topic Re: HPIMV limits? in Operating System - HP-UX

HPIMV limits?

Doug O'Leary — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 16:01:42 GMT

Hey;

I'm reading through the limits on the HP Integrity Virtual Machines and some of the verbiage has me a bit confused and I was hoping to confirm what I believe it's saying:

The doc says:

maxiumum number of vnics per virtual switch =## with 1 recommended for optimal performance

and

maximum number of vnics per virtual machine = ## with 1 recommended for optimal performance

Are both of those saying that only 1 virtual nic is recommended for optimal performance?

Thanks in advance.

Doug O'Leary

Re: HPIMV limits?

Patrick Wallek — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 17:03:43 GMT

Which manual and what page are you on?

Re: HPIMV limits?

Doug O'Leary — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 17:30:08 GMT

Hey;

Thanks for the response. It's an internal HP share point and the description states it was "extracted from customer HPVM documentation". I'm working on some documentation for one of HP's clients.

That being said, it looks like I will have to go get the full blown docs as the client is also asking what the difference between VIO and AVIO is and I only have a very superficial knowledge of that <sigh>

Thanks again

Doug O'Leary

Re: HPIMV limits?

Dave Olker — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 18:04:11 GMT

Hi Doug,

I'm not sure how much detail you need on the differences between AVIO and VIO other than AVIO is a much more efficient and paravirtualized I/O stack compared to VIO. Another really important point - VIO is being obsoleted so we're strongly encouraging EVERY HP customer to move away from VIO as quickly as possible and adopt AVIO.

One other point - with vPars v6, the AVIO stack is improved further still over the Integrity VM v4.3 AVIO stack, making it more efficient and result in lower virtualization overhead.

Hope this helps,

Dave

Re: HPIMV limits?

Stan_M — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 19:30:35 GMT

Hi. I believe I know what shrepoint you speak about...

If you consider what the info tells you - if you want to have optimal performance dedicate one vNIC/one vswitch to each guest - it makes sense, doesn't it?

For VIO vs AVIO - VIO is emulation of standard HW - it uses the normal HW driver and this allows to run unmodified OS (without any HPVM specific drivers) but at cost of higher overhead.

The next version of HPVM will support AVIO, which provides performance benefits as it's designed with

knowledge of the virtauliazation platform, only so they choice and recommendation is obvious especially

if the AVIO drivers are now part of OS just like the HW drivers.

Regards

Stan

Re: HPIMV limits?

Doug O'Leary — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 19:57:13 GMT

hey;

Thanks; that's what I thought, but I wanted the confirmation.

Thanks again.

Doug