HP Matrix Operating Environment Software - Manual (Page 7)

1 Introduction
This document helps you understand and use HP Integrity Virtual Server Manager.
The audience for this document includes system administrators and others responsible for maintaining
an Integrity VM and resources. You must be familiar with the HP Integrity VM (Integrity VM) product
and HP-UX system administration using either HP SMH or HP Systems Insight Manager.
This chapter provides an overview of HP Integrity Virtual Server Manager and the product that it
manages, HP Integrity Virtual Machines (Integrity VM). This chapter also lists the basic management
tasks you can perform using Integrity Virtual Server Manager.
HP Integrity VM
HP Integrity Virtual Machines (Integrity VM) is a soft partitioning and virtualization technology that
enables you to create multiple software-controlled Itanium-based VMs or vPars within a single HP
Integrity server, Integrity blade, or nPartition. The Integrity server or nPartition acts as a VSP for
the VMs or vPars (VMs or vPars are also called guests). The VSP is a platform manager. It manages
hardware resources such as memory, CPU allocation, and I/O devices, and shares them among
multiple VMs or vPars. The VSP runs a version of the HP-UX operating system and can be managed
using standard HP-UX management tools. HP Integrity VM 4.0 and later runs on HP-UX 11i v3
only. Version 3.5 runs on HP-UX 11i v2 only.
The VMs or vPars share a single set of physical hardware resources, yet each VM or vPar is a
complete environment in itself and runs its own instance of an operating system (called a guest
OS). For a vPar, CPU and memory are not shared with other vPars. As with a real machine, the
VM or vPar contains:
•
At least one processor core, also referred to as a CPU
•
Memory
•
Disks
•
Networking cards
•
A keyboard
•
A console
•
Other components of a computer
All these elements are virtual (for vPar, CPU and Memory are not virtual), meaning that they are
at least partially emulated in software rather than fully implemented in hardware; however, to the
guest OS they appear as if they are real, physical components.
A guest OS cannot access memory allocated to another guest OS. One VM or vPar is not affected
by software events on another VM or vPar, such as faults or planned software downtimes. Integrity
VM optimizes the utilization of hardware resources, quickly allocating resources such as processor
cores, memory, or I/O bandwidth to the VMs or vPars as needed. Any software that runs on
supported versions of HP-UX can run in an Integrity VM virtual machine or virtual partition. No
recompiling, recertification, or changes are required for applications to run in a guest OS.
Applications run in the guest OS as they do on any operating system.
The operating systems supported on guests vary from version to version of HP Integrity VM. For
information about supported VM or vPar operating systems, see the version of the HP-UX vPars
and Integrity VM Administrator Guide manual that corresponds to the version of HP Integrity VM
being used.
HP Integrity Virtual Server Manager
HP Integrity Virtual Server Manager is the GUI that you can use from your browser to manage
Integrity VM resources. Integrity Virtual Server Manager allows you to create, configure, and
HP Integrity VM 7