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IBM PowerVM pros and cons

Vendor: IBM
4.3 out of 5

Pros & Cons summary

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Prominent pros & cons

PROS

IBM PowerVM offers high stability and reliability with a performance rating of ten out of ten.
PowerVM provides exceptional flexibility in managing hardware resources, including RAM, CPU, and networks.
Technical support for PowerVM is praised for being great and easily reachable.
It features dynamic allocation of resources, enabling efficient management across all systems and environments.
The hardware-based hypervisor of PowerVM is optimized with less overhead and excels in virtualization capabilities.

CONS

IBM PowerVM has limited container virtualization options and lacks automation and configuration tools.
The virtualization is limited, particularly in cluster functionality and integration with Microsoft and other platforms.
The pricing of IBM PowerVM is considered high compared to competitors, with significant financial challenges noted.
The platform requires improvements in operating system compatibility and clustering options.
Technical support and integration capabilities, such as those seen in VMware vCenter, need enhancement.
 

IBM PowerVM Pros review quotes

AA
ICT Business Solution Architect at Cloud Technology
Oct 13, 2019
What I like about this solution, is that it is easy to configure.
it_user1195593 - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of IT at a government with 1,001-5,000 employees
Oct 22, 2019
The feature that I like most is the versatility.
MG
Unix Team Lead at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Jan 29, 2020
It's in English, so its exceptional qualities make the control environment more flexible, easier, more stable, and easy to recover after issues.
Learn what your peers think about IBM PowerVM. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2026.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Amro Saleh - PeerSpot reviewer
System Engineer at Arab Bank
Jan 30, 2020
The stability is the most valuable aspect of this solution. IBM is the most powerful and stable platform.
it_user1277046 - PeerSpot reviewer
System Engineer at Unistar
Feb 5, 2020
The most valuable feature is the flexibility in terms of managing the hardware resources such as RAM, CPU, and the network.
EL
Technical Manager at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Apr 23, 2020
The case fileserver on the web server is the most valuable feature.
Kevin Honde - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Solution Architect at Econet Wireless Zimbabwe
Aug 2, 2020
It's scalable. Whenever we buy another product other than hardware, it's easily integrated into the virtualization software that we download.
Atif Najam - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Information Officer and Program Lead at Gatron Industries Ltd
May 17, 2021
Active Memory Sharing dynamically reallocates memory of running partitions based on changing workload demands. The memory for the pool is carved out from Physical memory and is made logical memory. The said memory is not available to be assigned to partitions as dedicated memory. A min, max and desired as well as weight is assigned to the memory of each lpar to help hypervisor make a decision in case a condition where priority is to be given to a certain lapr to use the memory form shared pool.
MN
IT Manager at a energy/utilities company with 5,001-10,000 employees
May 29, 2021
Technical support is great.
AS
IT Specialist at Saudi Business Machines - SBM
Jun 12, 2021
The most valuable features in this solution are you do not get degradation in the performance like you could get in other solutions. There is a physical adapter that is better than a virtual one and you can assign adapters to a VM.
 

IBM PowerVM Cons review quotes

AA
ICT Business Solution Architect at Cloud Technology
Oct 13, 2019
The program has very limited solutions for the virtualization of containers
it_user1195593 - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of IT at a government with 1,001-5,000 employees
Oct 22, 2019
Any improvements that can be made in the interface will go a long way to helping us work better.
MG
Unix Team Lead at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Jan 29, 2020
I would like for IBM to be more focuses on the cloud.
Learn what your peers think about IBM PowerVM. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2026.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Amro Saleh - PeerSpot reviewer
System Engineer at Arab Bank
Jan 30, 2020
To make it a ten, I would like for them to add automation and configuration tools in order to help use the manager.
it_user1277046 - PeerSpot reviewer
System Engineer at Unistar
Feb 5, 2020
The interface is not user-friendly in places, so it could use some improvement.
EL
Technical Manager at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Apr 23, 2020
The performance should be improved.
Kevin Honde - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Solution Architect at Econet Wireless Zimbabwe
Aug 2, 2020
If it could actually virtualize the entire platform it might be better. If you're having more than one virtualization technology, maybe there's a way to actually have less - one technology to run the data center and maybe one special virtualization for power. If it integrated with other platforms more effectively it might be better.
Atif Najam - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Information Officer and Program Lead at Gatron Industries Ltd
May 17, 2021
A GUI version of VIOS would be a great plus for people moving from Intel-based hypervisors.
MN
IT Manager at a energy/utilities company with 5,001-10,000 employees
May 29, 2021
The licensing could be better.
AS
IT Specialist at Saudi Business Machines - SBM
Jun 12, 2021
This solution is lacking the ability to have servers act as a cluster, such as in VMware. IBM has come out with a feature similar to VMware's vCenter but it is not as mature. They need to add LPM shared-nothing feature, such as in vMotion.