Technical white paper Realize new workload migration and consolidation possibilities Upgrade your vPars to HP-UX vPars and Integrity VM v6 Table of contents Introduction Intended audience Glossary 3 3 3 An overview of HP-UX vPars and Integrity VM 6.
Post migration steps Confirm successful vPar boot and data visibility Update applications and I/O paths as necessary Conclusion 16 16 17 18
Introduction The Mission-Critical Converged Infrastructure is the foundation for the next decade of computing. The newest line of HP Integrity systems combines years of trusted HP Integrity resiliency with HP BladeSystem efficiencies.
An overview of HP-UX vPars and Integrity VM 6.1 HP-UX vPars and Integrity VM 6.1 is a combined product that enables you to run either Virtual Partitions version 6.1 (vPars v6.1) or Integrity VM version 6.1 (but not both at the same time). For the purpose of this document, it is assumed that the migration being considered is from “legacy” vPars, either the firmware-based Superdome 2 virtual partitions (v5), or software-based v5 vPars on cell based systems to vPars v6.1.
Assumptions • This is a legacy vPars to HP-UX vPars v6.1 upgrade; no VMs are involved • The upgrade is to optimize for low overhead, occasionally at the expense of flexibility • These assumptions imply that Fibre Channel ports will be configured using NPIV as virtual HBAs (vHBAs) wherever possible. Prerequisites and limitations Software dependencies The software dependencies for HP-UX vPars and Integrity VM 6.
Process overview • • • • • • • • Review the new capabilities available on HP-UX vPars v6.
Review the Virtual Partition command changes The following changes have been made to the vPar commands. Please review these changes and make any necessary adjustments to your system administration scripts and procedures that are necessary: • As of v6.1, all commands must be executed from the VSP. No vPar commands are available from the individual vPars. As a result of this, there is no need for secure administration command options for the vPars. • As of v6.
Plan the new system Determine I/O types This is more than simply counting the number of I/O ports or cards used in the current environment. Since many of the currently shipping I/O cards are significantly faster than those supported by the legacy cell-based servers, and it is possible with vPars v6.1 to allocate the ports on a multi-port card to different vPars, and to actually share physical ports, you probably will not need as many I/O cards on the new system as you have on the old one.
app2 2 4 GB 1 DVD install.
Generate commands for creating the new vPars and infrastructure In order to create a vPar from table 2, use the vparcreate command for each row, with command line parameters based on the table cells as follows: • vPar Name: – p {name} • Cores: – a core::{number} • RAM: – a mem::{megabytes} • FC ports: if you have configured your VSP to work with GUIDMGR, then for each of the required virtual HBAs, add – a hba:avio_stor::npiv:/dev/fcdN where /dev/fcdN is the device file of the physical Fibre Channel por
Command: vparcreate –p my_vPar –a core::2 –a mem::4096 \ –a dvd: avio_stor::file:/images/install.iso vparmodify –p my_vPar –a hba:avio_stor::npiv:/dev/fcd1 vparmodify –p my_vPar –a network:avio_lan::vswitch:recovLAN vparmodify –p my_vPar –a network:avio_lan::vswitch:dbLAN \ –a network:avio_lan::vswitch:mgmtLAN The next example covers a vPar with no sharable LANs (other than an internal-only LAN), but with one LAN to be assigned directly to it: Table 4.
Operation : None CPU Count: 0 Status: [Authorized Administrators] Oper Groups: Admin Groups: Oper Users: Admin Users: [Remote Console] Remote Console Ip Address: Remote Console Net Mask: [IO Details] hba:avio_stor:0,0,0x50014C2000000007,0x50014C2800000007:npiv:/dev/fcd0 hba:avio_stor:0,1,0x50014C2000000008,0x50014C2800000008:npiv:/dev/fcd1 network:avio_lan:0,2,0xcaffe3509779:vswitch:recovLAN:portid:1 network:avio_lan:0,3,0xcaffe350977a:vswitch:heartbeat:portid:1 network:avio_lan:0,4,0xcaffe350977b:vswitch:d
CPU Count: 0 Status: [Authorized Administrators] Oper Groups: Admin Groups: Oper Users: Admin Users: [Remote Console] Remote Console Ip Address: Remote Console Net Mask: [IO Details] hba:avio_stor:0,0,0x50014C200000000a,0x50014C280000000a:npiv:/dev/fcd0 dvd:avio_stor:1,0,0:file:/images/install.
The example contains the summary vPar configuration output (vparstatus) which is useful for sanity checks: • the verbose output (vparstatus –v) verifies that the I/O has been properly configured • the vparnet output makes sure all of the virtual LANs are as expected • the vparhwmgmt output shows how many resources are reserved for use by the VSP. Provision virtual partitions Once the VSP is up and the virtual partitions have been created, provision each vPar with an OE, applications, and data.
Validating that the old disks can be updated and reused • Integrity server disks only, not PA-RISC servers • Supported storage • 11i v3 to start with Overview of the DRD method The overall approach used here is to create a DRD clone on an older “source” system, modify it to support the new “target” system model, and move it to the new target system.
Overview of the Ignite-UX recovery method The overall approach used here is to deploy an Ignite-UX recovery archive of the HP-UX instance running on older hardware, called the source system, to the new system, called the target. The recommended steps detail the upgrades and changes that must be accomplished on the source system prior to creating the recovery archive, on the Ignite-UX server after the recovery archive is created, and during boot of the target system.
If you wish to boot from an Ignite-UX server, then boot the vPar to EFI and create a dbprofile with the following command: Shell> dbprofile –dn mybootprofile –sip {IP_address_of_ignite-server} -cip {IP_address_of_vPar} -gip {IP_address_of_gateway} –m {network_mask} -b “/opt/ignite/boot/nbp.
Conclusion With the release of HP-UX vPars v6.1, take advantage of the new, faster, and more efficient servers from HP and the benefits of the mission-critical Converged Infrastructure while keeping the cost savings of virtualization. Consider whether it makes sense to migrate your workloads to the new bladed architectures. For more information Get a more in-depth overview of Virtual Partitions version 6.1 by visiting hp.com/go/vPars. Get connected hp.
