IBM will bring the virtual machines of several vendors under a new heterogenous management umbrella called IBM VMControl, the company announced Tuesday. The product will debut in December.

VMControl will manage VMware, Microsoft's Hyper-V, Linux KVM, and Xen virtual machines running on x86 servers, PowerVM on IBM's Power System servers, plus z/VM on its mainframes -- all in one management console.

"The real unmet need is managing above the hypervisor. There's a need for change control management (in operating virtual machines) to avoid outages due to human error," said IBM's Scott Handy VP of worldwide marketing and power strategy. In many cases, the former sin of server sprawl in the data center, where physical servers are commissioned without a usage plan, has been replaced by virtual machine sprawl "that's even more pronounced," he said.

The operation of multiple types of virtual machines is becoming a common phenomenon, at least among IBM customers. Among those who bought both AIX and x86 servers, 80% were using more than one hypervisor; 66% were using different hypervisors for Unix server, x86 servers, and the mainframe.

IBM is seeking to combine management of virtual machines on servers with virtualized storage and virtual networking. The VMControl product will be an optional plug-in module for its established System Director, a free management framework that IBM customers use as a host for various management products.

IBM merged its i and p server lines in April 2008 into the Power Systems line, based on its Power chip. It preloads the Power VM hypervisor on each server so that it can run IBM's Unix, AIX. It can also run the predecessor OS/400 operating system, as well as Red Hat or Suse Linux.

Each server may now run a combination of the operating systems, each in its own virtual machine. Virtual machine use on Power Systems has mushroomed since IBM began pre-loading the virtualization software on the converged lines, noted Ian Robinson, Power VM offering manager.

By giving the Power servers a shared virtualized storage file system, data center administrators gain management flexibility, said Handy. Servers in the same family, whether x86, Power or z mainframes, "can be organized into pools and managed as a unit. Virtual machines running in each pool can make use of virtual adapters connecting them to storage and networks, reducing the number of physical connections required by the pool.

When a pool of, say, Power servers, all share the same virtualized storage, the virtual machines can be migrated from one physical machine to another, while the application is running. The live migration capability allows VMControl users to power down some servers at the end of the day and concentrate virtual machines on fewer machines, saving energy.

A pool of x86 servers could share virtual adapters, which replace the need to load up servers with physical network and storage adapters. At the same time the fact that the pool shares a storage system allows the link to virtual storage ties each virtual machine to disks to migrate with the virtual machine when it moves, Handy said.

The initial version of IBM Systems Director VMControl in an enterprise edition will be for Power Systems running AIX. Support for x86 and the other IBM platforms will follow in 2010.

VMControl will be priced at $2,500 per server for low-end blades, such as the Power 520, or $3,125 with technical support included. For mid-range Power Systems, such as the 550 and 560 servers, VMControl will be priced at $10,200 per server or $12,750 with support; VMControl for high end Power Servers, such as the 570 and 595, it will be priced at $17,340 per server or $21,675 with support, according to Robinson.

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