Integrity rx8640 Server - Lots of questions......

[Gene Laoyan]

I have a ton of questions I need answers to. We a going to purchase the Integrity 8640 this month and need some answers.
So here it goes.....
Question 1:
When using VSE and within a "Hard Partition", is it possible to have different flavors of operating systems within it. i.e. Can we have a virtual server of Win2003 and Linux and Unix all running within the single "Hard Partition".

Question 2:
How does VSE handle/store each Guest OS? As a Single File? Multiple files?

Question 3:
How does VSE handle each Guest OS on storage as the Guest OS increases/Decreases in size? I know as it increases, the Guest's storage files will increase. Will the Guest Files decrease if files -within- the Guest OS is deleted? If not, what is the process of "Shrinking" the Guest OS dynamically if possible? If you can't do it dynamically, can it be scripted? If so, do you have an example script?

Question 4:
This one is to further clarify. We were told this was not possible.
Assume you have multiple Hard Partitions, 4 of them, and you are running Service Guard.
3 are hosting only Windows machines and the last hosts only Unix/Linux.
If a hardware failure occurs on the Unix/Linux, can it fail over to one of the other "Hard Partitions"

Question 5:
Assume you have multiple Hard Partitions, and on each one, the base is Virtual Server Environment can you load different virtual servers with difrent OS ie: one win 2003 one Linux and so on. If we can and a hardware failure occurs will Service Guard fail the affected hard partition over to one of the other hard partitions.

Question 6:
Backup of Virtual Machines. When a virtual machine is up and running, it is assumed that the files for the virtual server are locked. For backup purposes, will the virtual server be required to be powered off to backup the virtual machine?

Question 7:
Backup of Virtual Machines. Is there a method to do a "Live" backup of a virtual machine while it is "online"? Is it possible to use Veritas Backup?

Question 8:
Recovery of Virtual Machines. Is it simply a copying of the Virtual machines files to the original location.

Question 9:
Assume 4 Hard partitions. In one hard partition you have 4 virtual partions for 4 Windows 2003 Servers. One of the servers has a "runaway process" taking 99.9% of cpu utilization on that hard partition. Is there a method/setting for a virtual machine to "Cap" cpu utlization so that the other virtual machines dont starve?

Last but not least, is there a product simulater of your HP-UX 11i and the Virtual Server Environment Suite that we can test with while we wait for the red tape to be cut for our purchase.

Thanks

[Ted Buis · Accepted solution]

Q1 - At the moment, within a hard partition, you can only have HP-UX or Windows or LINUX, but not all three. However, in the future this will change once Integrity Virtual Machines (IVM) supports more than HP-UX. This is not likely to happen until the second half of 2006, but you should check with your HP rep. IVM plans to support all three within a hard partition in the future.

Q2 - You need to look at what you are using in VSE, IVM or vPars as they are different. vPars works just like a regular OS with dedicated I/O paths and boot disk for the partition. Look for the white papers on IVM http://h71028.www7.hp.com/enterprise/cache/262803-0-0-0-121.html

[Ted Buis]

Q3 - see response to Q2.

Q4 - ServiceGuard deals with application packages, not operating system instances. The application will start up on the designated failover instance, which can be on another physical server in the cluster, another hardware partition in the same box or another OS instance within the same hard partition if you so choose. Applications move go to another running OS. The application IP is part of the package that migrates. It sounds like you need a little tutorial on how SG really works. Again, there are probably some white papers that explain that, but it might be a bit much for this forum.

[Ted Buis]

Q5 - As before, SG doesn't monitor OS instances and move them, but application packages move from one OS instance to another OS instance which is already running, which could be anywhere. SG doesn't support Windows, only LINUX and HP-UX. You would need to us Windows Clustering, but today, only one instance of Windows (and no other OSs) can run in a hard partition. Today only one instance of LINUX (and no other OSs) can run in a hard partition. So each would need two hard partitions to support any high availability solution. We will have to wait and see what is supported for high availability with LINUX and Windows once IVM supports them in the future. In theory, SG could handle the LINUX and HP-UX and Windows Clustering (Enterprise or DataCenter Edititons) could give you what you desire, but only if this is supported.

[Ted Buis]

Your on-line backup options wouldn't change for a guest instance. You can run Veritas from within the Guest OS or over the network the same as any phyical box OS instance. True there is an added dimension for capturing the OS from the outside, but there are no solutions for that yet that are on-line (while the Guest OS is running). I don't think that will ever happen since there is no need, since existing on-line backup techniques work from within the Guest OS.

[Ted Buis]

"Last but not least, is there a product simulater of your HP-UX 11i and the Virtual Server Environment Suite that we can test with while we wait for the red tape to be cut for our purchase."

Whoa! This forum gets responses from other HP customers trading information and is not an HP Sales function. I don't work for HP, and neither do most of the people who would reply here. IVM is a possible component part of VSE, so be careful in the use of your term VSE.

Q9 - IVM supports resource allocation and capping for CPU and I think I/O and memory as well, so yes, IVM supports this.
See also, http://h71028.www7.hp.com/enterprise/cache/262377-0-0-0-121.html

[Gene Laoyan]

Big thanks for your answers. We had no idea IVM was an option. Our reseller did not even mention it.

[Ted Buis]

Also, remember that Windows 2003 Server EE for Itanium is great for MS SQL, but not all other application are supported since Itanium has a different native instruction set from x86 or x86-64. For example, it can't run MS Exchange. Your reseller should be able to check application availability on Itanium for all three operating systems. Support for HP-UX applications within an Integrity Virtual Machine should also be verified. The same will be true for LINUX and MS Windows when they are supported as a guest OS within IVM, but those are still future directions from HP.

[Gene Laoyan]

What insight do you have for SQL 2005 running as a VM in a nPar? We are signing up for "Early Adopters" to beta test the new VSE/IVM for Windows support. Is DTS really not supported in the 64Bit version of SQL?

[Ted Buis]

Sorry, but I have no experience with SQL in an IVM instance. However, SQL works great natively on Windows on Itanium (Integrity). What else do you plan to run within that same nPar (hard partition?