Logical Server Management

Quick Move Requirement  If you want to move a Hyper-V virtual machine logical server using the Quick Move operation type, you must have checked Enable High Availability when you created or modified the logical server before it was activated, the datastore must be shared in the MS Cluster, and the virtual machine must be in a cluster node.

Requirements for ESX and Hyper-V Virtual Machine Logical Servers  

Requirements for Virtual Connect Server Blade Logical Servers  

After installing or upgrading firmware, use the ToolsLogical ServersRefresh... menu selection to refresh the logical server database with the VM Manager and Virtual Connect Enterprise Manager inventories.

Configuring HP SIM with Onboard Administrator Credentials  The user Administrator of the Onboard Administrator for each C-class enclosure that is managed by Virtual Connect Enterprise Manager must be configured into HP SIM 5.3 and higher for the CMS on which logical server management in Virtualization Manager is running.

In VSE 4.1, Onboard Administrator credentials are obtained using the HP SIM System Sign In credentials. In the previous release, the credentials were obtained from the WBEM protocol.

Configuring HP SIM for SAN Storage Validation  To discover disk arrays into HP SIM and enable storage validation for Virtual Connect blade logical servers, perform the following steps. Note that this procedure works only for certain HP arrays for which you have loaded the software in advance on the CMS.

Replacing a VC-Enet module  If you are managing Virtual Connect blade logical servers and you determine that you must replace your only VC-Enet module, perform the following steps:

Logical Server Needs to be Moved or Deactivated before Replacing Blade  When replacing a blade in an enclosure which is currently hosting a logical server, the logical server needs to be moved or deactivated prior to replacing the blade. Once the new blade has been installed, discovered, and licensed, it is necessary to perform the ToolsLogical ServersRefresh menu selection for Virtual Connect. Then either reactivate the logical server on that blade or move it back from the location to which it had been moved.

Do Not Perform Operations on Logical Servers Outside of Virtualization Manager  Do not use VMM, VMware ESX, VMware VirtualCenter, MS System Center Virtualization Manager, or Virtual Connect Enterprise Manager to perform operations other than moves on logical servers. If you use tools other than Virtualization Manager to manage logical servers, unpredictable results can occur, and modifications to the underlying resources managed by logical server management will not be reflected in the logical server.

For example:

Performing move operations outside of Virtualization Manager is permitted on:

Creating and Managing Logical Servers on Microsoft Windows Server Hyper-V 2008  This release includes support for creating and managing logical servers on Microsoft Windows Server Hyper-V 2008. See the white paper Managing Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V with HP Insight Dynamics for information and restrictions about using logical servers on Hyper-V.

Following are examples of restrictions on using Hyper-V with logical servers. See the aforementioned white paper for more details.

Reactivating a Hyper-V Virtual Machine  You can reactivate a Hyper-V virtual machine logical server only on the same virtual machine on which the logical server was deactivated. The list of available targets contains one target host with valid storage, because the disk is available to only one host in the Microsoft cluster.

If you subsequently move the logical server, you can select from multiple target hosts.

Virtual Connect Enterprise Manager Domain Groups using Hardware Default Settings for World-Wide Names and MAC Addresses are Not Supported in Logical Servers  Logical servers require portable WWNs and MAC addresses that can be moved from blade to blade. HW-DEFAULT settings used in VC profiles are those of the physical server blades, and those WWNs and MAC address will not move with the profile on a profile migration.

\When creating the VC Domain Group in Virtual Connect Enterprise Manager, the user must select the option for portable WWNs and MAC Addresses. See Virtual Connect Enterprise Manager documentation for details.

Cannot Cancel Logical Server Operations  After a logical server operation is started, you can view its status on the ReportLogical Server Job Status... screen, but a you cannot cancel it. Running jobs do not time out. If a job seems to be running for a long period of time (more than two hours), the job may have completed but some issues may have been encountered with the underlying software. The job will continue to run and the logical server will be locked. The lock is released on the next restart of the Logical Server Automation service.

Cannot Modify or Delete Multiple Network Port Using Logical Server Management Operations  You can import a Virtual Connect server blade that has a port with multiple networks, but you cannot modify or delete that port using logical server management operations. (Assigning multiple networks to a single network port is also called VLAN trunking.)

Hyper-V Manages One Highly Available Virtual Machine Per Datastore  Logical Server Management follows the same convention established by Microsoft SCVMM of allowing only one Hyper-V HA virtual machine per clustered datastore. Therefore, when you create a highly available Hyper-V virtual machine logical server and you configure storage, datastores that already have an HA virtual machine enabled are not presented as available storage selections. Similarly, if you attempt to import an HA virtual machine, and there are virtual machines on the same datastore, the HA virtual machine will not be imported. Hyper-V only allows access to only one member of a cluster at a time.

Move ESX Virtual Machine Logical Servers Among Multiple Clusters  You can move ESX virtual machine logical servers among multiple clusters, as long as the clusters are contained in one VMware VirtualCenter.

