HP Integrity Virtual Machines: Difference between revisions
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==History== |
==History== |
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[[Christophe de Dinechin]] initiated a skunkworks project to virtualize Itanium, with the help of [[Jean-Marc Chevrot]] and of a "virtual team" of experienced HP engineers. A prototype of Integrity Virtual Machines was then developed between 2000 and 2003 by [[Christophe de Dinechin]], [[Todd Kjos]] and [[Jonathan Ross (Integrity Virtual Machines)|Jonathan Ross]]<ref>http://rogue.colorado.edu/EPIC7/ItaniumVirtualMachines.pdf</ref><ref>[http://www.ice.gelato.org/about/apr07_presentations.php#pres75 Presentations—Gelato ICE | San Jose | April 2007 :: About :: Gelato ICE<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>. It was then turned into a full-fledged product by a larger team of experienced [[OpenVMS]], [[Tru64 Unix]] and [[HP-UX]] kernel engineers. |
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* Version 1.0 and 1.2, released in 2005, ran [[HP-UX]] in virtual machines. |
* Version 1.0 and 1.2, released in 2005, ran [[HP-UX]] in virtual machines. |
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Revision as of 10:09, 9 December 2009
| File:IntegrityVM.png Integrity VM 3.5 running a variety of guests | |
| Developer(s) | Hewlett-Packard |
|---|---|
| Initial release | 2005 |
| Stable release | 4.0
/ September 2008 |
| Preview release | 4.1
/ March 2009 |
| Written in | C and Itanium Assembly language |
| Operating system | HP-UX, Linux, Windows, OpenVMS |
| Platform | HP Integrity and other Itanium platforms supporting HP-UX |
| Type | Virtual machine monitor |
| License | Proprietary |
| Website | 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
Christophe de Dinechin initiated a skunkworks project to virtualize Itanium, with the help of Jean-Marc Chevrot and of a "virtual team" of experienced HP engineers. A prototype of Integrity Virtual Machines was then developed between 2000 and 2003 by Christophe de Dinechin, Todd Kjos and Jonathan Ross[1][2]. It was then turned into a full-fledged product by a larger team of experienced OpenVMS, 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[3]
- Version 3.5, released in late 2007, supports SUSE Linux Enterprise Server[4], HP-UX 11i v3 guests, new service packs for Windows and Linux guests, and accelerated virtual I/O for HP-UX guests[5], 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.
- Version 4.1, released in April 2009, supports Online VM Migration which allows customers to migrate active guests from one VM Host to another VM Host without service interruption. It also provides support for SSH third-party alternatives for secure communications, accelerated virtual I/O (AVIO) for networking on Windows and Linux guests, support for ignite and VxVM backing stores.
Support for other flavors of Linux, as well as for OpenVMS is expected in later releases.
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 cores 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:
hpvmcreateto create virtual machineshpvmstatusto display status informationhpvmstartandhpvmstopto start and stop virtual machineshpvmmodifyto modify existing virtual machineshpvmconsoleto simulate a hardware consolehpvmmigrateto perform on-line or off-line guest migrationhpvmsarto show performance information about the running guests.
The user interface is integrated in the HP Integrity Virtual Machines Manager[6].