13 Virtualization Management

Virtualization Concepts

Following are commonly-used terms in virtualization:

Oracle VM

Oracle VM is a server virtualization software. Installing Oracle VM on a bare metal box allows for the creation of multiple guest virtual machines on it. Just like Oracle databases and Oracle Fusion Middleware, Oracle VM is available for download on Oracle Technology Network (OTN).

Virtual Server

Virtual Server is a generic term used to describe a physical box running virtualization software (hypervisor) on it. A new virtual server can be provisioned by installing Oracle VM server software on a bare metal physical box. "Virtual Server" is a target type in Enterprise Manager that represents the Oracle VM targets.

Every Oracle VM server can perform one or more of the functions described below:

• Master Server function

  The Master Server is the core of the server pool operations. It acts as the contact point of the server pool to the outside world, and also as the dispatcher to other servers within the server pool. The load balancing is implemented by the Master Server. For example, when you start a guest virtual machine, the Master Server will choose a Guest VM Server with the maximum resources available to run the guest virtual machine. There can be only one Master Server in a server pool. The state of a virtual server pool is equivalent to the state of the master virtual server.

• Utility Server function

  The Utility Server is responsible for I/O intensive operations such as copying or moving files. Its function focuses on the creation and removal operations of guest virtual machines, virtual servers, and server pools. There can be one or more Utility Servers in a server pool. When there are several Utility Servers, Server Pool Master chooses the Utility Server with the maximum CPU resources available to conduct the task.

• Guest VM Server function

  The primary function of the Guest VM Server is to run guest virtual machines, thus acting as a hypervisor. There can be one or more Guest VM Servers in a server pool. When there are several Guest VM Servers, Master Server chooses the Guest VM Server with the maximum resources available (including memory and CPU) to start and run the virtual machine.

Monitoring Server

The monitoring server monitors the virtual server remotely. Multiple virtual servers are monitored by one agent. Enterprise Manager agent must not be installed on virtual servers.

Virtual Server Pool

A Server Pool is a logical grouping of one or more virtual servers that share common storage. A virtual server can belong to only one virtual server pool at a time. Guest virtual machines and resources are also associated with server pools. Oracle VM Server Pool is an aggregate target type in Enterprise Manager to represent the server pool of Oracle VM Servers.

When the Oracle VM Server Pool is created, the user is asked to provide the details of the Master Server for that pool. By default, this Oracle VM Server also performs the functions of the Utility Server and Guest VM Server.

The user can later change the Utility Server and Guest VM Server functions using the Edit Virtual Server action.

Guest Virtual Machine

Guest Virtual Machine (also known as Guest VM) is the container running on top of a virtual server. Multiple guest virtual machines can run on a single virtual server. Guest virtual machines can be created from Oracle VM templates. Oracle VM templates provide pre-installed and pre-configured software images to deploy a fully configured software stack. Oracle VM templates can be downloaded from OTN at the following location:

http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/vm/templates.html

A guest virtual machine monitored by an Enterprise Manager agent is treated like any other Host target. This type of guest virtual machine is referred to as a "Managed Guest VM".

A guest virtual machine that is not monitored by any Enterprise Manager agent is referred to as an "Unmanaged Guest VM". Only limited monitoring and configuration information is available for such a guest virtual machine.

Supported Releases

Following are some of the supported operating system versions for virtualization:

Virtualization Central Page as the Management Hub

You can navigate to Virtualization Central from the Grid Control Home page by clicking on the Targets tab and then the Virtual Servers sub-tab. Figure 13-1 shows the Virtualization Central page.

Figure 13-1 Virtualization Central Page

Description of "Figure 13-1 Virtualization Central Page"

Enterprise Manager Virtualization Central page shows the following:

• A quick view of the status of the virtual server and guest virtual machines and basic information about them

• CPU and Memory utilization of virtual servers

• Information about the server pool to which the virtual servers are registered

• Drilldowns to server pools, virtual servers, and guest virtual machines home pages from where you can view more information about these targets

• Allows you to perform administrative tasks such as starting and stopping guest virtual machines

• Allows you to perform provisioning activities such as creating virtual server pools, registering virtual servers, and creating guest virtual machines

• Provides a VNC Console to access guest virtual machines

Starting from the Virtualization Central page, you can access additional details and management functions by drilling down through the user interface. In addition, the Virtualization Central page provides a list of Related Links. From these links you can perform activities such as bare metal provisioning of Oracle VM server software, customization of table columns, and deployment of Enterprise Manager agent on a guest virtual machine.

Creating Virtual Server Pool

For Enterprise Manager to manage Oracle VM servers, you will need to create a virtual server pool. Each virtual server pool must have at least one Oracle VM virtual server. The first virtual server added to the pool acts as the master server for the server pool.

Figure 13-2 shows the Create Virtual Server Pool page. You can specify a virtual server pool and the master server.

Figure 13-2 Create Virtual Server Pool Page

Description of "Figure 13-2 Create Virtual Server Pool Page"

You will need to specify the following fields:

• Virtual Server Pool Name — Specify the name of the virtual server pool that you are creating.

