Power Modes
Starting with IBM Hardware Management Console (HMC) version 11.1.1110.0, power management capabilities have been enhanced with the introduction of a new power mode for Power11 systems, expanded configuration options, and advanced scheduling features.
A new menu entry titled “Power Modes” is available under the system menu for any managed system.
The Power Modes page displays all supported power modes for the selected system. The list of available modes may vary depending on the system's hardware and firmware capabilities.
This page provides a link to the environment dashboard.
POWER 11 introduce a new mode called Energy Efficient, which replaces the earlier Dynamic Performance mode. This mode is designed to optimize power utilization dynamically based on system conditions, such as idle CPU cores, lower workloads, and favourable thermal environments.
For POWER 11 systems, a new Custom mode has been introduced. In this state, no predefined power mode is actively selected. Administrators can manually select any available power mode to transition the system out of the Custom state and apply the desired power configuration.
Idle Power Saver (IPS) support has been extended to allow runtime modification of tunable parameters through the HMC UI, contingent upon the mode being enabled at the system firmware level. Enabling IPS requires prior configuration via the Advanced System Management Interface (ASMI).
Support for dynamic tunable parameters has been introduced specifically for POWER 9 systems. When the Dynamic Power Saver mode is selected, the new UI enables users to modify these parameters directly. The available tunable options are illustrated in the figure below
Partition level Energy metrics
With the HMC 11.1.1110.0 version, users can see an enhanced version of environmental dashboard which includes energy metrics on a partition level and also provides historical data for the power mode
The tooltip in the graph now includes the power saving mode set in the HMC allowing users to co-relate changes in environmental metrics with changes in power mode set during that time frame.
Partition level metrics
The table below the graph lists all the partitions and Virtual IO Server with their corresponding environmental metrics.
Power usage trends
Power usage trend of the partition for the selected period of time. The time frame picked for the graph would be applicable to this trend as well.
OS type
OS type of the partition.
Current energy usage (watt-hour)
Total energy usage of the partition for the past 5 minutes.
Total energy usage (watt-hour)
Total energy usage of the partition for the selected time frame. By default, this would be last 4 hours.
Current carbon footprint (gms CO2 e/hr)
Average Carbon footprint over the last 5 minutes.
Total carbon emissions (gms CO2 e)
Total carbon emissions for the selected time frame, by default, the last 4 hours.
Easier Scheduling
Power mode scheduling has been enhanced with HMC V11.1.1110.0 . Users can now configure power mode schedules through the dedicated Schedule Dashboard. Additionally, the Power Modes panel introduces support for recurring schedules, allowing users to quickly define weekly scheduling windows. The intuitive UI enables users to create, pause, and delete recurring weekly schedules with ease.
Unlike the Schedule Dashboard, Recurring Schedules allow users to define a specific time frame during which a selected starting power mode is applied. By default, the system reverts to Maximum Performance mode upon exiting the scheduled window. User can choose the return mode,
The scheduling time frame can be fine-tuned down to the minute. This functionality is built on top of the existing scheduling framework within the Hardware Management Console (HMC) and these schedules are persisted on the Hardware Management Console (HMC).
Quick CLI Commands
To wrap up, here are a few useful HMC CLI commands that can be used to query and modify power modes on a managed system. These commands provide administrators with quick access to power management functions, enabling automation and script-based configuration outside of the UI.
To get the supported power for a specific system managed by the HMC.
lspwrmgmt -r sys -m <system-name> -F supported_power_saver_mode_types
To modify the current power saving mode to “efficient_favor_power”
chpwrmgmt -m <system-name> -r sys -o enable efficient_favor_power
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