New Features and Enhancements in This Version of Integrity VM

This section describes how the current version of Integrity VM has been enhanced over previous versions. For more information about these enhancements, see the HP Integrity Virtual Machines Installation, Configuration, and Administration manual.

Guests can run any of the following operating systems:
- HP-UX 11i v2 (May 2005 [0505] or later), including HP–UX 11i v2 0712
- HP-UX 11i v3
- Windows 2003 (Enterprise or Datacenter edition) SP1 and SP2
- Red Hat® Linux Enterprise Edition Advanced Server Release 4 update 4, update 5, and update 6.
- SUSE® Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) for HP Integrity servers SLES 10 update 1.
Integrity VM now includes the capability of Accelerated Virtual I/O (AVIO), which improves the performance of both storage and network access for virtual machines. AVIO is supported on HP-UX 11i v2 host and guests. This feature includes:
- Changes to the hpvmnet command. The changes include displaying the adapter type for each port defined on the vswitch and getting port specific statistics.
- Changes to the hpvmresources and hpvmstatus manpages to include the new AVIO names for guest creation: avio_lan, and avio_stor.
- Change to the hpvmcollect command to add values for AVIO LANs and storage.
- Changes to the hpvmcreate, hpvmclone, and hpvmmodify commands to add the designation for an AVIO network adapter and an AVIO storage adapter on a guest. The network adapter designator is avio_lan or aviolan, and the storage adapter designator is avio_stor or aviostor. For more information about AVIO, see the HP Integrity Virtual Machines Installation, Configuration, and Administration Version A.03.50 manual.
- Changes to the hpvmclone command to clone guests with additional AVIO network or storage devices.
For information about installing AVIO drivers, see HP Integrity Virtual Machines Installation, Configuration, and Administration Version A.03.50 manual.
AVIO storage support for Logical Volume backing storage devices (virtual LvDisk) on HostAVIOStor B.11.23.0712.01 and later.
AVIO now supports Active-Passive configuration on EVA GL series (3000/5000) starting with HostAVIOStor B.11.23.0712.01. This is in addition to the already supported Active-Active configuration on EVA GL and EVA XL series (4000/6000/8000). SecurePath Active-Passive is now supported in addition to Active-Active on AVIO. For more information, see Section 8.17.
Hierarchy checking
The hpvmdevmgmt command has been changed to provide hierarchy checking by adding a host-file-system directory to the device database as a restricted device. All files, devices, and subdirectories under a restricted directory are also restricted. A directory might not be restricted if a file, device, or subdirectory is already in use by a guest. Note that the /etc and the /stand directories are added by default.
New public APIs defined in /opt/hpvm/include/hpvm_api_public.h for host and guests:
The following APIs have been added to Integrity VM:
- hpvm_api_server_check — Checks if running on an Integrity VM server system.
- hpvm_api_virtmach_check — Checks if running on an Integrity VM virtual machine.
- hpvm_api_version_get — Gets the version string of an Integrity VM server or virtual machine.
- hpvm_api_my_uuid_get — Gets the uuid for this running Integrity VM server or virtual machine.
- hpvm_api_server_uuid_get — Gets the uuid for the Integrity VM server of the virtual machine running this API.
- hpvm_api_server_hostname_get — Gets the host name for the Integrity VM server of the virtual machine running this API.
For information about the new public APIs, see the HP Integrity Virtual Machines Installation, Configuration, and Administration A0.03.50 manual.
The EFI direct tape boot functionality has been added to Integrity VM. If you use the Ignite make_tape_recovery utility on the HP-UX guest to make a backup tape of that guest system, you can use the backup tape to boot from EFI to perform the restore and reinstallation from the backup tape.

Change to the hpvminfo command to display the information returned by the supported public interfaces defined in /opt/hpvm/include/hpvm_api_public.h. For example, when running on a VM host:

hpvminfo -S
HPVM Server information
VERSION: HPVM A.03.50 BL10 clearcase opt Wed Aug 01 2007 12h20m34s EDT
MY UUID: 58d03f5d-79ed-11d9-b720-17c097e9e0d0

When running on a guest:

hpvminfo -S
HPVM Guest information
VERSION: HPVM A.03.50 BL06 clearcase opt Mon Jun 11 2007 13h32m14s
SERVER HOSTNAME: test.case.com

Storage used by the VM Host system is now better protected in this release. The new hpvmhostrdev command identifies disks, LUNs, and logical volumes used by the VM Host for its operating system, file system, and swap storage as "restricted devices" in the Integrity VM device database. This prevents their use by virtual machines as storage, avoiding inadvertent corruption or destruction of the VM Host's environment. When Integrity VM starts on the VM Host system, it invokes the hpvmhostrdev command, automatically adding these restricted devices to the Integrity VM device database. The hpvmhostrdev command is based on the same storage analysis tools used by HP System Management Homepage (HP SMH) and other Virtual Server Environment (VSE) management tools, maintaining consistency across HP management products.
The hpvmhostrdev command can also be used by privileged users on the VM Host system to update the Integrity VM device database. By default, the command forces a full hardware scan on the VM Host system. Depending on storage and network configuration, the scan might take several minutes to complete. This use might be prudent whenever new hardware is added to the VM Host system. The hpvmhostrdev command also accepts the -u option, which does not force a new HW scan, using the latest HW configuration information to update the device database. The only other option accepted by hpvmhostrdev is -h,, which provides a brief summary of the available options and their use.
Existing virtual machines using deprecated storage for virtual disks, partitions created with idisk(1M) in particular, might not start after installing the latest release of Integrity VM. You can alleviate this condition by removing the restricted device entry corresponding to the base path of the disk that has been partitioned from the Integrity VM device database. For example, if the disk /dev/rdsk/c2d3t4 has one or more partitions being used as virtual storage, execute the command hpvmdevmgmt -d rdev:/dev/rdsk/c2t3d4 to delete the device from being used as virtual storage. Note that the use of such partitions for Integrity VM storage has been deprecated.

New Features and Enhancements in This Version of Integrity VM

Technical documentation

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