IBM Power vs. Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM)

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
IBM Power
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
The IBM Power product line is a family of servers.N/A
KVM
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) is a virtualization solution developed by small Israeli software company Qumranet and supported by Red Hat since that company's acquisition in 2008.N/A
Pricing
IBM PowerKernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM)
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
IBM PowerKVM
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
IBM PowerKernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM)
Features
IBM PowerKernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM)
Server Virtualization
Comparison of Server Virtualization features of Product A and Product B
IBM Power
-
Ratings
Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM)
9.2
6 Ratings
13% above category average
Virtual machine automated provisioning00 Ratings7.05 Ratings
Management console00 Ratings10.04 Ratings
Live virtual machine backup00 Ratings10.04 Ratings
Live virtual machine migration00 Ratings10.05 Ratings
Hypervisor-level security00 Ratings9.04 Ratings
Best Alternatives
IBM PowerKernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM)
Small Businesses
Dell PowerEdge
Dell PowerEdge
Score 8.1 out of 10
DigitalOcean Droplets
DigitalOcean Droplets
Score 9.4 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
HPE ProLiant DL
HPE ProLiant DL
Score 8.6 out of 10
VMware vSOM (discontinued)
VMware vSOM (discontinued)
Score 10.0 out of 10
Enterprises
IBM Z
IBM Z
Score 9.4 out of 10
VMware vSOM (discontinued)
VMware vSOM (discontinued)
Score 10.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
IBM PowerKernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM)
Likelihood to Recommend
8.9
(208 ratings)
10.0
(6 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.1
(7 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
9.5
(4 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Availability
9.1
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
9.1
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.2
(8 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.4
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
9.1
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
IBM PowerKernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM)
Likelihood to Recommend
IBM
I'd strongly recommend IBM Power servers to anyone who has the budget for it. A Power Virtual Machine, what is generally called FlexTB VM, can support as many small VM of 256GB, and scale up to 32TB on the fly. If IBM recommended architecture is combined with your organizational reference architecture, then forget about running into unplanned downtimes.
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Red Hat
KVM is the best solution in the case you need to test and turn up any virtual environment with limited vCPU/RAM resources. The obvious area of its use is a network environment when we want to avoid being tied to one type of hardware/vendor and being able to swap from one instance to another with no downtimes. The use of a vSwitch (that supports VLAN tagging) is a significant bonus for network engineers that some other hypervisors do not provide.
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Pros
IBM
  • I love how it supports a mix of operating systems
  • protection of our sensitive energy data and ensuring compliance with industry regulations.
  • It provides a flexibility that ensures that we can accommodate increased workloads without a complete overhaul of our infrastructure.
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Red Hat
  • KVM is really good at providing fast and reliable virtualization for Linux guests
  • Since KVM is a kernel module, every VM is a Linux process which can be managed by Linux system tools
  • KVM integrates very well with the management framework libvirt, which is why KVM can be integrated in automation tools as well
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Cons
IBM
  • A solid IDE for editing programs. SEU was simple and solid. Then it became outdated and support for it ended as the language continued to evolve. That's fine. But RDi is expensive and shaky at best, and VS Code, while free, is severely lacking even the modicum of features RDi has.
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Red Hat
  • KVM itself doesn't ship with a management interface
  • KVM itself is a bit complicated to handle
  • KVM needs Qemu to virtualize Windows guests
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Likelihood to Renew
IBM
This is one of the best systems on the market. You can have Flash/Copy which created another LPAR to look like the system you are copying. This takes seconds and not minutes. Then you can use BRNS to do full system backups nightly with no downtime. I am ready for us to upgrade to a Power 10.
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Red Hat
No answers on this topic
Usability
IBM
They are very easy to set up and use once you re knowledgeable enough to deal with it. They are continuously enhance the user experience on the HMC and operations on the systems. Once setup it's like a beast, going on and on. I have experience with servers that are not being rebooted for more than 1000 days
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Red Hat
It does the job and stays out of the way. The specifics of usability relies on the implementation, but with things like Icarus and libvirt, things are standardizing nicely.
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Reliability and Availability
IBM
In all of the years I have used various Power System, I have never had any problems at all. Even when hackers were attacking our email servers and many users PCs, the IBM Power System came out completely unscathed. I haven't even had any application errors that were able to take the system down. Nor have I ever experienced an unplanned outage
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Red Hat
No answers on this topic
Performance
IBM
The IBM Power System is built for integration. It supports multiple operating systems and you can run multiple OS's on the same box with no problems at all. It also supports a number of open source languages such as PHP, Java, Python, and Perl which helps you continue to grow and integrate with lots of other systems.
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Red Hat
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
IBM
On large-scale systems, the rating would have been 10. However, I have seen some cases in more rural areas where the IBM onsite support is not as available or of the highest quality as in the past. For software support, there are sometimes instances of language barriers.
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Red Hat
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
IBM
Systems are robust and you need to know exactly what your are going to do with them. There are multiple configurations possible and you need to gather your requirements first, before going on with the implementation. Tuning is a must before migrating production systems
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Red Hat
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
IBM
Power server do not need a stack of software for viruses, spam and others... Power server do not need to have release often power server are much more strong then other manufacturer Power server do not need to restart offen
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Red Hat
It is a very reliable solution that can be used for x86 architecture virtualization with low overhead. It is a free and open source software. Easy to use withOpenStack.
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Scalability
IBM
This system can work in a small factory with a few users and easily scale out to thousands of users. It is truly amazing on how much you can throw at this box and it will just keep humming. It is great for use across multiple departments and even across multiple corporations. I worked at one company where we were hosting multiple corporations on just one large Power System and had ZERO problems.
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Red Hat
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
IBM
  • In the event of a crash, IBM Power servers offer a variety of simple options to recover the operating system.
  • With the flexibility offered by IBM Power servers, the production business can be improved by making the most of its physical servers.
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Red Hat
  • Fast provisioning of new servers.
  • Huge drop of the cost of servers compared to bare metal.
  • Easy upgrades of resources, sometimes now even requiring a server restart.
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ScreenShots

IBM Power Screenshots

Screenshot of IBM Power E1180Screenshot of IBM Power E1150Screenshot of IBM Power S1124Screenshot of IBM Power S1122