Additional Enhancements to z/VM 6.3

In addition to these enhancements, also refer to the required service for z/VM to run on the IBM z13 and additional z/VM enhancements that are only available on the IBM z13.

Performance Toolkit Support

Provides Performance Toolkit support for CPU pooling, prorated core time, LPAR group capping.
Requirements
  • APARs/PTFs (available February 29, 2016)
    • VM - APAR VM65697 / PTF UM34756

Guest Support of the Vector Facility for z/Architecture (SIMD)

Enables guests to exploit the Vector Facility for z/Architecture (SIMD). The Vector Facility instructions provide a powerful framework for development of new Business Analytics workloads, porting numerically intensive workloads from other platforms, and accelerating Business Analytics workloads on IBM z13 or IBM z13s.
Requirements
  • APARs/PTFs (available February 23, 2016)
    • VM - APAR VM65733 / PTF UM34752

z/VM Support of the IBM z13 with Driver D27

  • LPAR Group Absolute Capacity Capping enables each partition to consume capacity up to its individual limit so long as the group's aggregate consumption does not exceed its absolute capacity limit.
  • Guest exploitation support of Shared Memory Communications-Direct Memory Access (SMC-D) networking within the CPC without requiring 10 GbE RoCE hardware or external switches.
  • Dynamic Memory Management improves the efficiency when a dynamic memory upgrade uses only a portion of the reserved main storage for the partition by initializing and clearing just the amount of storage requested.
Requirements
  • APARs/PTFs (available February 18, 2016)
    • VM - APAR VM65716 / PTF UM34746

z/VM Single System Image (SSI) Persistent Data Record (PDR)

Allows the SSI Persistent Data Record to be relocated from its current DASD to another in a coordinated and nondisruptive manner.
Requirements
  • APARs/PTFs (available February 8, 2016)
    • VM - APAR VM65712 / PTF UM34736

Enhancements to RACF for z/VM Feature

Enhancements to RACF for z/VM Feature include an upgrade of password encryption support for stronger protection against offline password attacks. This is functionally equivalent to z/OS APAR OA43999 and provides a new KDFAES password encryption algorithm which can be specified on the SETROPTS command. Additional enhancements to RACFVM security policy management include:
  • Minimum password change intervals
  • Helpdesk support for the resetting of passwords and password phrases
  • Password expiry support
  • An upgrade to special character support for passwords and password phrases
Requirements
  • APARs/PTFs (available September 11, 2015)
    • RACF - APAR VM65719 / PTF UV61271 (also requires RACF - APAR VM65688 / PTF UV61261)

Enhancements to z/VM System SSL Library and TLS/SSL Server

An uplift has been made to the z/VM System SSL cryptographic library to z/OS V2.1 equivalency, which keeps z/VM's TLS support in accordance with NIST SP 800-131a guidelines. This upgrade includes AES Galois/Counter Mode encryption for connections to the hypervisor managed by the z/VM TLS/SSL Server.
Requirements
  • APARs/PTFs (available September 11, 2015)
    • TCP/IP - APAR PI40702 / PTF UI31015
    • CMS - APAR VM65717 / PTF UM34663
    • LE - APAR VM65718 / PTF UM34668

Prorated Core Time Support

Prorated core time is a method that provides reports and caps based on core utilization regardless of the multithreading benefit, which might be used as a means of distributing charges for subcapacity based products that are based on core capacity. Time is charged by dividing the time the core was dispatched evenly among the threads dispatched in that interval. Under this method, the total time charged to all guests equals the total time the logical cores of the z/VM partition were dispatched. Prorated core time is calculated for all users only when multithreading is enabled, and used in the limiting calculations of CPU pools and guests with individual LIMITHARD shares.
Requirements
  • APARs/PTFs (available September 11, 2015)
    • VM - APAR VM65680 / PTF UM34667

CPU Pooling

With z/VM V6.3 you now have the ability to define new entities called CPU pools. CPU pooling is designed to allow you to define and limit the CPU resources a group of z/VM guests is allowed to consume in aggregate (in terms of physical processor units - general purpose processor (CP) or Integrated Facility for Linux (IFL) speciality engine).
Requirements
  • APARs/PTFs (available June 11, 2014)
    • VM - APAR VM65418 / PTF UM34348

Environment Information Interface

A new interface in z/VM V6.3 has been designed to provide you the ability to obtain CPU resource information and to enable virtual machines to understand the characteristics of the environment in which they are running. Information is provided at many levels - the machine, logical partition, CPU pool, virtual machine.
Requirements
  • APARs/PTFs (available June 11, 2014)
    • VM - APAR VM65419 / PTF UM34348

10GbE RoCE Express Feature

z/OS guests running under z/VM V6.3 may now exploit the 10GbE RoCE Express feature. The term RoCE refers to Remote Direct Memory Access over Converged Ethernet. The 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GbE) RoCE Express feature is designed to help reduce consumption of CPU resources for applications utilizing the TCP/IP stack (such as WebSphere Applications to understand the Server accessing a DB2 database). Use of the 10GbE RoCE Express feature is designed to help reduce network latency with memory-to-memory transfers utilizing Shared Memory Communications-Remote Direct Memory Access (SMC-R) in z/OS V2.1. It is transparent to applications and can be used for LPAR-to-LPAR communication on a single system or server-to-server communication in a multiple-CPC environment.
Requirements
  • Hardware
    • IBM zEC12 or zBC12, driver 15, bundle 21
  • APARs/PTFs
    • VM CP - APAR VM65417 / PTF UM34343
    • VM CMS - APAR VM65437 / PTF UM34401
    • VM TCP/IP - APAR PI20509 / PTF UI19055
    • VM DVF - APAR VM65572 / PTF UM34342
    • z/OS 2.1 - APAR OA43256 / PTF UA72717
    For more information about enabling and configuring z/VM for guest exploitation of RoCE, click here

zEDC Express Feature

z/OS guests running under z/VM V6.3 may now exploit the zEDC Express feature. IBM zEnterprise Data Compression (zEDC) for z/OS V2.1 and the zEDC Express feature are designed to support a new data compression function to help provide high-performance, low-latency compression without significant CPU overhead. This may help to reduce disk usage, provide optimized cross-platform exchange of data, and provide higher write rates for SMF data.
Requirements
  • Hardware
    • IBM zEC12 or zBC12, driver 15, bundle 21
  • APARs/PTFs
    • VM CP - APAR VM65417 / PTF UM34343
    • VM CMS - APAR VM65437 / PTF UM34401
    • VM TCP/IP - APAR PI20509 / PTF UI19055
    • VM DVF - APAR VM65572 / PTF UM34342
    • z/OS 2.1 - APAR OA44482 / PTF UA73687
    • z/OS 2.1 - APAR OA43256 / PTF UA72717
    For more information about enabling and configuring z/VM for guest exploitation of zEDC, click here