Integrity VM for Dummies?

[squirrel_2]

Hi,

yesterday I received my shiny new 11.31 September 08 release and installed the DCOE. Now I want to get started with Integrity VM (IVM), but this seems to be a bit more advanced than VMware usage. :-)
Strolling through various documentation I found some inconsisties or missing points, where the documentation skips some information.

Example:
http://docs.hp.com/en/T2767-90141/ch02s01.html

It says that inhibitors to installing IVM is the HP System Insight Manager (HP SIM) Server bundle.
But this is automatically installed with the DCOE, same as IVM.

If I understand everything correctly, I need additional software for graphical management of IVM. I suppose this is HP VSE.
But for this VSE I need HP SIM, to get it displayed.
And I need an additional machine, as IVM and SIM do not work on the same machine.
My second machine is PA-RISC and SIM needs JAVAOOB.
But this is not possible, as JAVAOOB modifies kernel parameters and I suppose that my other software (which has a fine-tuned kernel) won't work anymore.

You see, I'm running round in circles.

Documentation is widely available, that's not the point.
It would be more interesting to have a diagram how each piece of software is connected to each other and which program has which requirements.

Is there anything like a "Best Practice" for Integrity VM?

Thanks in advance.

[melvyn burnard · Accepted solution]

First of all, the HP SIM software must not be installed, this affects only the Central Management Server (CMS) software, not the managed systems software. You shoul dde-select this software at installation time.

Secondly, to use the Virtual Machine Manager Web GUI, you do NOT need SIM.
The server should also have System Management Homepage (SMH) installed by default, and if the Integrity Virtual Machines Manager (VMMGR) Graphical User Interface (GUI) which â plugs-inâ to the System Management Homepage is desired, you need to install it from the Application Release media. The GUI is installed with the bundle â VMMGRâ and does not require a reboot.
System Management Homepage (SMH)should be installed by default, and SMH replaces SAM at 11.31

[Tim Nelson]

Unless there have been major enhancements with the VM Gui you will not be impressed. Ability to configure WLM (Work Load Manager) was all that it could do last time I looked.

Command line is always the way to go !!
Read the admin guides !!

[Dennis Handly]

>as JAVAOOB modifies kernel parameters and I suppose that my other software (which has a fine-tuned kernel) won't work anymore.

I doubt that JAVAOOB's changes would break other applications, if anything it may make them larger.

[Olivier Masse]

There are lots of interesting documents on docs.hp.com, including a best practices one.

But if you're come from the ESX world chances are you won't be impressed. Integrity VM is at least 4 years behind VMware: no VMotion (but it is coming soon, I know for fact), and the System Management Homepage-based GUI really sucks.

There are some advantages of IVM vs. ESX since HP-UX has some strong management tools (SMH is not one of them) but it takes an experienced HP-UX administrator to harness all their power. For example, you can do the equivalent of a Storage VMotion when using LVM as a data store.

That being said, here are my thoughts:

1. Use IVM 4.0 even if it just came out recently. At least you'll have the benefit of a built-in MPIO.

2. The most flexible backing store is probably LVM, but to take full avantage of it you need to be familiar with it. If you're not familiar with LVM, you're probably better with raw disks.

3. Don't be fooled by the fact that VMWare uses flat files as a datastore. When using it with Integrity VM, even when optimizing the filesystem as recommended, it gets slow under intense I/O. You'll be happier putting them under AVIO. For less-intense VMs, file datastores are probably a good choice since they're easy to use, copy and move around.

4. There's an advantage of IVM against ESX: Using the CLI you have a lot of control under the hood (from my perspective, anyway, when compared to ESX and especially ESXi). The GUI, while not terrific, is a good way to learn the CLI since it shows you each CLI equivalent.

5. Since you have DCOE, consider configuring OVPA to gather performance data for your VMs, and you'll be able to extract performance metrics you could only dream of with ESX. There's a whitepaper on this on docs.hp.com. If you have OVPM, it will be even better.

6. The p2v script is really basic when compared to VMWare converter. I don't use it and prefer doing a cold install.

7. The first time I used ESX, I've been up and running in a matter of minutes. Their tools are easy to use. IVM took me more time since I had to read all the documents.

Good luck