KVM for IBM z Withdrawal

IBM announced that KVM for IBM z will be withdrawn, effective March 31, 2018. From the notice:

"KVM for IBM z Systems Version 1.1.2 will be the last release delivered by IBM. However, IBM will continue to provide the Linux and KVM enablement for z Systems [...]"

Make no mistake: The withdrawal only affects the product KVM for IBM z. It does not mean the end for KVM on z (our open source effort to support KVM on IBM z Systems). To the contrary, development will not only continue unaffected, but the options for users grow, especially with the recent addition of SuSE to the existing support in Ubuntu.
See the FAQ for further details.

KVM for IBM z Systems v1.1.2 released

KVM for IBM z Systems v1.1.2 is out today! See here for the respective blog post on Mainframe Insights, and the following pages for the formal announcements: US, Canada, Asia-Pacific, Japan, Latin America and Europe.

It ships with QEMU v2.6 and libvirt v1.3.3. Here is a list of highlights from a KVM on z perspective:

• Enhanced SCA support
  Exploit up to 248 CPUs per KVM guest
• SIE capability
  Expose SIE availability in /proc/cpuinfo as follows:
  
     $ cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep features
     features        : esan3 zarch stfle msa ldisp eimm dfp edat etf3eh
                       highgprs te vx sie
• STP host toleration
  Previously, Server Time Protocol (STP) had to be turned off in the host. In case of time differences, the TOD clock is adjusted in a smooth manner, avoiding jumps.
• Improved removable media support
  Allow to boot KVM guests seamlessly from ISO9660 media.
• OASIS VIRTIO v1.0 support
  Support OASIS OASIS standard for virtio devices.
• CPU hotplugging
  Allow to add CPUs dynamically to a running guest
• STHYI support: Added the z/VM-defined Store Hypervisor Information instruction (STHYI) for KVM guests. See also here.