Overview

Nova-Compute uses z/VM driver to communicate with hypervisor z/VM and control virtual machines on IBM System z.This wiki introduces z/VM driver for Nova-Compute and some relate tools used by z/VM driver.

Concepts

System z

System z is a family name used by IBM for all of its mainframe computers. IBM System z are the direct descendants of System/360, announced in 1964, and the System/370 from 1970s, and now includes the IBM System z9, the IBM System z10 and the newer IBM zEnterprise. System z is famous for its hight availability and used in government, financial services, retail, manufacturing, and just about every other industry.

z/VM

z/VM is a hypervisor for the IBM System z platform that provides a highly flexible test and production environment. The z/VM implementation of IBM virtualization technology provides the capability to run full-function operating systems such as Linux on System z, z/OS, and others as “guests” of z/VM. z/VM allows the capability for clients to run hundreds to thousands of Linux servers on a single mainframe running with other System z operating systems, such as z/OS, or as a large-scale linux-only enterprise server solution.

xCAT

xCAT is an open source scalable distributed computing management and provisioning tool that provides a unified interface for hardware control, discovery, and OS diskful/diskfree deployment. It is used by NASA, University of Toronto, IBM, Adaptive Computing, Los Alamos Laboratory and so on.

Architecture

Nova-Compute uses z/VM driver to communicate with xCAT REST api to control/configure z/VM. This picture show the architure of xCAT and zVM xCAT can be used to manage virtual servers spanning across multiple z/VM partitions. The xCAT management node (MN) runs on any Linux virtual server. It manages each z/VM partition using a System z hardware control point (zHCP) running on a privileged Linux virtual server. The zHCP interfaces with z/VM systems management API (SMAPI), directory manager (DirMaint), and control program layer (CP) to manage the z/VM partition. It utilizes a C socket interface to communicate with the SMAPI layer and VMCP Linux module to communicate with the CP layer.

Prerequisites

One OpenStack nova-compute service node will manage one and only one xCAT MN node.
Each of the zVM systems (reside in different LPARs or CECs ) has one nova-compute service node
zHCP must be managed by xCAT MN.
Compute Node and xCAT MN can ssh each other without password.

Configuration

By default /etc/nova/nova.conf, these options are required:

Host name or IP address of xCAT management_node

zvm_xcat_server = 192.168.1.100

# xCAT username
zvm_xcat_username = root

# Password of the xCAT user
zvm_xcat_password = xxxxxxx

# z/VM disk pool for ephemeral disks
zvm_diskpool = pool1

# z/VM host that managed by xCAT MN
zvm_host = system360

compute_driver = zvm.ZVMDriver

libvirt_vif_driver = nova.virt.libvirt.vif.LibvirtHybridOVSBridgeDriver
network_api_class = nova.network.quantumv2.api.API
zvm_xcat_master = xcatmaster
zvm_snapshots_directory=/opt/stack/data/nova/images
instance_name_template = ibm%04x

zvm_scsi_pool = smpool

zvm_user_profile = lnxdflt
config_drive_format=tgz
zvm_reachable_timeout=600

More information

zvm-plugin

Obsolete:Nova-zVM

Contents