Confused about virtualization in vPars V6.1 and Integrity VM

[Mr Phil Rigby]

Hi. Having read through the release notes and admin guide for vPars v6.1, I am more confused about the virtualisation offered in vPars v6.1. It used to be the case that vPars were simply a way of carving up physical hardware within an nPar but now it seems vPars allow the ability to virtualise I/O with similar methods to those previously used in Integrity VM. I understand that vPars still use dedicated physical cores and memory but I now really am not sure whether I can use vPars for production systems with very high levels of I/O. Will they cope and what is the best I/O strategy to use in such situations. Anyone who can clarify all this or point me to a paper that does this would be a great help. I didn't see any white papers myself which covered what I'm trying to understand.

[Dave Olker]

Hi Phil,

At last month's HP Discover conference, I presented a session on Integrity VM & vPars v6.1 where I explained the similarities and differences between these products, as well as explained many of the performance differences between the two.  I ran numerous I/O benchmarks on both products and presented the results along with an explanation of why vPars outperformed VM.

Bottom line, vPars (especially with Direct I/O) offers near native I/O performance and CPU utilization, even during heavy I/O workloads.  I just checked the Discover Online website and confirmed that my presentation materials are available there for download if you want to learn more about this.

Regards,

Dave

[Mr Phil Rigby]

Hi Dave. Your presentation sounds like it could be just what I'm after. Can you supply a direct link to it please. On networking in vPars, am I  right in thinking that a vPar's network connectivity must always be virtualised now? You seem to have to define the vswitches or is there still an option to have complete native control of a NIC from within a vPar? I really am not sure where HP are going with the merger of Integrity VM and vPars. The differences are becoming very blurred with 6.1.

[Dave Olker · Accepted solution]

Phil,

The slides are posted on the Discover Online site.  If you don't have access to that site or prefer a cleaner (larger) version of the deck, send me an email and I'll reply with a PDF version of the deck.

In answer to your question, with vPars v6.1 you can use either shared networking, where you create a virtual switch just like with HPVM, or you can use Direct I/O, where you assign a specific NIC or NIC port (depending on the manufacturer of the NIC device) to a vPar.  With Direct I/O the NIC/port is directly controlled by the vPar and not shared.

Regards,

Dave

dave.olker@hp.com

[Mr Phil Rigby]

Thanks Dave, the presentation was very helpful and clarified which deployment scenarios are best served by Integrity VM and which by vPars, which was just what I was after.