Designing High-Availability for Xen Virtual Machines with HP Serviceguard for Linux

SG/LX 11.19 now provides support for monitoring an application running on a Xen Virtual Machine.

The application monitoring feature ensures that applications running on a Xen VM are controlled and

monitored so that in case of a failure, the application is restarted or an entire VM is brought down

and failed over to other node.

A reasonable expertise in the installation and configuration of Xen server on x86_64 platforms and

familiarity with its capabilities and limitations is assumed.

It is also assumed that the reader is familiar with Serviceguard for Linux. Any special issues arising out

of changes due to the Xen environment are discussed in following sections.

Note: Except as noted in this whitepaper, all the Serviceguard for Linux configuration options

documented in the Managing HP Serviceguard for Linux manual are supported for Xen hosts, and all

documented requirements apply. You can find the latest version of the manual at http://docs.hp.com

Æ High Availability Æ Serviceguard for Linux.

Support requirements

The requirements for configuring highly-available Xen virtual machines with Serviceguard for Linux

are:

• Serviceguard for Linux A.11.18.02 or later

• HP ProLiant or non-HP x86_64-based server certified with Serviceguard for Linux

• A Linux distribution certified with Serviceguard for Linux that supports Xen virtualization

technologies on the selected platform – specifically, one of:

o Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Update 1 and Update 2

 Note: Xen Release 3.0 supported by Red Hat and SG/LX on RHEL5-x86_64

platforms. However SG/LX configuration to provide HA for VMs on RHEL5-

Xen based-HP Integrity server platform is not supported.

o SUSE Linux Enterprise Server Service Pack 1 and Service Pack 2

 Note: Xen Release 3.0 is supported by Novell only on x86_64 platforms

Citrix XenSource is not currently supported.

Note: For the most recent list of servers and storage, Linux distributions and hypervisors certified for

use with Serviceguard for Linux, see the Serviceguard for Linux Certification Matrix, available at

www.hp.com/go/sglx/info

Xen Host (Dom0) Configuration

For detailed documentation on Xen installation see either the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Virtualization

Guide [6] or Xen Installation section of the SUSE Linux 10 Reference Guide [5].

Xen Dom0 Installation and Configuration on x86_64 platforms

The installation procedure for Xen involves the setup of a domain-0 domain and the

installation of Xen clients.

Before you install Xen, SLES10 SP1 or SP2 or RHEL5.1, 5.2 must be installed on the machine.

Refer to RHEL5 Deployment Guide [8] or SLES10 Deployment Guide [10] for OS Installation.