A.2 Xen Hypervisor on SLES 10 SP3 or SLES 11 Host

The Xen hypervisor runs on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 10 SP3 and SLES 11 host machines with the PlateSpin Orchestrate Xen Provisioning Adapter (xen). The following table lists the PlateSpin Orchestrate VM actions and whether or not PlateSpin Orchestrate can perform the action on the guest operating system.

Table A-2 VM Actions Supported for SLES 10 SP3 or SLES 11 Host Using the Xen Hypervisor

PlateSpin Orchestrate Managed VM Action

SLES 9 Guest

SLES 10 Guest

RHEL 4 Guest

RHEL 5 Guest

Other Linux Guest

Windows Guest

Provision

X

X

X

X

X

X

Clone

X

X

X

X

X

X

Shutdown

X

X

X

X

X

X

Destroy

X

X

X

X

X

X

Suspend

X

X

X

X

X

X

Pause

X

X

X

X

X

X

Resume

X

X

X

X

X

X

Create Template

X

X

X

X

X

X

Move Disk Image1

X

X

X

X

X

X

Hot Migrate 2

X

X

X

X

X

X

Checkpoint

X

X

X

X

X

X

Restore

X

X

X

X

X

X

Install Orchestrate Agent

X

X

X

X

X

Make Standalone

X

X

X

X

X

X

Check Status

X

X

X

X

X

X

Personalize

X

X

X

X

Save Config

X

X

X

X

X

X

Cancel Action

X

X

X

X

X

X

Check Host Assignment

X

X

X

X

X

X

Build

?

?

?

?

?

?

Launch Remote Desktop

X

X

X

?

X

X

1 A “move” is the relocation of VM disk images between two storage devices when the VM is in a not running state (this includes VMs that are suspended with a checkpoint file). This action does not require shared storage; the move is between separate repositories.

2 A “hot migrate” (also called a “live migrate”) is the migration of a running VM to another host and starting it there with minimal resulting downtime (measured in milliseconds). This function requires shared storage.

A.2.1 Additional Xen Provisioning Adapter Information

Other behaviors of the xen provisioning adapter that you should be aware of include the following:

  • The VM Builder running on a SLES 11 VM host now supports three additional VM OS types:

    • openSUSE 11

    • SLED 11

    • SLES 11

    These OS types are not available for build when you use the VM Builder running on a SLES 10 SP2 VM host. These OS types can only be built and provisioned to a SLES 11 VM host.

  • VMs that were supported on SLES 10 SP2 are supported on SLES 11; that is, if the VM was built on SLES 10 SP2, the provisioning adapter supported for that VM on SLES 10 SP2 can also be supported when the VM runs on SLES 11.

  • Although VM migration from a SLES 11 VM host to a SLES 10 SP2 VM host is not supported, VM migration is supported in the following scenarios:

    • VM on a SLES 10 SP2 VM host migrating to a SLES 11 VM host

    • VM on a SLES 10 SP2 VM host migrating to a SLES 10 SP2 VM host

    • VM on a SLES 11 VM host migrating to a SLES 11 VM host

  • Virtual machines built on SLES 10 SP2 can be provisioned on either SLES 10 SP2 or SLES 11 VM hosts.

  • Virtual machines (regardless of OS type) built on SLES 11 cannot be provisioned on a SLES 10 SP2 VM host.

  • RHEL 5 VMs managed by the xen provisioning adapter must have the following characteristics:

    • They must not use LVM

      or

    • If LVM is used on the VM, its volume groups (VGs) must have unique (that is, non-default) names.

    To illustrate what can happen when you use a default LVM configuration, consider the following example:

    You create two RHEL 5 VMs. During this process, the default disk configuration (which incorporates LVM) is utilized, so the two VMs have identical VG names. If these VMs are located on the same Xen host, a naming conflict occurs when those VMs are concurrently discovered by PlateSpin Orchestrate. This results in one of the VMs not being properly discovered.

    HINT:As a general rule, we do not recommend using LVM for VM disks.

For information about the VMs provisioned by this provisioning adapter, see Section 4.2, Configuring the Xen Provisioning Adapter and Xen VMs.