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As we know, with VMware we can connect different x86 hardware like HP , Dell etc and can move VMs to different hardware without any downtime. Is there any solution available which can integrate IBM Power also along with ESX and Dell hardware. So that Linux load running on IBM power (Power Processor) machine also can be moved to HP/Dell hardware(x86) and vice versa. I understand, IBM virtualization is through PowerVM and ESX through VMware, but is there any tools offers to manage this king of workload.

Thanks

Shaukat
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First, let me make a terminology clarification: On IBM platforms, PowerVM and mainframes, the term is LPAR (logical partition). VM (virtual machine) is used by most other hypervisors. So you are asking if an Linux LPAR on PowerVM can be migrated to VMware.

There are different scopes to approach such a demand:

If you want to live migrate or offline transfer an LPAR from PowerVM to a VM in VMWare, or vice-versa, that's impossible. The reason is that these platforms are based on different CPU/architectures; PowerPC - Open Firmware for PowerVM, AMD64 - BIOS/UEFI [1] for VMware. Simply put, even if you connect a LUN from Power to VMware (as raw disk mapping) it won't boot.

If you are interest in clustering, failover, load balancing scenarios, that is achievable. You can setup a Linux two node cluster on a PowerVM LPAR and a VMware VM. So if you need to transfer everything to the VM, you activate the clustered services there and remove the LPAR node from the cluster. Yet if the LPAR and its services are already setup, you may or may not make them clustered; it depends on the service. Probably even if it's possible, it'll need downtime.

In conclusion, OS/LPAR/VM migration, impossible. Service migration or co-existence, doable.

[1] Intel's x86-64/EMT64 CPUs are essentially AMD64 architecture.

Krackout
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  • Thank you very much. – Shaukat Feb 27 '22 at 10:55
  • Thank you very much for the explanation. I was also expecting the same but still though if check if there is any third party solution for the same. which can manage both. – Shaukat Feb 28 '22 at 10:51
  • @Shaukat, you are welcome. Give a helpful vote if you like. Yet leave it as unaswered, so that others may give more info, if there is anything more to add. – Krackout Feb 28 '22 at 11:11