Using Power VMs in Skytap

Skytap extends its capabilities by adding Power VM Virtual Machine – A virtual computer or server hosted within a data center. A VM runs a full operating system and applications. Each VM has virtual resources, including CPU, RAM, file system storage, CD/DVD drive, and network interfaces. s. Now you can migrate your IBM i, AIX, and Linux on Power workloads, along with your x86 Linux and Windows workloads to the cloud, where you can develop, test, and deploy workloads in complex, multi-OS environmentsenvironment: An object that comprises one or more VMs, one or more networks, configuration settings, and metadata. You can save the exact state of an environment as a read-only template. To learn more, see Skytap quick start: Building your first environment..

Notes

Power VMs in Skytap are available as an optional paid feature. If your account doesn't have access to Power VMs, contact your Skytap customer success manager: customersuccess@skytap.com.
IBM i is a separate paid feature that must be enabled independently of Power. To enable IBM i for you account, see Enable IBM i VMs.

Overview for Power VM support in Skytap

Skytap is an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) platform that lets you combine infrastructure, networking, OS, software, storage, and memory state into a single environment, that you can save, clone, copy, and share. With the addition of Power VM support, you can re-host your Linux, Windows, AIX, and IBM i workloads to the cloud.

Skytap provides support for Power VMs running on Power 8 and Power 9 hardware.

Skytap Power VMs don’t support Power 6, Power 6+, or Power 7 processor compatibility modes.

Supported operating system versions on Power

See the complete list of Supported operating systems for Skytap VMs.

To download IBM-hosted AIX VMs and import them into Skytap

Download “ready-to-deploy” images from your IBM Entitled Systems Support (ESS) account, and import them into Skytap. For detailed instructions, see Downloading IBM-hosted AIX VMs and importing them into Skytap.

More information about using Power VMs in Skytap

Migrating Power workloads into Skytap

For information about how to migrate your AIX workloads to the cloud, see Creating an AIX VM in Skytap from a mksysb image and the FAQ section of AIX support in Skytap.
For information about how to migrate your IBM i workloads to the cloud, see the FAQ section of Importing IBM i workloads into Skytap using IBM Cloud Storage Solutions for i (ICC).

Searching for and generating usage reports for Power VMs

To differentiate hardware type in reports, Skytap recommends that you create a label category for the CPU type (x86 or Power), and then attach it to environments and templates to help you find Power VM resources and track them in usage reports. If you need to report, AIX and IBM i usage separately, create a label category for the operating system (AIX or IBM i), and then attach it to environments and templates to help you find AIX and IBM i resources and track them in usage reports