HP Integrity Virtual Machines Installation, Configuration, and Administration

platform. Even the system administration privileges can be allocated to specific virtual machine
administrators.
One way to benefit from Integrity VM is to run multiple virtual machines on the same physical
machine. There is no set limit to the number of virtual machines that can be configured, but no
more than 256 virtual machines can be booted simultaneously on a single VM Host. Each virtual
machine is isolated from the others. The VM Host administrator allocates virtual resources to
the guest. The guest accesses the number of CPUs that the VM Host administrator allocates to
it. CPU use is governed by an entitlement system that you can adjust to maximize CPU use and
improve performance. A symmetric multiprocessing system can run on the virtual machine if
the VM Host system has sufficient physical CPUs for it. Figure 1-1 illustrates how an HP-UX
system and a Windows system can be consolidated on a single Integrity server. The HP-UX boot
disk is consolidated onto the same storage device as the VM Host boot disk and the Windows
guest storage. The Windows guest also has access to removable media (CD/DVD) that can be
redefined as necessary.
Because multiple virtual machines share the same physical resources, I/O devices can be allocated
to multiple guests, maximizing use of the I/O devices and reducing the maintenance costs of the
data center. By consolidating systems onto one platform, your data center requires less hardware
and management resources.
Another use for virtual machines is to duplicate operating environments easily, maintaining
isolation on each virtual machine while managing them from a single, central console. Integrity
VM allows you to create and clone virtual machines with a simple command interface. You can
modify existing guests and arrange networks that provide communication through the VM
Host's network interface or the guest local network (localnet). Because all the guests share the
same physical resources, you can be assured of identical configurations, including the hardware
devices backing each guest's virtual devices. Testing upgraded software and system modifications
is a simple matter of entering a few commands to create, monitor, and remove virtual machines.
Integrity VM can improve the availability and capacity of your data center. Virtual machines
can be used to run isolated environments that support different applications on the same physical
hardware. Application failures and system events on one virtual machine do not affect the other
virtual machines. I/O devices allocated to multiple virtual machines allow more users per device,
enabling the data center to support more users and applications on fewer expensive hardware
platforms and devices.
1.2 Running Applications in the Integrity VM Environment
The VM Host system runs the Integrity VM software, which is responsible for allocating processor
and memory resources to the running guests. The VM Host system can run physical resource,
performance, and software management and monitoring tools. To allow the VM Host to allocate
resources to the virtual machines, do not run end-user applications, such as database software,
on the VM Host system. Instead, run them on virtual machines.
Typical software you can run on the VM Host system includes the following:
• HP-UX 11i V2 Foundation Operating Environment (FOE)
NOTE: The HP-UX FOE and license is included with the Integrity VM media so that you
can install and run Integrity VM on the VM Host system. For HP-UX guests, you must
purchase separate HP-UX FOE licenses.
For information about the software that is required on the VM Host system, see Chapter 2
(page 21).
• Software installation tools (Ignite-UX and Software Distributor-UX)
• Hardware diagnostic and support tools to monitor guests (WBEM, online diagnostics, Instant
Support Enterprise Edition [ISEE])
16 Introduction