Performing Actions that Affect Logical Servers

You can perform several actions on logical servers from Virtualization Manager. For a description of the Virtualization Manager menu options that perform these tasks, see “Virtualization Manager Menus”.

An active logical server has been bound to both an HP SIM node and a VSE workload, and is bound to specific storage. Active logical servers can be in one of two states: powered on or powered off.

An inactive logical server has been defined but is not currently bound to a specific physical server or system. Inactive logical servers that have never been activated might or might not be bound to storage.

The following actions that you perform on a logical server change the state of the logical server. Hover over the node information icon [i] in the Logical Server perspective to see the attributes of the logical server, including the logical server state.

Actions That Affect Logical Servers

The following actions that you perform on a logical server change the state of the logical server.

Activate
The ToolsLogical ServersActivate... menu selection binds a logical server to a physical server or system. The two types of systems on which logical servers can be activated are Virtual Connect enabled server blades and virtual machines.
- For Virtual Connect server blades, activating a logical server updates the server profile and assigns it to a bay, then powers on the server blade, by default. If the server blade has been provisioned with an operating system, activating the logical server boots it.
- For ESX and Hyper-V virtual machines, activating a logical server creates a new virtual machine if one is not already created, registers it with the preexisting hypervisor, and powers on the virtual machine, by default. If the virtual machine has been provisioned with an operating system, activating the logical server boots it.
Before you can activate a logical server, all of the required information for the logical server must be defined. Use the Modify Logical Server... tabs to add any missing information.
When you select a target on which to activate the logical server, you are shown a Headroom rating that displays between one and five stars, with the higher number of stars denoting more excess resources are available on the target server.
An active logical server can be powered on or powered off. You can optionally power on the physical server on which you are activating the logical server. This is useful if you want to launch a software tool for operating system provisioning. If, for example, you use media to install the operating system, you can choose not to power on the physical server when you first activate the logical server.

Deactivate
The ToolsLogical ServersDeactivate... menu selection removes the association between a logical server and a system. The storage configuration remains, maintaining the host name, IP address, and user information on the operating system boot image.
- For Virtual Connect server blades, the blade is shut down and the server profile is disassociated from the blade. (The server profile is maintained, however, and can be reactivated elsewhere.)
- For virtual machines, the virtual machine is shut down, and the virtual machine definition is unregistered. (If the logical server is reactivated, the virtual machine is reregistered.)

Following are other operations that you can perform on a logical server. These operations do not change the state of the logical server.

Create
The CreateLogical Server... menu selection allows you to define a logical server, which includes the identity of the logical server, the amount of memory and number of CPU cores, and predefined network and storage configuration.
All of the required information for the logical server must be defined before you can activate it, including at least one storage volume and one port, and one network.
When you create an ESX or Hyper-V virtual machine logical server, all storage volumes must be part of the same data store. You can specify Virtual Machine File System (VMFS), DAS, or SAN datastores as the storage configuration.
Virtual Connect blade logical servers are supported using shared (SAN) storage only. When you create a Virtual Connect blade logical server, you can specify storage in the following ways:
- By selecting a previously configured storage pool entry.
- By creating a new storage entry.
- By creating a new storage entry, and inserting it into a storage pool.
See the help for the CreateLogical Server... storage screens and the ModifyLogical Server Storage Pools... screens for more information.
Copy
The ToolsLogical ServersCopy... menu selection copies a previously created logical server. This results in a new logical server with a different name.
Delete
The DeleteDelete Logical Server... menu selection allows you to delete a logical server by selecting a recoverable or unrecoverable deletion. A recoverable deletion (on an active or inactive logical server) removes the logical server definition from the management database. An unrecoverable deletion (on an inactive logical server) removes the logical server definition from the management database, removes the physical server profile or virtual machine from the compute environment, and removes connectivity to storage and network devices.
Import
The ToolsLogical ServersImport... menu selection imports the definition for an existing physical server or virtual machine and creates an active logical server with that definition.
Modify
The ModifyLogical Server... menu selection allows you to modify or view the details of an existing logical server. You can modify only an inactive logical server.
When you modify an inactive logical server, your changes are saved for future use, and applied when you activate it.

Move

The ToolsLogical ServersMove... menu selection moves an active logical server onto another host. The host can be a server blade (for a Virtual Connect blade logical server), or a hypervisor (for an ESX or Hyper-V virtual machine logical server).

When you select a target on which to move a logical server, you are shown a Headroom rating that displays between one and five stars, with the higher number of stars denoting more excess resources are available on the target server.