• Shared Directory — Specify the directory mounted as the shared directory. This shared directory is the same for all virtual servers within a virtual server pool.

  For example, /OVS. All guest virtual machine templates and running guest virtual machines are maintained in this location.

• High Availability Mode — Select Enable if you want the virtual server to participate in high availability. For more information about setting high availability for server pools, see Enterprise Manager Administrator's Guide for Software and Server Provisioning and Patching.

• Master Server Virtual IP — If you have chosen to enable high availability mode, optionally specify an unused IP address to support master server failover, and to be used as virtual IP for master server communication.

• Virtual Server Host — As part of the virtual server pool creation, one virtual server needs to be specified, which will act as the Master Server for the server pool. Specify either FQDN name or IP address of the master virtual server for the server pool.

• Monitoring Server Agent — Virtual servers in a server pool are monitored remotely by an Enterprise Manager Grid Control agent. Specify the agent that will monitor the virtual servers.

• Monitoring Server User that owns the Enterprise Manager agent home/agent install and has read and write permission on agent home directory.

• Monitoring Server Password — Password for the user that owns the Enterprise Manager agent home/agent install.

• SSH Username and Password — User name and password for Enterprise Manager to SSH into the virtual server machine.

• Oracle VM Agent Password — Every Oracle VM server has an in-built Oracle VM agent running on it. Specify the password for this agent.

• OVS Proxy Location — This is a directory on the virtual server where the scripts required for monitoring are stored when the virtual server is registered with Enterprise Manager. This location must be different from the shared directory specified earlier.

Registering Virtual Servers

After creating a virtual server pool, you can register the virtual servers with the server pool (Figure 13-3).

Figure 13-3 Register Virtual Server Page

Description of "Figure 13-3 Register Virtual Server Page"

To register virtual servers, specify the fields described in Table 13-3.

Creating Guest Virtual Machines

You can create guest virtual machines from the following three sources:

• Using Oracle VM Templates

• Using ISO images of Linux and Windows operating systems

• PXE bootable guest virtual machines that can boot over a network

Oracle VM template or ISO binaries can be available in any of the following locations:

• In the Software Library as a software component

• In the virtual server pool as a resource

• In a HTTP or NFS accessible external location

Figure 13-4 Create Guest Virtual Machines Wizard

Description of "Figure 13-4 Create Guest Virtual Machines Wizard"

Figure 13-4 shows the Create Guest Virtual Machines: Configure page from the guest virtual machine creation wizard.

For information about creating guest virtual machines using ISO images and PXE boot, see chapter Provisioning Virtualization Systems in the Enterprise Manager Administrator's Guide for Software and Server Provisioning and Patching.

If you want to restrict certain guest virtual machines to run on only certain Oracle VM servers, use the Preferred server list feature. Preferred server list contains all the Oracle VM servers on which this guest virtual machine is allowed to run. If the "Automatic" option is selected when creating a guest virtual machine, Enterprise Manager picks the Oracle VM server with maximum resources to run the guest virtual machine. When auto-restarting guest virtual machines during fail-over scenario, Enterprise Manager picks a preferred Oracle VM server to auto-restart the guest virtual machine.

Navigate to the Create Guest Virtual Machines: Configure page and specify the following fields:

• Virtual Machine Name Prefix — This string will be used as a prefix in the guest virtual machine name. When a guest virtual machine is created using the Enterprise Manager Grid Control Console, guest virtual machine names will be prefixed by the virtual machine name prefix you provide here and a number.

• Root Password — This is the operating system "root" password to log into the guest virtual machine once it is up and running.

• Number Of Cores — Number of CPU cores to assign to this guest virtual machine. This will show up as virtual CPU (vCPU) configuration parameter for the guest virtual machine.

• Memory Size (MB) — The amount of memory to be allocated to the guest virtual machine. The physical virtual server machine should have sufficient memory to run the guest virtual machine. Otherwise, the guest virtual machine will be created, but will not be started.

• VNC Console Password — Enterprise Manager provides a VNC console to the newly created guest virtual machine. This is the VNC password to access the VNC console.

• Number of Network Interfaces — Number of virtual network interfaces this guest virtual machine should have. The minimum value is 1 and the maximum value is 8.

• CPU Scheduling Priority — Specify the priority of a guest virtual machine to access the physical CPUs, while competing with other guest virtual machines on the same virtual server. Higher the priority, higher is the stake of the guest virtual machine in claiming CPU cycles.

• CPU Cap (%) — Restricts the amount of physical CPU that a guest virtual machine can use. Use this to constrain guest virtual machine resource allocation.

• Start VM after creation — Specify whether the guest virtual machine should be started automatically after it is created.

• Enable High Availability Mode — When creating the guest virtual machine, if the "Enable High Availability Mode" flag is selected, this guest virtual machine will participate in the High Availability functionality. If its parent virtual server fails, this guest virtual machine will be auto-restarted on another Oracle VM server.

