Skip to Main Content
IBM Power Ideas Portal


This portal is to open public enhancement requests against IBM Power Systems products, including IBM i. To view all of your ideas submitted to IBM, create and manage groups of Ideas, or create an idea explicitly set to be either visible by all (public) or visible only to you and IBM (private), use the IBM Unified Ideas Portal (https://ideas.ibm.com).


Shape the future of IBM!

We invite you to shape the future of IBM, including product roadmaps, by submitting ideas that matter to you the most. Here's how it works:

Search existing ideas

Start by searching and reviewing ideas and requests to enhance a product or service. Take a look at ideas others have posted, and add a comment, vote, or subscribe to updates on them if they matter to you. If you can't find what you are looking for,

Post your ideas
  1. Post an idea.

  2. Get feedback from the IBM team and other customers to refine your idea.

  3. Follow the idea through the IBM Ideas process.


Specific links you will want to bookmark for future use

Welcome to the IBM Ideas Portal (https://www.ibm.com/ideas) - Use this site to find out additional information and details about the IBM Ideas process and statuses.

IBM Unified Ideas Portal (https://ideas.ibm.com) - Use this site to view all of your ideas, create new ideas for any IBM product, or search for ideas across all of IBM.

ideasibm@us.ibm.com - Use this email to suggest enhancements to the Ideas process or request help from IBM for submitting your Ideas.

Status Future consideration
Created by Guest
Created on Oct 27, 2021

HMC backup image tool creation on physical HMC appliance

The current backup utility in the HMC requires the base image to be installed before attempting a restore. Depending on the version there may be prerequisite patches that need to be installed before running the restore which adds further complexity to the process. Restores may also fail needing IBM support to recover the install.

This is less than ideal for remotely managed HMC's where the recovery image would need to be mounted and restored which is reliant on a fast connection to mount the image and a working BMC virtual console display which is reliant on Java. Failing this an onsite visit is required to perform the recovery incurring further costs and time.

I propose the ability to take a backup image of the console to quickly recover from an issue without the need of a fresh install and restore. This would be good to have an option to save to USB/network share/FTP and perhaps even a separate recovery partition on the disk for basic installs where little user data is present.

It would be a powerful tool if a backup image could be taken of the drives on the server in the HMC GUI and a utility in the BMC GUI could restore the image in the event recovery is required.

Idea priority Medium