 Considerations before adding a node
      2. 3.3.2 Adding a node step-by-step
    4. 3.4 Removing a compute node from IBM PowerVC
      1. 3.4.1 Removing the compute node
      2. 3.4.2 Monitoring the registration and removal of compute nodes
    5. 3.5 Working with volumes and capturing of images
      1. 3.5.1 Creating an image from an installable ISO
      2. 3.5.2 Creating an image with an existing raw image
  7. Chapter 4. Software-defined networking
    1. 4.1 Software-defined networking with IBM PowerVC
      1. 4.1.1 Optional usage of Virtual Extensible LANs
    2. 4.2 Network nodes
      1. 4.2.1 The architecture of network nodes
      2. 4.2.2 Installation of a network node
    3. 4.3 The configuration and usage of Virtual Extensible LANs
    4. 4.4 Security groups
      1. 4.4.1 Creating and modifying security groups
      2. 4.4.2 Attaching a security group to a port
  8. Chapter 5. Maintenance in a software-defined infrastructure environment
    1. 5.1 Updating IBM Spectrum Scale
    2. 5.2 Checking the cluster health and resolving issues
    3. 5.3 Updating PowerVM NovaLink or the KVM host operating system
    4. 5.4 Switching a host between PowerVM NovaLink managed and HMC-managed
    5. 5.5 Backing up and restoring
      1. 5.5.1 Approaches to backing up cluster data
      2. 5.5.2 Considerations when backing up data
      3. 5.5.3 Restoring data
  9. Related publications
    1. IBM Redbooks
    2. Online resources
    3. Help from IBM
  10. Back cover

Product information

  • Title: Building a SAN-less Private Cloud with IBM PowerVM and IBM PowerVC
  • Author(s): Scott Vetter, Javier Bazan Lazcano, Stephen Lutz
  • Release date: July 2018
  • Publisher(s): IBM Redbooks
  • ISBN: 9780738457031