HP-UX vPars and Integrity VM V6.3 Administrator Guide

3.7.2 Applications not recommended
DO NOT run other applications on the VSP regardless of whether Integrity VM guests or vPars are
running. Examples of applications that should not be run on the VSP are: Oracle, Workload
Manager (WLM), HP SIM, and so forth. HP-UX vPars and Integrity VM V6 installation modifies
kernel parameters, making the system unsuitable for running applications.
HP also does not recommend configuring VSP as a Ignite UX server.
3.7.3 Applications specific recommendations
The following are the recommendations on running certain applications:
Backup solutions for VSP and virtual environment backups
Backup solutions such as HP Data Protector or Veritas NetBackup can be used on both the VSP
system and the vPars and Integrity VM systems. Consult the support matrix of such products for
supported versions. Install the backup (client) agents on the VSP and the vPars and Integrity VMs.
HP highly recommends that the /var and /opt directories, in addition to the standard locations,
be backed up regularly on the VSP system. Do not use the VSP system as a backup server. For
more information, see the HP-UX 11i v3 Installation and Update Guide.
HP GlancePlus to monitor virtual environments
You can use Glance on the VSP to monitor vPars or VM data, but recorded measurements can be
misleading. Glance receives the CPU accounting information from the vPars or VM kernel. Because
the VSP can take the vPars or VM processor away (for example, when a hardware interrupt occurs),
the time spent running other vPars or VMs is reported for the state that the vPars or VM was in at
the time the CPU was taken away. For more information about using Glance, see glance(1M).
Glance 4.6 or later is supported running on a VSP or vPars or VM; however, certain measurements
might be applicable in a particular context or report limited results. For example, measuring CPU
utilization on the VSP reports all the time spent running in vPars or VMs as "system time"; to receive
"user time" or "nice time" for a given vPars or VM, you must run Glance in those vPars or VM.
Similarly, memory-related faults, or system calls for vPar or VM are not visible from Glance running
in the VSP. Glance also offers a number of virtualization-related measurements. Note that Glance
refers to virtual environments as logical systems.
HP Instant Capacity with Integrity VM guests
In an Integrity VM environment, Instant Capacity software provides meaningful functionality only
on the VSP; it does not run on a VM (also known as a guest). In particular, Instant Capacity
commands report an error if you attempt to run the commands on a VM guest. You can neither
run a GiCAP Group Manager on a guest nor can specify a guest in the host list for a GiCAP group
member.
In the case of vPar, Instant Capacity commands are supported on the VSP OS. However, on the
vPar OS, you cannot execute Instant Capacity commands directly to activate or deactivate the
cores. For an activation operation, first activate the cores on the VSP OS using the icapmodify
command and then run the vparmodify command to complete the activation of the cores on the
vPar OS. Similarly, for a deactivation operation, run the vparmodify command on the vPar OS
and then run the icapmodify command on the VSP OS.
iCAP commands issued from the OA activate or deactivate cores only in the VSP. The vparmodify
command must be run in the VSP to move the core to and from a vPar. If there is only one core in
the VSP and the remaining cores are assigned to vPars, a deactivation request from the OA fails.
TiCAP is consumed after the core is active in either the VSP or vPar. If TiCAP is being used, to stop
consuming TiCAP, you must deactivate the core from the vPar and the VSP.
42 Configuring VSP