HP Integrity Virtual Machines 4.2: Installation, Configuration, and Administration

Guests are fully loaded, operational systems, complete with operating system, applications,
system management utilities, and networks, all running in the virtual machine environment that
you set up for them. You boot and manage guests using the same storage media and procedures
that you would if the guest operating system were running on its own dedicated physical
hardware platform. Even the system administration privileges can be allocated to specific virtual
machine administrators.
One way to benefit from Integrity VM is to run multiple virtual machines on the same physical
machine. There is no set limit to the number of virtual machines that can be configured, but no
more than 256 virtual machines can be booted simultaneously on a single VM Host. Each virtual
machine is isolated from the others. The VM Host administrator allocates virtual resources to
the guest. The guest accesses the number of CPUs that the VM Host administrator allocates to
it. CPU use is governed by an entitlement system that you can adjust to maximize CPU use and
improve performance. A symmetric multiprocessing system can run on the virtual machine if
the VM Host system has sufficient physical CPUs for it. Figure 1-1 illustrates how an HP-UX
system and a Windows system can be consolidated on a single Integrity server. The HP-UX boot
disk is consolidated onto the same storage device as the VM Host boot disk and the Windows
guest storage. The Windows guest also has access to removable media (CD/DVD) that can be
redefined as necessary.
Because multiple virtual machines share the same physical resources, I/O devices can be allocated
to multiple guests, maximizing use of the I/O devices and reducing the maintenance costs of the
data center. By consolidating systems onto one platform, your data center requires less hardware
and management resources.
Another use for virtual machines is to duplicate operating environments easily, maintaining
isolation on each virtual machine while managing them from a single, central console. Integrity
VM allows you to create and clone virtual machines with a simple command interface. You can
modify existing guests and arrange networks that provide communication through the VM
Host's network interface or the guest local network (localnet). Because all the guests share the
same physical resources, you can be assured of identical configurations, including the hardware
devices backing each guest's virtual devices. Testing upgraded software and system modifications
is a simple matter of entering a few commands to create, monitor, and remove virtual machines.
Integrity VM can improve the availability and capacity of your data center. Virtual machines
can be used to run isolated environments that support different applications on the same physical
hardware. Application failures and system events on one virtual machine do not affect the other
virtual machines. I/O devices allocated to multiple virtual machines allow more users per device,
enabling the data center to support more users and applications on fewer expensive hardware
platforms and devices.
1.2 New Features and Enhancements in This Release
The features in the following list have been included in this release of Integrity VM:
• HP-UX 11i v3 VM Host — HP-UX 11i v3 1003
• HP-UX 11i v3 guests — HP-UX 11i v3 0709, 0803, 0809, 0903, 0909, and 1003
• HP-UX 11i v2 guests — HP-UX 11i v2 0712 to 0806
• New guests supported with this release are:
— HP-UX 11i v3 1003
— Windows Server 2008 (also know as Windows Server 2008 SP1)
• Automatic memory reallocation for memory balancing.
• Storage Reporting tool with VM Host and guest view for HP-UX guests.
• VMs as Serviceguard Packages and VMs as Serviceguard Nodes software and documentation
enhancements.
• Encryption during migration.
• Optimal memory allocation for autoboot.
18 Introduction