OpenPOWER Summit North America 2019

In this session, you will hear about the (container density, pod scaling) tests we performed with  OpenShift Container Platform (OCP) and compared different architectures. You will ascertain the effectiveness of using POWER Systems with OpenShift Container Platform which can host most containers or pods without performance degradation compared to other platforms.  A  “DevOps” scenario with a workload similar to a  MEAN  stack (Mongo,  Express, Angular,  and  Node) is selected.  The workload was purposeful to further demonstrate the price-performance advantage of using OpenShift with POWER Platform.

The current POWER container community lags behind that of some other architecture. Part of this is because software developers are unable to publish docker images without access to a Power system. Docker for Power (D4P) is a platform to develop and deploy Power containers within a web browser without access to a local Power system.

The aim of D4P is to enrich the Power container ecosystem by providing both a platform for developers to create docker containers and for Power community to find docker images. Already, we have built and published over 200 docker images that are available in the D4P image catalog. User
contribution is key to extend D4P's catalog.

D4P is available online https://dockerfile-builder.mybluemix.net and slated to be the hub for the Power
community to create, discover, and use docker images.

IBM POWER9 architecture introduces  Protected Execution Facility (PEF) which enables secure memory, which can only be accessed when the processor is in a new higher privileged mode called Ultravisor mode.  Some facilities that were previously hypervisor privileged are now ultravisor privileged. This talk presents architectural changes for PEF,  the Protected Execution Ultravisor, and new services called ultra calls.  Combined with enhancements to the Virtual Machine format a new class of VMs called Secure Virtual Machines (SVM) is enabled.  SVMs utilize hypervisor services and run in secure memory under the control of the Ultravisor.  SVMs are protected from attacks from the Hypervisor, other privileged software entities, and privileged users on the system.  POWER9 systems can concurrently support both normal VMs and SVMs. All firmware and tools for PEF will be Open Sourced.

Enterprises engaged in the digital transformation are welcoming high performance, low latency and speedy data access of OpenPOWER-based solutions. Unlike their counterparts in research institutions and labs, they must be confident that these solutions will also provide familiar Enterprise level of reliability, manageability, and serviceability.
FromYADRO diverse field expertise and deep interaction with Enterprise customers, we’ve collected a selection of tech requirements for systems to fit in Enterprise infrastructure. In this talk, we’ll walk you through YADRO experience and lessons learned.