Strategies for Replicating HP-UX 11i Virtual Systems onto Physical and Virtual Integrity Servers

Integrity Virtual Machines’ hpvmclone and hpvmmigrate Tools
Two tools – hpvmclone and hpvmmigrate – are provided with the Integrity VM product that may be used for
system replication, but are not solutions by themselves. The hpvmclone command duplicates the configuration
of a given virtual machine on the same Integrity VM Host system. The new system will be identical in all
aspects, including its virtual CPU attributes, memory size and functionality, and I/O configuration. The
duplication of I/O configuration performed by hpvmclone does not generally include the copying of the
source system’s storage. To stress that point, it’s worthwhile to note that the clone’s virtual I/O devices map to
the same logical I/O devices.
Integrity VM prevents the startup of two VMs that use the same logical storage devices. As a result, the clone
VM cannot start until either the source system is shut down or the clone’s storage I/O configuration is modified.
From a practical perspective, the source system’s storage must be replicated by one of the methods discussed
above or some other means before the clone can start.
The hpvmmigrate tool allows a virtual machine to be moved from one physical VM Host system to another.
There are two basic variations to VM migration – offline and online. In either case, the virtual machine is being
moved from one physical system to another. The virtual machine is not duplicated, that is, it is not replicated
onto the target system by hpvmmigrate.
Combining these two tools with a method of system image deployment provides a solution to system replication
when the source and target systems are both Integrity Virtual Machines.
Summary
By leveraging the system software available on HP Integrity systems, you can clone virtual machines running
HP-UX onto both virtual and physical Integrity systems. Multiple options are available for cloning and
replication whether LAN or SAN connections between your source and target systems exist or not.