symphonygrid — IBM Spectrum Symphony on OpenShift Virtualization

A Windows compute grid that stops being a fleet of pets. IBM Spectrum Symphony runs exactly as IBM supports it — full Windows Server compute hosts, RHEL management hosts, the documented installer and port matrix — on a substrate that clones a new compute host from a golden image in minutes and can burst across clouds. One platform runs containers and VMs side by side; one custom component bridges the grid to it.

The whole idea in one picture

golden-image-loop

Why it matters

  • Modernise the platform, not the workload. Symphony 7.3.2 Advanced Edition installs unchanged — full Windows Server compute hosts, RHEL management hosts, the traditional installer, the documented port matrix. Nothing about the grid itself is repackaged.

  • Elastic by construction. A new compute host is a golden-image clone, not a procurement cycle — reclone-to-Running has measured at roughly 2-3 minutes on this build.

  • One control plane for containers and VMs. OpenShift Virtualization runs the Windows compute fleet next to any containerized workload already on the cluster, reconciled by the same GitOps app-of-apps model.

  • Exactly one custom component. The Host Factory KubeVirt provider — a five-script plug-in interface IBM documents for this purpose, with open-source prior art (FINOS Open Resource Broker, google/symphony-gcp) implementing the identical contract elsewhere. Every other layer in the design is a vendor-supported product.

  • Honest about the trade. Windows Server 2019 is the only supported guest until Advanced Edition BYOL restores Fix Central access; the KEDA-driven burst demo is not grid-aware; the eval entitlement this build runs on expires 2026-12-31.

Where to start

You want to…​ Go to

See the pain this replaces

The problem

See the thesis and the alternatives it beats

The solution

See the measured numbers

Business outcomes

Find out which pages matter to your role

Who uses what

Walk a workload submission

UC1: submit a workload

Walk a cloud burst

UC2: burst to cloud

See the full topology

Architecture

Read the component-by-component detail

Components

Check phase status and traps hit so far

Install phases