Centralized Cloud and Security Management Empowers IT
For IBM Power Systems clients, transforming their virtualized data center into a self-service private cloud and protecting it with automated security management just became an easier and more powerful proposition. IBM has introduced important new capabilities by advancing IBM Power Security Center (PowerSC) and Power Virtualization Center (PowerVC) software. Both were recently announced at Think 2018.
For example, organizations that have mixed AIX and Linux on Power (LoP) environments can now manage both environments from a single pane of glass with the updated PowerSC software. And the new version of PowerVC extends to next-generation IBM Power Systems POWER9-based servers that are bringing enhanced performance and reliability to cloud deployments.
Improved Security and Compliance with Centralized Control
Designed to protect private cloud deployments, IBM PowerSC is a security and compliance solution optimized for virtualized environments on IBM Power Systems servers running PowerVM or KVM hypervisors. The new PowerSC Standard Edition 1.2 greatly extends the centralized UI of the solution to support LoP with features including compliance functionality, file integrity monitoring and reporting capabilities.
The result is simplified management of security and compliance across multiple servers or LPARs in your Power Systems landscape. For instance, you can centrally view patch status and trigger updates for all AIX and Linux endpoints through the UI. Power Systems administrators can also better support compliance audits with a new interactive timeline report. Extensive automation throughout the solution helps reduce cost and the risk of human error.
If your organization does business in Europe, you’ll appreciate that PowerSC now provides support for General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliance, with a new preconfigured GDPR profile. In addition, scalability improvements—such as REST APIs that can be used for automation and scalability of key PowerSC functions—have been added to meet the needs of larger organizations.
Simplified Delivery of Cloud Workloads and Services
Now in its fourth generation, PowerVC provides advanced, comprehensive virtualization and private cloud management for IBM Power Systems clients. Built on OpenStack technology, the solution is designed to improve administrator productivity and simplify the cloud management of virtual machines on Power Systems servers.
IBM Power Systems POWER9-based servers are cloud-enabled and come with PowerVM virtualization, and any workload running on a POWER9 server is essentially a cloud workload. To complete the picture, PowerVC provides the cloud user experience.
The new PowerVC Version 1.4.1 not only adds support for POWER9 servers, but it also provides enhancements for faster, simpler SAP HANA deployment. It enables delivery of workloads and services to users through self-service cloud, helps simplify integration of Power Systems infrastructure into multicloud environments and includes support for software-defined environments encompassing storage, networking and compute.
IBM made these improvements in response to feedback from its Power Systems clients. And now PowerVC makes feedback from the user base even simpler than ever with a built-in Net Promoter Score (NPS) survey capability that automatically launches the survey form.
Cloud Enabled and Future Ready
Power Systems servers with built-in PowerVM virtualization allow enterprise clients to build a cloud designed for data-intensive, mission-critical workloads. Together, PowerSC and PowerVC enable Power Systems clients to accelerate cloud deployments with the goal of optimizing resources and providing the extreme business agility that is essential today and will continue to be an imperative in the future. Learn more about Power Systems software. If you’re interested in exploring the possibilities, ask your IBM representative about our 60-day trial.