You can move an active logical server onto another host using a menu selection, and by dragging and dropping the logical server onto another server blade or hypervisor in the Physical and Virtual, Blades, and Virtual Machines perspectives in VSE Visualization tab.

Target Hosts and Rejected Target Hosts

Target hosts (server blades and hypervisors) on which a logical server can be moved are shown in the Target Hosts table. Select one target blade in the Target Hosts table by clicking the radio button to the left of the target. Hover your mouse over the error symbols for more information.

Target hosts with the best fit are sorted to the top of the Target Hosts table.
Target hosts with an acceptable fit are shown with error symbols in the table columns. You can override the filter criteria and select a target host with error symbols in the Target Hosts table.
A yellow triangle in the Headroom column denotes an error returning Capacity Advisor data.
You cannot select a target host from the Rejected Target Hosts table. The red circle symbol in the Failed column contains the reason for rejection. Other errors are denoted by error symbols.

Table 3-1 Virtual Connect Server Blade Filter Criteria

Virtual Connect Server Blade Filter Criteria

Best Fit

No Errors

The source and target Virtual Connect server blades have the same:

Platform type (Integrity or ProLiant).
Model and generation. For example, if your logical server is running on an HP ProLiant BL460c G1, you can activate it only to another HP ProLiant BL460c G1.
Virtual Connect domain group.
Mezzanine card in the same mezzanine slot.
Blade state (not running).

Acceptable Fit

Classifiable Soft Errors [orange triangle]

Unclassifiable Soft Errors [ yellow triangle]

Compute resources on the target blade are not greater than or equal to the values you specified when you created or modified the logical server. These values include Number of Cores, CPU Frequency, and Amount of Memory.
Source and target Virtual Connect server blade do not have the same:
- Network interface name and mezzanine card.
- Storage fabric name and mezzanine card.

Rejected

Hard Errors [red x]

Source and target blades have a different platform type (Integrity or ProLiant).
Source and target blades are a different blade model or generation.
Source and target blades are not in the same Virtual Connect domain group.
Target blade does not have a valid enclosure.
Target blade is not licensed.
Blade state is running.
Onboard Administrator authorization error.
Blade controller fault.

ESX and Hyper-V Virtual Machine Target Hosts and Rejected Target Hosts

Table 3-2 ESX and Hyper-V Virtual Machine Filter Criteria

ESX and Hyper-V Virtual Machine Filter Criteria

Best Fit

No Errors

The source and target hosts have the same:

Platform type (Integrity or ProLiant).
Virtualization type (3.x, except for 3.0.0 and 3.0.1).
Storage type (Local or SAN).
Virtual network configuration.

Acceptable Fit

Classifiable Soft Errors [orange triangle]

Unclassifiable Soft Errors [ yellow triangle]

The CPU Frequency on the target host is not greater than or equal to the value you specified when you created or modified the logical server.

Rejected

Hard Errors [red x]

Logical server already exists on target host.
Unsupported virtualization type.
Target host is not licensed.
Failed VM Host.

Move Operation Types

Use the Operation drop-down menu in the Target Hosts table to select a move operation type. The drop-down menu displays the types of moves that are available for the corresponding target host. (For example, a live move is not an option if VMotion is not running.)

If you do not select an operation, the best match is selected automatically.

Table 3-3 Move Operations

Target Host Platform Type	Move Operation
ESX Host	Copy Move (default) Live Move SAN Move If Live Move or SAN Move is an available option, Copy Move is not displayed.
Hyper-V Host	Quick Move (default) Copy Move
Virtual Connect server blade	Profile Move (default)

Following are descriptions of the types of move operations.

Profile Move (VC Only)
Moves a server connection profile within a BladeSystem enclosure (Virtual Connect Domain Group).
Live Move (ESX VM Only)
Initiates VMware VMotion technology from HP SIM, and requires that VirtualCenter is installed and running. Used in high availability situations that do not allow service interruptions.
SAN-based Fast Move (ESX VM Only)
Executes fast logical server moves between dissimilar host hardware.
Copy Move (ESX VM and Hyper-V VM Only)
Moves a logical server to a target host within a VMM domain that is not connected to a SAN.
Quick Move (Hyper-V VM Only)
Saves the state of a running guest virtual machine (memory of original server to disk/shared storage), moves the storage connectivity from one physical server to another, and then restores the guest virtual machine onto the second server (disk/shared storage to memory on the new server). To select Quick Move, 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.

