HPUX server consolidation.

[senthil_kumar_1]

Hi All,

We are using HPUX 10.20, 11.00 and 11.11.

We have configured HP Integrity Virtual Machines in new 6600 server.

Now we would like to create virtual machines in that and like to move current physical server in to that.

I have some questions?

1) What are the main things, we have to concentrate before moving the physical server to virtual server.

2)what are the criticality that we will face when moving physical server to virtual server.

[Pete Randall · Accepted solution]

I think you're going to study the software version requirements. If I recall correctly, you will not be able to support multiple version of HP-UX on your virtual machines, so you're going to have a huge migration from your current environment to the new releases.


Pete

[Steven E. Protter]

Shalom,

1) Having enough physical memory and boot devices to configure these systems. I would want a boot device, some disk space, and 2-4 GB of RAM for each HPVM system I set up. More if its a heavy duty system doing a lot of work.

The rx6600 has a large memory capacity and a large number of SAS disks. It can do a fairly large amount of work. I would if you really plan a big consolidation on having as many CPU's as the system can handle.

2) Memory, CPU availability and perhaps disk I/O. I do not recommend booting systems of a SAN. If you use a SAN I'd want a fairly large number of HBA's in the system to avoid bottlenecks on disk I/O.

SEP

[Torsten.]

You can use HP virtual machines, but keep in mind:

OS minimum version is 11.23!

impossible to run 10.20, 11.00 or 11.11!

[Pete Randall]

Oops!

Make that "need to study". Sorry.


Pete

[Torsten.]

Pete: "you will not be able to support multiple version of HP-UX on your virtual machines"

Not 100% correct, you can mix 11.23 and 11.31; additionally you can run linux and windows in virtual machines.

[Tingli]

I think SAS is good for the root disks for guest servers as performance is not that critical for root file system.

[Steven E. Protter]

I thought it was fairly obvious that there would be a migration from 10.20 11.00 and 11.11 to 11.23

Maybe not.

All applications will have to be migrated and in some cases data will have to be converted.

SEP

[UVK]

Long story in short, You will have to do a detailed capacity planning for the current system and asses their requirements. Once accessed co-ordinate with you apps and DB team to forcast the furture resource utilizations. Once you have those look for your 6600 and see if that can server with enough resources. Also consider interdependies and criticalities of each server as your base machine will be a single point of failure(depends on your hardware and power redundancies).

- UVK

[Pete Randall]

Thanks, Torsten! I had a nagging doubt that I might be mixing VPars truisms in where they didn't belong.

But there are going to be version issues and much migration work, either way.


Pete

[TTr]

Aside the version issue which is already mentioned, you need to look at each physical server that can potentially be virtualized and get fairly good estimates for each resource specifically number of cpus, memory and storage. Server with high demand for any of the 3 resources should NOT be virtualized. Then you total up all the resources add about 10%-30% more for extra resources and compare that to what the rx6600 has. You also need to estimate peak loads for each server (physical or virtual) and for each resource and ensure that there is minimum overlapping of the periods with peak loads. One last think you need to account for any i/o intensive server and ensure you separate the i/o as much as possible.

[senthil_kumar_1]

Hi All,

I need some sample documents about server consolidation.

[Patrick Wallek]

That's a very broad topic.

Have you tried: http://google.com

http://www.google.com/search?q=server+consolidation

[OldSchool]

"I need some sample documents about server consolidation."

What kind of documentation are you looking for? As far as I know, there isn't a "cookbook" for this.

also, based on the OSes currently in use, and the prior responses, you are facing (potentially) a massive upgrade in OSes and applications. It would appear that you're going to need to move *everything* to at least 11.23 prior to trying to virtualize this.

Additionally, the hardware that is running 10.20 (and maybe 11.0 may not support anything newer than 11v1 or 11.11 as support for some cards (PCI / SCSI???) for older hardware dropped out in the later versions.

So, you're going to need to:
* verify what OSes the current hardware has and can support.
* verify what OSes / hdw the current apps are supported on
* if you can't migrate to a sufficiently new OS on that hardware, locate/install suitable hardware.
* Install later OS on hardware
* Migrate apps and date to the new hdw / OS combination.
* then begin thinking about virtualization.

I don't know about you, but that list gives me a headache just thinking about it, and doesn't even begin to cover consolidation on virtual server(s).

[Mel Burslan]

By means of "I need some papers" you need document to support server consolidation efforts to your upper management, contact your HP account Support Engineer and ask them to provide a management targeted session for your bigwigs, explaining the benefits of server consolidation.

When it comes to selling more and newer servers, there is nothing that HP sales department can't do, provided your company is big enough to worth their while. Whenever there is a new product, release or anything like that, without us, asking it from them, they bring it up and offer to present it to all concerned departments. Your best bet might be this path.

[Steven E. Protter]

Shalom,

Documents:
http://www.docs.hp.com/en/12063/vPars_Intro_WP.pdf

http://docs.hp.com/hpux/pdf/5185-4322.pdf

http://docs.hp.com/en/5992-5804/ch02s06.html

All three documents cover the topic of server consolidation.

SEP