IBM has announced expanded scalability enhancements to its virtualization technology z/VM. With this new release, z/VM version 5.3 can host a number of virtual images on a single hypervisor--virtualization technology that makes one computer look like multiple computers--designed to allow customers to further optimize and consolidate their infrastructures.

The new virtualization product release can host more than 1,000 virtual images on a single copy of z/VM. The new software can be used to replace many physical servers with "virtual" ones running in a single mainframe. The latest z/VM release is designed to help clients prepare for data center growth by offering support for larger memory configurations which are designed to help clients eliminate the need to spread large virtual-machine based workloads across multiple copies of z/VM. In addition to enhancing memory utilization, the new software plans to deliver increased CPU capacity with support for up to 32 Processor Units--up to a 33% increase over the previous release of z/VM. Combined with Linux on System z, the software can make more informed choices about how memory is managed allowing z/VM to run more virtual servers in the same amount of memory.

With the introduction of a Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) server and associated client services, z/VM can provide a security solution with new user authentication, authorization, and auditing capabilities. Security capabilities are also enhanced through the use of password phrases. Additional data protection capabilities are provided by exploitation of drive-based data encryption provided by the IBM System Storage TS1120, IBM's tape encryption solution. When used in conjunction with z/VM, IBM Tivoli OMEGAMON XE helps identify, isolate, and correct problems across the mainframe virtualization software providing views and monitoring workloads for virtual machines, groups, response times and LPAR reporting. IBM z/VM version 5.3 will be available for purchase in June through IBM and IBM Business Partners.

(www.ibm.com)

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