6 Working with virtual machines
This chapter describes tasks you can perform to create and manage virtual machines and their resources.
Planning virtual machines
To achieve your goals using virtual machines, plan the configuration of each virtual machine by assessing its requirements for resources on the HP Integrity system on which it will run. For information about how to assess your system's resources as well as the virtual machines you will run on the system, and how to map your virtual machine requirements to the system's resources, see the HP Integrity Virtual Machines Installation, Configuration, and Administration manual, located on the HP Technical Documentation website (click on the HP Matrix Operating Environment for
http://www.hp.com/go/matrixoe/docs
For information about AVIO performance tuning, see the latest Integrity VM white papers available from this website.
Creating virtual machines
To create a virtual machine, VM Manager uses the Create Virtual Machine wizard to guide you through the process. Each step presents a dialog that allows you to specify the required information. At any time you can get help, return to previous steps, or exit the wizard. By creating a new virtual machine, you assign attributes and resources to it. This creates an association among the virtual devices known to the virtual machine and the physical devices managed by the VM Host.
Where possible, reasonable default values are provided for each dialog. However, the default values are not necessarily optimal. You must determine what values are optimal based on the unique requirements of your machine (such as the applications you plan to run and the performance you expect).
To access the Create Virtual Machine wizard, select Create→Virtual Machine... from the VM Manager menu bar. The Create Virtual Machine wizard leads you through several screens in the following order. For more information about any screen, see the corresponding VM Manager help topic.
1.Specify VM Identity
Specify the virtual machine name, an optional description, the intended guest operating system, and the virtual machine hardware startup value (autoboot).
2.Specify Processor Entitlements
The processor entitlement sets the guaranteed amount of processing power for each virtual CPU in a virtual machine. The processor entitlement is the default entitlement (10%), a percentage of physical processor power, or a specific, fixed processor speed. If supported by the version of Integrity VM running on the VM Host, you can specify an entitlement cap and the minimum and maximum number of vCPUs to be allotted to the virtual machine. An entitlement cap is the maximum amount of computing power allotted to a virtual machine for each vCPU.
3.Specify Memory
Specify the amount of memory for the virtual machine. If the VM Host has Integrity VM 3.0 or later installed and the OS type you chose in step 1 supports dynamic memory (for example, specifying
Planning virtual machines 79
