PYXIS II: End of Support for Virtualization

This document provides information about the end of support for virtualization on the PYXIS II specification.

This decision is based on three main factors:

• The implementation and standardization of Side Channel Mitigations (SCM) on PYXIS II, which are security measures that protect against various types of attacks that exploit the physical characteristics of processors. SCM significantly affects the performance of virtualized environments, especially environments that are not optimized for SCM.
• The release of the 2024 Software and Firmware Upgrade Package for the PYXIS II, which introduces new features and enhancements that further reduce the compatibility and performance of virtualized environments.
• The compatibility issue between PYXIS II and older operating systems. PYXIS II is a PCIe 4.0 compliant system, which means it natively supports devices that use the PCIe 4.0 serial computer expansion bus standard at their intended bandwidth. However, older operating systems may only support devices which are PCIe 3.0 compliant. This means that users who run these operating systems on a virtualized environment on PYXIS II will not be able to use the full potential of their hardware.

As a result of these factors, we have decided to end support for virtualization on PYXIS II by December 31st, 2024. This means we will no longer provide updates, patches, or technical support for virtualization on PYXIS II after this date.