An open source replacement for the IBM Hardware Management Console — providing full LPAR lifecycle management, live partition migration, hardware monitoring, and a REST API across a POWER estate, with complete source auditability.
Enterprise POWER deployments depend on a hardware management console to manage logical partitions, hardware resources, and system firmware across one or more servers. Today that function is served by a closed appliance — one that does not permit user software installation, command-line access, or source-level audit — creating a single point of vendor dependency in otherwise well-understood POWER infrastructure.
Regulated industries increasingly require source-level auditability of all management plane software. No open source management console for POWER-class systems currently exists.
The Open Management Console (OpenHMC) project fills that gap: a full-featured LPAR management platform built on libvirt, OpenBMC, and standard Linux infrastructure — capable of managing a POWER estate on OPAL-based systems, with a documented API surface designed for multi-vendor extensibility.
OpenHMC is scoped to provide feature parity with today's enterprise management console requirements:
OpenHMC is designed as a layered system, with each layer independently replaceable and auditable:
| Feature | IBM HMC | OpenHMC v1.0 | OpenHMC v2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|
| LPAR create / modify / delete | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| CPU and memory allocation | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Live Partition Mobility | ✓ | Phase 2 | ✓ |
| Shared processor pools | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Hardware monitoring | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Firmware update management | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Hardware service events | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| REST API (HMC-compatible) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Ansible/Terraform integration | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| AIX / IBM i guest management | ✓ | Out of scope | Out of scope |
| Multi-system federation | ✓ | Phase 2 | ✓ |
| Auditable source code | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Multi-foundry deployable | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ |
AIX and IBM i guest management requires proprietary PowerVM firmware. OpenHMC targets Linux guests on OPAL-based systems (including the OpenCore processor). Adapter work for IBM FSP-based commercial systems is Phase 2.
Published API design, hardware abstraction layer spec, and libvirt extension requirements. Month 4.
LPAR lifecycle management, CPU/memory allocation, power control, and REST API on OPAL systems. Month 12.
Cockpit-based dashboard: LPAR topology view, resource utilization charts, hardware event log. Month 16.
KVM live migration across OPAL-based hosts, coordinated through OpenHMC. Month 20.
Full v1.0 feature set, third-party security audit, Ansible collection, Terraform provider. Month 28.
Federation across multiple managed systems, Live Partition Mobility GA, capacity planning reports. Month 36.
Regulated industries face a fundamental conflict: they are required by frameworks including DORA (Digital Operational Resilience Act), NIS2, FFIEC IT Examination Handbooks, and emerging national AI governance standards to demonstrate control over their critical infrastructure software stack. The IBM HMC — a closed appliance managing their most critical compute systems — cannot satisfy source-level auditability requirements that auditors are increasingly raising.
OpenHMC is designed with regulatory compliance as a primary requirement, not an afterthought:
OpenHMC operates under OPF project governance with a Technical Steering Committee seated from Founding Members and at-large contributors. The project will establish an Operations Advisory Board of regulated industry representatives to guide compliance feature prioritization — ensuring the project stays aligned with what auditors, risk officers, and regulators are actually asking for.
