Migrate HPVM guest from 4.0 to 4.3

[StefanoC]

Hello,

 i have a metrocluster HP-UX 11.31 with HP Integrity VM B.04.00 installed , over there there are some guests running (A.04.00 Integrity VM Guest installed) as serviguard packages.

My question is, it is possible to migrate guests from a VM host with 4.0 to a new VM host where i have installed latest version of HPVM (B.04.30 Integrity VM)? Or i have to upgrate all my old nodes to 4.3 and only after migrate guests to new machines?

Thanks

Stefano

[Cortes Albertino]

Hello,

Unfortunately not directly.

Please have a look to Page 180 of the following document, migration supported paths are listed.
You also need to pay attention to HP-UX guest OS support levels too( see releases notes chapter 11).
So you will need to perform some upgrade steps first.

Please have look to page 180

HP Integrity Virtual Machines 4.3: Installation, Configuration, Administration (5900-1712, April 2011)

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/CoreRedirect.jsp?redirectReason=DocIndexPDF&prodSeriesId=4146186&targetPage=http%3A%2F%2Fbizsupport1.austin.hp.com%2Fbc%2Fdocs%2Fsupport%2FSupportManual%2Fc02793352%2Fc02793352.pdf

and to chapter 11 

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/CoreRedirect.jsp?redirectReason=DocIndexPDF&prodSeriesId=4146186&targetPage=http%3A%2F%2Fbizsupport1.austin.hp.com%2Fbc%2Fdocs%2Fsupport%2FSupportManual%2Fc02752983%2Fc02752983.pdf

Hope it helps,

Albertino

[Steven E. Protter]

Shalom,

The migration is done on the host system.

You perform the software update. This requires a reboot. There are dependencies to deal with. HP SIM version 6 upgrade is usually required if you are using HP SIM.

The upgrade should be performed with the guest systems down.

In general while performing this upgrade no changes at all were required to guest systems, in an environment that mixed Windows,Linux and HP-UX guests. Note that Windows Server 2003 support only goes to HPVM version 4.20 and Windows Server 2008 support begins in version 4.30 of HPVM. I have managed to get both stable in 4.20 but that configuration is not supported.

You should have no trouble at all if your environment is HP-UX guests.

SEP

[StefanoC]

Hi,

 thanks for your replay , so i will upgrade my host systems and after that i will migrate guest , fortunately we have only HP-UX guests.

just another question , all my HP-UX guests (HP-UX 11.23) are configured with Logical Volume Backing Stores, i would like to migrate from lvol to storage device.

Could you please suggest me the best way to perform it?

Thaks a lot

Stefano

[Eric SAUBIGNAC]

Bonsoir,

On the migration process

In your initial post I understood that you want to migrate your existing VMs to new boxes. All of them are HP-UX 11iv2. Right ?

1) 11.23 OE release in the guests :

Be aware that HPVM 4.00 supports 11iv2 guests from September 2006 through December 2007, but HPVM 4.30 supports only 11iv2 guests December 2007. Depending on the OE installed in the guest you might have to upgrade them to run in a supported configuration. It will work with an older release than the 11iv2 December 2007 one, but you won't be in the green zone :smileywink:

2) The migration process itself :

I understood that your target are new boxes. So I don't see any interest in migrating the sources boxes. More, in my mind, I find it a bit dangerous to migrate existing boxes, and if you can avoid it's better. In a general way I prefer installing a new HP-UX version from scratch than migrating. IMHO.

If you can't use the hpvmmigrate command, because the soure host is HPVM 4.00 and the target host is HPVM 4.30, where is the problem ? Just create the VM on the target host with the same virtual harware, stop the VM on the source box, start it on the new one, then install latest guestlibs. Of course it is not so simple but the idea is there.

An other point to take in account is the layer @ which MCSG is configured : do you have a "Guest as a package" or a "Guest as a node" configuration ?

LVM backing store

The problem with this kind of virtual disk is that it is not portable : you have a LVM layer in the guest over a LVM layer in the host ... :smileysad: So the only solution is to copy data. In a few words you must attach new devices as raw devices to the VM, create the appropriate LVM configuration in the VM then copy datas to the new filesystems.

There is only one configuration where you could imagine to move, that is from LVM backing store to raw device backing store : if you have mounted in the guest, directly, the disk device files with no LVM layer. Something like this :

/dev/dsk/c2t6d0    245760000 94749984 149830320  39% /u6
/dev/dsk/c2t5d0    81920000  2898816  78404216    4% /u5
/dev/dsk/c2t3d0    32768000  12400424 20208464   38% /u3
/dev/dsk/c2t2d0    10240000  224568   9937248     2% /u2
/dev/dsk/c2t1d0    20480000  6087640  14281888   30% /u1

So, in this configuration, and only in this configuration, you could envisage to :

- stop the VM

- from the host remove the LV from the guest, exports the VGs, attach the corresponding disks to the VM

- start the VM, then import the VG and correct the configuration.

( also discussed in http://h30499.www3.hp.com/t5/Virtualization/Share-data-between-a-physical-server-and-Integrity-Virtual/td-p/4797882 )

The problem, in all the cases, will still be vg00 in the guest. An ignite or DRD process will be necessary for the guest  to fully relies on raw devices

Eric

[StefanoC]

Thanks Eric for your replay,

 all my guests are 11.23 with december 2007 bundle intalled :

swlist |grep 2007
  HWEnable11i                           B.11.23.0712.070 Hardware Enablement Patches for HP-UX 11i v2, December 2007
  OnlineDiag                            B.11.23.10.05  HPUX 11.23 Support Tools Bundle, December 2007

My MCSG is configured as "Guest as a package" and if i have to reinstall only latest guestlibs your suggestion to configure new MCSG with the same virutal HW is perfect for me, it was also my initial idea.

Unfortunatly i have all my vg00 as LVM backing store so for migrate it to a persisten it is no simple, my idea , for the future, is to add a new disk to a VM as persisten device , mirror vg00 and unmirror the old LVM disk but i have more than 50 VM and it is a very long procedure.

Thanks a lot

Stefano

[Eric SAUBIGNAC]

Bonjour Stefano,

Unfortunately, applying latest patche bundles is not enough. The HP-UX kernel itself must be a December 2007 kernel.

  HPUX11i-OE-MC   B.11.23.0609   HP-UX Mission Critical Operating Environment Component
  HPUXBaseAux   B.11.23.0609   HP-UX Base OS Auxiliary
  HPUXBaseOS   B.11.23        HP-UX Base OS 
  HWEnable11i   B.11.23.0706.064 Hardware Enablement Patches for HP-UX 11i v2, June 2007 
  QPKAPPS   B.11.23.0706.064 Applications Quality Pack Bundle for HP-UX 11i v2, June 2007
  QPKBASE   B.11.23.0706.064 Base Quality Pack Bundle for HP-UX 11i v2, June 2007

In this example (non HPVM environment) the HP-UX kernel is 11iv2 September 2006 and patch bundles ares June 2007. Imagine one moment that HP-UX 11iv2 June 2007 would be supported in a HPVM Guest, the configuration shown above would still be unsupported, though patche bundles are June 2007.

And yes, using mirror-ux is also a good idea to migrate vg00 from LVM backing store to raw devices.

Regards

Eric