Best Practices for Integrity Virtual Machines

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Best Practices for Using Integrity Virtual Machines

Introduction ...................................................................................................................................3

Basics – Read This First ................................................................................................................3

Take Advantage of HP-UX on the Host................................................................................................4

System Management and Security..................................................................................................4

Workload Management...............................................................................................................4

Instant Capacity..........................................................................................................................4

Monitoring.................................................................................................................................5

Virtual Machine Definition................................................................................................................6

Create Virtual Machines Conservatively..........................................................................................6

Uniprocessor Virtual Machines are More Efficient than Virtual SMPs.................................................6

Use Physical Memory Wisely.....................................................................................................6

Getting the Most from Virtual I/O......................................................................................................7

Virtual Mass Storage ...................................................................................................................7

General Flexibility ...................................................................................................................9

Flexibility vs. Performance.......................................................................................................10

Storage Management and Fault Tolerance.................................................................................11

Using Multi-Path Technologies with Integrity VM..........................................................................12

Managing Virtual Storage on the VM Host.................................................................................12

Stripe Disks On the Host Where Possible...................................................................................13

Summary..............................................................................................................................13

Virtual DVD..............................................................................................................................13

Performance .........................................................................................................................13

Ease of Use..........................................................................................................................13

Summary of content (19 pages)

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Best Practices for Using Integrity Virtual Machines Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 3 Basics – Read This First ................................................................................................................ 3 Take Advantage of HP-UX on the Host................................................................................................ 4 System Management and Security........
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Getting the Most From Virtual DVD ........................................................................................... 14 Virtual Networking .................................................................................................................... 15 Reliability and Performance ..................................................................................................... 15 Adding Network Capacity .......................................................................................
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Introduction As is the case with any relatively new technology, there are a lot of questions surrounding basic use of that technology, tips on how to get the most out of that technology, and common pitfalls for the new user. This white paper provides an assortment of guidelines for deploying one or more virtual machines (VMs) with the Integrity Virtual Machines product. The scope of this white paper is limited to the Integrity Virtual Machines product, also referred to simply as Integrity VM.
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Take Advantage of HP-UX on the Host The Integrity VM software includes the HP-UX 11i Foundation Operating Environment (OE) which executes on the Integrity Server used to host virtual machines. Having the HP-UX 11i Foundation OE on the VM Host provides all of the basic HP-UX functionality including HP system management tools as well as a typical UNIX environment. Moreover, the VM Host supports the same devices and peripherals as any other Integrity Server running HP-UX 11i.
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Monitoring Since each VM is manifested as a UNIX process running on the VM Host, the physical resources – including CPU, I/O, etc. – consumed by a given VM can be identified by monitoring the process associated with that VM. These processes have the executable name hpvmapp and typically have the option –d whose argument name is the name of the VM. For example, the process with command ‘hpvmapp –d vm01’ corresponds to the virtual machine named ‘vm01.
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Virtual Machine Definition Create Virtual Machines Conservatively Once you begin to define a virtual machine, it is very tempting to create it as large as possible – it’s all virtual hardware, right? While it is true that a VM uses virtual hardware, there are some repercussions to creating it with more virtual hardware than it needs. Uniprocessor Virtual Machines are More Efficient than Virtual SMPs Generally speaking, uni-processor systems are more efficient than multi-processor systems.
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Getting the Most from Virtual I/O Virtual Mass Storage Given the availability of so many storage technologies and means of securing them, the versatility of Integrity VM mass storage provides a multitude of options. However, there are scenarios where some of these options are not prudent. In general, the best I/O performance for VMs is obtained by mapping virtual disks directly to entire physical disks (or LUNs corresponding to SAN storage).
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Figure 3 – Mapping large capacity virtual mass storage to files adds complexity and is not recommended unless it simplifies system management and administration.
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General Flexibility When considering which type of storage to use – file, logical volume, disk, or partition – on the VM Host, flexibility is an issue that may be of great importance in your VM configuration. Logical volumes, created with VxVM or HP’s LVM, are easy to extend, import, or export. Each of these actions may be applied on the VM Host to logical volumes serving as virtual disks – provided the VM using those logical volumes has been shut down and powered off.
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Flexibility vs. Performance The various mass storage options for Virtual Machines each have a unique set of benefits. Virtual hard disks using files on the VM Host provides flexibility in sharing physical storage and the convenience of managing files on a UNIX system. Mapping a virtual hard drive directly to an entire physical disk (or LUN) provides the best performance, eliminating the overhead of moving I/O transactions through the volume management subsystem and/or file system on the VM Host.
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Storage Management and Fault Tolerance Arguably one of the most powerful technologies in Integrity VM is its capability to use multiple entities – files, logical volumes, disks, etc. – as virtual mass storage (virtual hard drives) for VMs. As mentioned earlier, standard HP-UX tools can be used to manage storage on the VM Host. The same is true for fault tolerant strategies and solutions. RAID strategies, such as mirroring, should be done on the host.
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Figure 6 – Data protection on the VM Host protects virtual mass storage and is easier than repeating it on each VM VM VM VM VM MIRROR Integrity VM Host Using Multi-Path Technologies with Integrity VM Logical volumes as virtual disks provide high availability since they have multi-path and mirroring capability built in. You also get a choice between LVM (PVlinks) or VxVM (DMP) which allows further flexibility. However, the VM Host has only one multi-path option for disks – Secure Path.
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easiest to set up because they are typically already set up on the VM Host and they typically only require insf to create a device file for them to be used as virtual storage for a VM Logical volumes are fairly easy to manage with SMH and other tools. Administrators accustomed to setting up separate logical volumes are already familiar with such tools. The logical volume should be used in raw format – creating a file system there is a waste of time.
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with explicitly bus, device, and target arguments (see the hpvmcreate and hpvmmodify commands for more details). Getting the Most From Virtual DVD Mapping virtual DVD drives to files is a powerful tool in deploying software on virtual machines. This is especially true for software that requires multiple disks for installation. To illustrate efficient use of virtual DVD functionality, consider the following example. Suppose that a VM Host will be hosting multiple virtual machines running Windows Server.
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Virtual Networking Reliability and Performance The HP Auto Port Aggregation (APA) product may be used on the VM Host to provide high availability for virtual networking. This is accomplished by defining your virtual switch(es) in terms of the port created by APA (for example, lan900) rather than the LAN numbers associated with the physical network interface cards (NICs).
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Leverage Existing Topologies The topology of existing configurations is, typically, created for good reason. This may be more important for networking than for other devices. For example, if existing servers have two network connections – one for general use and another for backups then take care when virtualizing those connections as illustrated in Figure 7. Carelessness in configuring them can result in serious performance (and perhaps functionality) problems that did not previously exist.
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Figure 8 - Leverage existing topologies wherever possible, configure virtual switches to emulate subnet connections for functionality and map virtual NICs accordingly.
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Tuning Virtual Machines for Applications For any given application, the operating system hosting that application may need some tuning so that the application delivers the best functionality and performance for that operating system and server configuration. The specific tuning information is typically provided by the software vendor or, in some cases the hardware (or operating system) vendor.
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For more information HP-UX System Management Utilities – www.hp.com/go/systemmanagement HP’s Virtual Server Environment – www.hp.com/go/vse GlancePlus and other OpenView software – managementsoftware.hp.com/products/gplus © 2007 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services.