Best Practices for Integrity Virtual Machines

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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.
When deploying an application on a virtual machine, the operating system running on the virtual
machine should be tuned for that application as recommended by the software or hardware
vendor. The operating on the VM Host should not be tuned for that application – it is already
tuned for best VM performance. Moreover, the application is running on the VM’s operating
system, not that of the VM Host.
For example, suppose a database application is installed on a virtual machine with HP-UX 11iv2.
Then the HP-UX installation on the VM should be tuned for that database application as per
recommendations for its use with HP-UX 11iv2 on HP Integrity Servers. The VM Host’s operating
system should not be tuned for the database application – after all, the application is not running
on that operating system.