When Moving a High Availability-enabled Hyper-V Virtual Machine, only the Quick Move Operation Type Is Available  When Moving a High Availability-enabled Hyper-V Virtual Machine, only the Quick Move Operation Type Is Available

Activating an ESX Virtual Machine Logical Server  You can activate an ESX virtual machine logical server only if you specified shared or local storage as your storage configuration when you created the logical server. The supported datastore types are Local and Fibre Channel. Other datastore types, such as iSCSI and NFS, are not supported.

Entering VirtualCenter Credentials in HP SIM  If you uninstall Virtual Machine Manager 3.5 and then install a later version, you must re-enter VMware VirtualCenter credentials in HP SIM. (VMware VirtualCenter is required for ESX virtual machine logical server operations.)

Initiating Multiple Move Operations Simultaneously  You can initiate multiple move operations at the same time, but Virtual Connect Enterprise Manager queues the move operations and performs them serially. VM Manager can perform up to 10 move operations at one time.

Correcting Problems Powering On a Logical Server  Occasionally a Virtual Connect blade logical server or virtual machine logical server fails to power on and returns an error. If you encounter this problem, check the firmware versions and hardware as described below.

Check Firmware Versions  The Requirements section lists the recommended firmware versions of Virtual Connect Manager, Onboard Administrator, Integrated Lights Out (iLO) and server blade BIOS. A firmware version different than the recommended version could cause a power request to fail.

Check Hardware Using Onboard Administrator  Most power issues are related to the hardware itself. For example, power problems can be caused by temperature, fan speed, fans not installed in an effective configuration, insufficient power because of power supply location, Blades and Interconnect Modules health problems, or device failure errors in general. These problems can be identified using the Onboard Administrator Rack Overview page (available in HP SIM through Integrated Manager) or Onboard Administrator Insight Display.

The Rack Overview page provides error icons that identify the system status. Critical and major errors influence power requests and should be corrected quickly. For more information, see the “Enclosure Power Management” section of the HP BladeSystem c-Class Onboard Administrator User Guide at http://bizsupport.austin.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c00705292/c00705292.pdf.

Recoverable Delete of VC-Based Logical Server does not Delete Underlying Profile  When you delete a Virtual Connect blade logical server and select the “Recoverable Delete” option, the underlying VC profile, if it exists, is not deleted and the profile will continue to use the WWN and MAC addresses. (The profile may not have been created if the logical server has never been activated.) If a storage pool entry was being used by the deleted logical server, the WWNs that are still being used by the profile are replaced by newly allocated WWNs so that the maximum number of logical servers sharing the storage entry is not changed. The SAN Administrator must present the LUNs to these new WWNs before they can be used. (Mark the new WWNs as “Not Ready” on the Storage Entry screen to be sure they are not used prematurely.)

Delete the logical server using the “Unrecoverable Delete” option to delete the underlying VC profile and allow the WWNs and MAC addresses to be available for reuse. HP recommends that you do not use the “Recoverable Delete” option to delete a VC-based logical server that has been previously activated. An exception to this recommendation is if you plan to manage the profile using VCEM.

Use Caution When Renaming or Moving a Virtual Connect Domain Group  Use caution when renaming or moving a Virtual Connect domain group, which is accomplished by checking Change Logical Server Associations using the ToolsLogical ServersRefresh... menu selection. Do not use this functionality to merge Virtual Connect domain groups. This functionality must only be used to reassociate logical servers to a new domain group name. Do not specify an existing domain group for the New Domain Group Name, otherwise your logical servers may become unusable.

Virtual Connect Flex-10 Support  Virtual Connect Flex-10 Ethernet Module for c-Class BladeSystem is supported in this release. Flex-10 technology increases the number of NICs per connection. If you activate or move a Virtual Connect blade logical server and you have a large number of networks configured, the blades with Flex-10 are shown in the list of available targets with a soft error icon indicating insufficient NICs.

If you know that the target enclosure and blade support Flex-10, check that the error message concerns insufficient NICs. In these cases, you can ignore the message and select the target.

Error When Activating, Importing, or Moving a Virtual Connect Blade Logical Server  The following error may be displayed when you try to activate, import, or move a Virtual Connect blade logical server:

Error retrieving HP Onboard Administrator IP address from HP SIM.

If this occurs, HP SIM might have not discovered the HP BladeSystem Onboard Administrator (OA), or the Onboard Administrator discovered by HP SIM and associated with the enclosure is not the active OA.

Delete both the inactive and active OA nodes from HP SIM and manually rediscover the nodes using the HP SIM menu selection OptionsDiscovery.

HP SIM May Lose Connectivity To The Onboard Administrator  Occasionally when you are performing operations on a Virtual Connect blade logical server, HP SIM loses connectivity to the Onboard Administrator. When this occurs, you may see the following error:

Error retrieving HP Onboard Administrator of Enclosure {0} from HP SIM.

