HP Integrity Virtual Machines

Infobox Software
name = HP Integrity Virtual Machines



caption = Integrity VM 3.5 running a variety of guests
developer = Hewlett-Packard
released = 2005
latest release version = 4.0
latest release date = September 2008
latest preview version = 4.1
latest preview date = March 2009
programming language = C and Itanium Assembly language
operating system = HP-UX, Linux, Windows, Open VMS
platform = HP Integrity and other Itanium platforms supporting HP-UX
language =
status =
genre = Virtual machine monitor
license = Proprietary
website = [http://www.hp.com/go/integrityvm HP Official Web Site for Integrity VM]

Integrity Virtual Machines is software from Hewlett-Packard that allows multiple virtual machines to run concurrently on any Itanium server running HP-UX, notably the HP Integrity line. It is part of HP's Virtual Server Environment suite.

The product is optimized for server use.

History

The prototype of Integrity Virtual Machines was developed between 2000 and 2003 by Christophe de Dinechin, Todd Kjos and Jonathan Ross [http://rogue.colorado.edu/EPIC7/ItaniumVirtualMachines.pdf] [ [http://www.ice.gelato.org/about/apr07_presentations.php#pres75 Presentations—Gelato ICE | San Jose | April 2007 :: About :: Gelato ICE ] ] . It was then turned into a full-fledged product by a larger team of experienced Open VMS, Tru64 Unix and HP-UX kernel engineers.

* Version 1.0 and 1.2, released in 2005, ran HP-UX in virtual machines.
* Version 2.0, released in November 2006, additionally supports Windows Server 2003, CD and DVD burners, tape drives and VLAN.
* Version 3.0, released in June 2007, supports Linux Red Hat Enterprise Linux [ [https://www.redhat.com/apps/isv_catalog/AppProfile.html?application_id=4633 redhat.com | Application Profile Display ] ]
* Version 3.5, released in late 2007, supports SUSE Linux Enterprise Server [ [http://developer.novell.com/yes/92318.htm HPVM 3.5 ] ] , HP-UX 11i v3 guests, new service packs for Windows and Linux guests, and accelerated virtual I/O for HP-UX guests [ [http://docs.hp.com/en/T2767-90150/ch01s01.html New Features and Enhancements in This Version of Integrity VM ] ] , enabling better I/O performance and a larger number of devices.
* Version 4.0, released in September 2008, runs on HP-UX 11.31 (also known as 11i v3), supports 8 virtual CPUs, capped CPU allocation (in addition to CPU entitlement as in previous releases), additional support for accelerated virtual I/O (AVIO), and a new VM performance analysis tool. Version 4.0 also includes beta functionality such as on-line migration and support for OpenVMS guests.

Support for other flavors of Linux, as well as for OpenVMS is expected in later releases. Release 4.1 is planned for 2009 and will offer full support for on-line guest migration.

Capabilities

Exact specifications depend on the precise version and system configuration.
* The host configurations are the same as those supported by HP-UX, and can include 128 physical processors and 1TB of main memory.
* More than 250 guests can run concurrently, although the optimal number is generally lower, depending on host memory and processor configuration.
* Guests can have multiple virtual CPUs, the maximum number in supported configurations being 4 with releases before 4.0, and 8 with release 4.0.
* Guests can be configured with up to 64G of memory. In recent releases, memory can be adjusted dynamically for HP-UX guests.
* Virtual devices can be added or removed dynamically. The number of virtual devices allowed in supported configurations depends on the release. Versions after 3.5 support up to 30 virtual devices, or up to 158 when accelerated virtual I/Os are used.
* The CPU allocation for virtual machines can be adjusted dynamically with a granularity of 1%. CPU time is allocated by a fair-share scheduler, which delivers better CPU utilization for SMP guests than a more simplistic gang scheduler.

User interface

Integrity Virtual Machines can be created and managed using a command line interface or a graphical user interface accessed using a web browser.

Essential commands include:

* hpvmcreate to create virtual machines
* hpvmstatus to display status information
* hpvmstart and hpvmstop to start and stop virtual machines
* hpvmmodify to modify existing virtual machines
* hpvmconsole to simulate a hardware console
* hpvmmigrate to perform on-line or off-line guest migration
* hpvmsar to show performance information about the running guests.

The user interface is integrated in the HP Integrity Virtual Machines Manager [ [http://docs.hp.com/en/T2786-90062/ch04s04.html HP Integrity Virtual Machines Manager ] ] .

References

See also

* Comparison of virtual machines

External links

* [http://www.hp.com/go/integrityvm Product description] at Hewlett-Packard
* [http://rogue.colorado.edu/EPIC7/ItaniumVirtualMachines.pdf Architecture overview]
* [http://docs.hp.com/en/T2767-90150/index.html Release note for version 3.5]
* [http://docs.hp.com/en/vse.html HP Virtual Server Environment]
* [http://docs.hp.com/en/T2767-90024/ch06s02.html Configuring HP Integrity VM Storage]