CMC Updates - May 2022

The following updates have been made in this release:

• Power Enterprise Pools 2.0 offers monthly billing of consumed Metered Capacity resources in a Power Enterprise Pool. You can now get a Pool ID without having Capacity Credits on account and select an option to receive invoicing on a monthly basis.  This option is additional; it is not replacing the current option for prepaid Capacity Credits.
  
  
• A notification panel is added to the Inventory app. Notifications are sent when systems, partitions, and VIOS are in error states.  You can use the Settings () icon to enable, disable, or change the notification settings.
  
  
• The CMC API ep/usage/pools and ep/usage/tags endpoints now support a frequency of Frequency=Minute.
  
  
• Selected Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.8 (OCP) for Power Premium Subscriptions sold as IBM program products are eligible to deploy as base and metered capacity resources within a Power Enterprise Pool 2.0.
  
  
• Blocklist, Allowlist, and No List
  • You can prevent the Cloud Connector from uploading data for specific managed systems by adding the managed systems to the blocklist. The Managed System Blocklist area lists the managed systems that are blocklisted.
    
    
  • You can specifically allow the Cloud Connector to upload data for specific managed systems by adding the managed systems to the allowlist. The Managed System Allowlist area lists the managed systems that are allowlisted. Allowlist requires HMC Version 10.1.1020 or later.
    
    
  • No List disables both of the managed system filter types and shows data for all managed systems.
    
    
  • Only one of Blocklist, Allowlist, and No List can be in effect at a time.
    
    
• The new diagvdcconn command allows you to display Data Collector diagnostic information.

Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform Requirements

The following Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform for Power Premium Subscriptions procured from IBM, with required features included, are eligible to be shared as base capacity, and are available as pay-per-use metered capacity resources in a Power Enterprise Pool 2.0:

5639-OCP: Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform for Power with 1, 3, or 5 year Premium Subscription features or Premium Subscription/Red Hat Support features (Note: Standard subscription features are not supported as Shared Utility Capacity resources.)

In a Power Enterprise Pool, base capacity resources may be shared across systems within a pool. Red Hat OCP Base subscription entitlement for each system is set to the number of cores entitled by the current, valid subscription for that system.

Metered capacity resources above the base capacity of a pool are activated, available for use, and charged by the minute when used.

All systems expected to share Base Red Hat OCP subscription entitlement resources within a pool must have the same Red Hat OCP subscription product and any add-on features.

To enable a client's Red Hat OCP subscriptions as base and metered capacity resources within a Power Enterprise Pool 2.0, in addition to any new PID 5639-OCP subscription orders, IBM or a Business Partner Sales teams must also place a single order on one system in the pool for Product ID 5799-OC2 and include i-listed PRPQ P91343.

Note: If the PRPQ is not initially ordered and installed on a system within a pool, OpenShift resources will not yet be enabled.

Linux® subscription entitlement is monitored and metered independently of processor activations. Metered capacity charges for minutes of Red Hat OCP use exceeding a pool's base of respective subscription entitlement are charged by the minute, similar to AIX or IBM i operating system minutes.

The HMC must be at Version 10.1.1010, or later. Additionally, you need an active RMC connection from the HMC to each logical partition that is running Red Hat OCP.

DigiCert Global Root G3 certificate error

HMC versions HMC942 and later include the issuer certificate DigiCert Global Root G3 in the trust store by default.  However, older HMC versions do not include this issuer certificate.  If you receive a certificate chaining error for DigiCert Global Root G3, you have two options:

• Update the HMC to a supported level.
• Get the certificate updated by opening a support ticket.

See the HMC support page (https://esupport.ibm.com/customercare/flrt/liteTable?prodKey=hmc) for the levels that are currently in support.

Requirement for new portals

New CMC portals that are requested after this release (CMC version 1.17.0) require the following minimum HMC versions to establish a successful connection from the HMC to CMC:

• V9 R2 M952.3 or later
• V10 R1 M1011.3 or later
  
  

Testing PowerVS API Keys

After you have configured PowerVS API keys as described in Configuring-Virtual-Server-PowerVS-APIs, you can click Test Connection to immediately the test connection to the PowerVS service from CMC.