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

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
IBM PowerVM
Score 9.1 out of 10
N/A
IBM PowerVM provides a server virtualization environment.N/A
KVM
Score 7.6 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 PowerVMKernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM)
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
IBM PowerVMKVM
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details——
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
IBM PowerVMKernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM)
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
IBM PowerVMKernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM)
Server Virtualization
Comparison of Server Virtualization features of Product A and Product B
IBM PowerVM
8.1
4 Ratings
3% below category average
Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM)
9.2
5 Ratings
10% above category average
Virtual machine automated provisioning7.52 Ratings9.04 Ratings
Management console6.74 Ratings9.03 Ratings
Live virtual machine backup9.01 Ratings9.73 Ratings
Live virtual machine migration8.23 Ratings9.04 Ratings
Hypervisor-level security9.04 Ratings9.53 Ratings
Best Alternatives
IBM PowerVMKernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM)
Small Businesses
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Score 9.3 out of 10
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Score 9.3 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
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Score 10.0 out of 10
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Score 10.0 out of 10
Enterprises
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Score 10.0 out of 10
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Score 10.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
IBM PowerVMKernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM)
Likelihood to Recommend
8.8
(4 ratings)
9.3
(5 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
IBM PowerVMKernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM)
Likelihood to Recommend
IBM
IBM Power VM is well suited in a large environment where we have to run multiple virtual machines on a single hardware and utilize the hardware more efficiently. It directly saves the cost of the organization. Due to the high licensing cost of IBM Power VM, it's less appropriate for smaller, less critical applications that do not need a lot of performance.
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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
  • Offers a very granular virtualization of each core.
  • Provides a quick and easy environment to build and maintain.
  • Is rock solid and provides a reliable production environment.
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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
  • We have yet to upgrade VIOs from 2.2.0 to 2.2.3 which will provide the more GUI centric management, however, making the VIO servers easier to manage would be one area. I think this is done with the latest versions of HMC and PowerVM.
  • More real-time and historical performance reporting.
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Red Hat
  • Complex networking
  • GPU processing is not fully supported
  • It's hard to set up without support tools
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Likelihood to Renew
IBM
The product works. It provides the proven environment to support IBM's primary operating systems that run on the IBM Power processing systems. This by extension includes the IBM various storage products that work within that environment. It has proven to be seamless as the environment has grown and as various new products and version updates have been added. As with most IBM products, the support is excellent.
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Red Hat
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
IBM
IBM PowerVM is the best and most stable product in the virtualization market. It gives the best performance with IBM Power Server, especially its best solution, where we have to run critical applications and save applications licensing costs. It provides a lot of good features like LPM, shared processor pool...etc, which makes the environment more flexible.
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Red Hat
Kernel-based Virtual Machine is an open-source and free solution, compared to Virtualbox which is a product from Oracle.
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Return on Investment
IBM
  • We are able to run several LPARs on one frame, which means we do not need to buy as many physical servers. That saves on floor space, power, and heating and cooling of the data center, among other things.
  • Using LPM allows us to do maintenance on a frame without impacting the LPARs, giving us greater uptime.
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Red Hat
  • KVM just works and gets out of the way
  • KVM is working great with other open-source technologies like QEMU and libvirt
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ScreenShots