  Select this option if you want the guest virtual machine to restart automatically on a different virtual server if the earlier virtual server shuts down.

  Enabling High Availability mode for the virtual server pool allows all the Oracle VM servers in the pool to be clustered. This provides for high availability/fail-over support. For more information about high availability failover for server pools, see Enterprise Manager Administrator's Guide for Software and Server Provisioning and Patching.

  To enable High Availability, you will need the following configuration:

  • High Availability mode should be set for the virtual server pool.

  • Clustering configuration should be done for Master Server and other virtual servers in the server pool.

  • High Availability flag must be set for the guest virtual machines.

• Configure Agent — Select this option if you want to configure the agent to monitor the guest virtual machine.

• Local Devices from Source Template — Displays the local devices from source template. You can enable disk priority by setting an appropriate QoS Priority Class. The priority class ranges from 0 to 7. The priority class 0 has the highest priority, and 7 the lowest.

• Additional Disks — Every guest virtual machine is created with at least one disk. Specify additional disks and their sizes. These disks will be added to the guest virtual machine. After the guest virtual machine is created, log into the guest virtual machine and reformat and mount the additional disks.

  Specify the name of the hard disk, its size, and QoS Priority Class. You can enable the disk I/O priority by setting an appropriate QoS Priority Class. The priority class ranges from 0 to 7. The priority class 0 has the highest priority, and 7 the lowest.

• Shared Disks — Oracle VM allows sharing of disks between multiple guest virtual machines. Specify shared disks that the guest virtual machines can access.

  If the server pool has no shared disk available, the Add button will be disabled. Only virtual machines within the same server pool can share a shared disk.Specify the shared device name, the shared disk on it, and the QoS Priority Class. You can enable the disk I/O priority by setting an appropriate QoS Priority Class. The priority class ranges from 0 to 7. The priority class 0 has the highest priority, and 7 the lowest.

Oracle VM Server Home Page

On the Oracle VM server home page (Figure 13-5), you can view basic information about the Oracle VM server including status, availability, operating system details, alerts, and guest virtual machines running on the Oracle VM server.

Following are the graphs described on the Oracle VM server home page:

• The CPU Utilization graph provides information about the total physical CPU utilization(%) of the Oracle VM server.

• The Memory Utilization graph provides information about the physical memory utilization(%) of the Oracle VM server.

• The Disk Space Utilization graph provides information about the free and used local disk (partitioned) space on the Oracle VM server.

The Guest Virtual Machine section shows the following metrics for each of the guest virtual machines running on this Oracle VM Server.

• Virtual Machine Name - The name of the guest virtual machine running on the Oracle VM Server.

• Target Name - The Host target name if this is a managed guest virtual machine.

• State - One of the possible states of the guest virtual machine. The state can be either "Running" or "Paused".

• Uptime - Displays how long this guest virtual machine has been "Running". This also includes the time this machine has been in the "Paused" state.

• CPU| vCPUs - Displays the number of Virtual CPUs this guest virtual machine has.

• CPU | Util(%) - Displays the amount of CPU utilization with respect to Total Physical CPU Utilization.

• Memory|Allocated - Displays the amount of memory allocated to this guest virtual machine.

• Memory|Util(%) - Displays the amount of memory utilized with respect to the memory allocated to the guest virtual machine.

• Virtual Block Device I/O (KB/sec) | Read - Displays the amount of data read from the block device.

• Virtual Block Device I/O (KB/sec) | Write - Displays the amount of data written to the block device.

• Virtual Network I/O (KB/sec)|Received - Displays the amount of data received by the Virtual Network interfaces.

• Virtual Network I/O (KB/sec)|Transmitted - Displays the amount of data transmitted by the Virtual Network interfaces.

Figure 13-5 Virtual Server Home Page

Description of "Figure 13-5 Virtual Server Home Page"

From the home page, you can drill down to more detailed performance information.

Guest VM Home Page

The Guest Virtual Machine Home page is available only for managed guest virtual machines. It is similar to the Host Home page in Enterprise Manager. On this page, you can view basic information about the guest virtual machine including configuration details, alerts, policy violations, job details, patch advisories details, and security details. For more information about hosts, see Host and Third-Party Target Management.

To get the complete benefits of managing and monitoring guest virtual machines using Enterprise Manager, the guest virtual machine must have an agent installed on it.

Figure 13-6 Guest Virtual Machine Home Page

Description of "Figure 13-6 Guest Virtual Machine Home Page"

Editing Guest VM

A guest virtual machine can be edited as shown in Figure 13-8.

Figure 13-8 Edit Guest Virtual Machine Page

Description of "Figure 13-8 Edit Guest Virtual Machine Page"

You can edit the Name, Memory, Dynamic Memory, vCPUs, VNC Console Password, add and remove disk storage, add network interfaces, and modify the boot order for the guest virtual machine. Table 13-5 lists the guest virtual machine fields that can be edited and the action needed for the changes to take effect.