Check hardware using the Onboard Administrator, and check to see if there is a server with critical or major errors. If so, obtain the server’s bay number and connect to the OA using SSH. Reset the server using the reset bay bay-number command and wait for the bay to come up. Run Discovery for the OA using the HP SIM menu selection OptionsDiscovery, then refresh the logical server resources using the ToolsLogical ServersRefresh... menu selection. You should run HP SIM discovery and manually refresh server resources when this error is displayed even if a server does not have critical or major errors. See the Onboard Administrator and HP SIM documentation for more information.

Five-Star Headroom Rating Cannot Be Determined  If a workload was not previously created on a target blade, dragging and dropping a logical server onto the target correctly shows zero stars, because the headroom rating cannot be determined. Previously, a headroom rating was always displayed. The suitability of the target (Available or Rejected) is correctly displayed.

Hyper-V Virtual Machine May Appear As 0  If your Hyper-V host is not registered to VMM, the MAC address of the Hyper-V virtual machine may appear as 0 if the virtual machine has not been powered on. If the host is registered to VMM, the virtual machines are assigned a MAC address when the logical servers are activated. A MAC address is required for you to manage logical servers.

Check the Power On the VM or the Blade checkbox when you activate the virtual machine logical server. If the logical server is already activated, use the Logical ServersPowerOn... menu selection to power on the virtual machine or wait for the automatic refresh to occur (every 60 minutes).

Synchronize The Clocks On The Hosts and Virtual Machines  If you are performing operations on ESX virtual machine logical servers, be sure that you have synchronized the clocks on the hosts and virtual machines. If the VM hosts are managed by VMware VirtualCenter and the hosts' clocks are not synchronized, some issues may occur while managing the virtual machines that may affect logical servers.

Use clock synchronization software such as the Windows Time Service or the Network Time Protocol to synchronize the hosts' clocks.

VM Displayed Without Association in Virtualization Manager Perspectives After Deactivation  When you deactivate a virtual machine logical server, the virtual machine is unregistered from the VM host. The virtual machine is then displayed without an association in Virtualization Manager perspectives. This is expected behavior.

If you view the virtual machine using the HP SIM System tab, you may see a message stating that the VM is unregistered from the VM host, and to register the VM using the native virtualization console. Do not register the VM using the native virtualization console. The virtual machine is re-associated with the VM host and the logical server when it is subsequently activated.

Selecting Only Shared Datastores Unused By Other Hyper-V VM Guests  If you create a Hyper-V virtual machine logical server and check the Enable High Availability checkbox on the Create Logical Server Identity screen, when you subsequently configure storage on the Create Logical Server Storage screen, you can select only shared datastores that are not used by any other Hyper-V VM guests. If you do not check Enable High Availability, the available storage on the Create Logical Server Storage screen contains both local datastores and shared datastores that are not being used by HA-enabled VM guests.

Moving an ESX Virtual Machine  If you are moving an ESX virtual machine logical server, there may be a delay in the population of possible target hosts if the CMS and VirtualCenter are in different network domains (subnets). Similarly, if you are moving the logical server using drag and drop, there may be a delay before the hosts appear as valid targets.

(ProLiant Only) Possible Tasks Required After Upgrading from ID-VSE 4.01 to 4.1  If you are upgrading from ID-VSE 4.01 to 4.1 and you want to continue to use your existing 4.0 logical servers in 4.1, you may need to perform additional upgrade tasks to correct problems that may occur. For example, after an upgrade, when you create a logical server there may not be any selectable Logical Server Platform Types or only a subset of expected Platform Types on the Create Logical Server Identity screen.

Before beginning an upgrade, HP recommends that you read the white paper Upgrading Logical Servers from HP Insight Dynamics – VSE for ProLiant Version 4.0 to Version 4.1 at http://www.docs.hp.com/en/vse.html, which describes these additional tasks.

Logical Server Controller Service Merged Into Logical Server Automation Service  In this release, the Logical Server Controllers service has been merged into the Logical Server Automation service. Logical Server Automation is a Windows service that you can start, stop, and restart using Windows Control PanelAdministrative ToolsServices.

If you see the following error in the Virtualization Manager after restarting the Logical Server Automation service, the service has not completely started up:

com.hp.vse.lsa.exception.LsaGutsRmiServerException: LSA_GUTS_RMI_SVR_ERR

Wait at least two minutes after a restart before attempting to perform a logical server operation such as activate or move.

Logical Server Operation Fails When Resource Fails  If you are performing a logical server operation and a resource managed by logical server management fails, the logical server operation also fails and the logical server is left in an inconsistent state. For example, if a VM Host crashes, a server blade bay is shut down, or HP SIM is unexpectedly restarted, the logical server may be shown in an incorrect state (often its last known state).

Delete the logical server using the Recoverable Logical Server Definition Deletion option, manually repair the resource (profile or virtual machine), and import the server blade or virtual machine when it becomes available.