QEMU v3.0 released

QEMU v3.0 is out. Besides a number of small enhancements, some items that we would like to highlight from a KVM on Z perspective:

• A new CPU model representing IBM z14 Model ZR1 was added:
  14ZR1 (long name: IBM z14 Model ZR1 GA1).
• Re-use your existing infrastructure for LPAR installs by utilizing the newly added support for .INS files in network boot.

Knowledge: Use virt-install for KVM Guest Installations

Tired of fiddling with guest XML files and virtual DJing with ISO images? Then our latest entry in our Knowledge Series might come handy! Plus it also offers access to further Linux distributions on IBM Z!
Read more on how virt-install can help here.

Getting Started: Alpine Linux Instructions added

Instructions for Alpine Linux were added to the Getting Started with KVM on Z series.
See here for the actual page.

KVM at Share St.Louis 2018

Yes, we will be at SHARE in St.Louis this August!
See our sessions in the Linux and VM track as follows:

• KVM on IBM Z (Session #23164): Latest news on our development work with the open source community
• KVM on Z Performance Analysis with Open Source Tooling (Session #23167): We will take a look at several tools and techniques to investigate KVM performance on IBM Z.
  

Knowledge Series: Managing KVM on IBM Z with oVirt

See here for a new entry in our "knowledge" series, providing step-by-step instructions on how to include IBM Z hosts in an oVirt data center.

Getting Started: RHEL 7.5 Instructions added

Instructions for RHEL7.5 were added to the Getting Started with KVM on Z series.
See here for the actual page.

Ubuntu 18.04 released

Ubuntu Server 18.04 LTS is out! Support for IBM Z is available here.
It ships

• Linux kernel 4.15,
• QEMU v2.11, and
• libvirt v4.0.

As obvious from these package versions, support for IBM z14 is readily in place.

Since this is a so-called LTS (Long Term Support) release providing approx. 5 years of support (in contrast to the usual 9 months of non-LTS releases), it is of particular interest to Ubuntu users interested in a stable environment for production deployments.