Power On or Power Off
The Logical ServersPowerOn... or Logical ServersPowerOff... menu selections power on or off a virtual machine or a server blade bay on which a logical server was activated or moved.
Refresh
The ToolsLogical ServersRefresh... menu selection refreshes (or synchronizes) the logical server database with the VM Manager and Virtual Connect Enterprise Manager inventories. You might want to refresh if you create or remove inventory, by performing actions such as importing a logical server, creating or deleting a VM Host, or creating or deleting an enclosure in a Virtual Connect domain group.
Refreshing is useful if, for example, you use VM Manager to create a new VM Host, then activate a logical server. In that case, the new VM Host might not be listed as an available target on the Assign Logical Servers to Target Hosts screen. If you select ToolsLogical ServersRefresh..., then ToolsLogical ServersActivate..., the new VM Host will be an available target on which you can activate the logical server.

Actions Outside of Virtualization Manager that Affect Logical Servers

VMM, VMware ESX, Hyper-V, and Virtual Connect Enterprise Manager

Logical servers created on virtual machines and Virtual Connect server blades should be managed only by using the Logical Servers menu selections in Virtualization Manager.




	IMPORTANT: Actions performed on logical servers outside of Virtualization Manager are not supported. Do not use VMM, VMware ESX, Hyper-V, or Virtual Connect Enterprise Manager to perform operations on logical servers, with the exception of DRS moves and blade failovers (described in the next paragraph).

Logical servers created on virtual machines are sometimes moved by Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS), and logical servers created on Virtual Connect server blades are sometimes moved by blade failover. In these cases, the server that controls logical servers detects the new location and updates its resources to reflect the change for virtual machines and server blades. This synchronization may take up to 60 minutes to occur. (You can use ToolsLogical ServersRefresh... to cause this synchronization to occur immediately.)

HP SIM

Do not attempt to delete a logical server using HP SIM. Doing so causes the logical server to temporarily disappear from the HP SIM collection, but the logical server is not actually deleted, and will reappear when the server that controls logical servers is restarted.

To delete a logical server, use the DeleteDelete Logical Server... menu selection in Virtualization Manager and select the Unrecoverable option. Select the Recoverable option to remove the logical server from the Logical Server perspective.

Authorizations and Configuration

To use the Logical Servers feature in Virtualization Manager, you need the following authorizations:

The VSE All Tools authorization is required to operate on a logical server, regardless of the authorization required to operate on a specific host.
The VSE Monitor authorization is required to create and view a logical server.




	NOTE: These authorizations apply to environments in which administrators manage all systems discovered in the CMS. If you use host-based authorizations and configure custom system lists to restrict authorizations for some administrators, and these administrators use logical servers, consider adding the Logical Servers system list with automatic updating for the specified administrator, as described below. Without this configuration, the administrator can create a logical server but will not be able to view it in HP SIM.

Perform the following steps to create a system list that dynamically tracks the Logical Servers collection and gives the specified administrator the VSE Monitor authorization on that system list.

From the upper, blue menu-bar, select OptionsSecurityUsers and Authorizations.
Select the Authorizations tab and click New.
Select the radio-button next to Manually assign toolbox and system/system group authorizations.
Click the Add link in the Select Systems box.
On the Add Systems screen, select Logical Server from the drop-down menu, then click the Apply button.
On the New Authorizations screen, select a user from the drop-down menu.
Check the VSE Monitor checkbox in the Select Toolbox(es) box.
Make sure that the Logical Servers checkbox is checked in the Select Systems box.
Click the Apply button.

Configuring HP SIM with Onboard Administrator Credentials Is Required for Logical Servers

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 this release, 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.

To set the OA credentials in HP SIM, perform the following steps.

Select the OA from the System and Event Collections panel.
Select the Tools & Links tab.
Click System Credentials....
Click Edit system credentials....
Enter the username and password for the OA node, and click OK.
To confirm that the OA credentials are correctly set, click View all credentials... to verify the entry.

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.

From the upper, blue menu bar, select OptionsDiscovery..., then click the New… button.
Click the radio button next to Discover a single system.
For each disk array, fill in the Name (such has SMA_EVA or SMA_MSA) and the IP address of the Storage Management Appliance (such as Command View server for EVA, or Array Configuration Utility server for MSA).
Click More Settings...
Click the Configure global protocol settings link. Under WBEM settings, make sure that the Enable WBEM checkbox is checked.
Click the Global Credentials link, and enter the SMA username and password and the SMI agent username and password.
Click OK.
On the Discovery page, select the newly created discovery task.
Click the Run Now button.

It will take a few minutes for the disk array(s) to be discovered into HP SIM.