SUSE Linux Enterprise Server: Supported Virtualization Technologies

Size: px

Start display at page:

Download "SUSE Linux Enterprise Server: Supported Virtualization Technologies"

Audra Maxwell
5 years ago
Views:

1 Technical White Paper Enterprise Linux SUSE Linux Enterprise Server: Supported Virtualization Technologies Table of Contents page Comprehensive Virtualization Support Overview... 2 Upgrade Guidelines...4 Premium Support Offerings for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP2...4 Supported Virtualization Technologies...4 Other Supported Platforms... 8

2 Enterprise Linux Technical White Paper SUSE Linux Enterprise Server: Supported Virtualization Technologies Comprehensive Virtualization Support Overview Included with SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 Service Pack 2 (SP2) are the latest open source virtualization technologies, and KVM. With these hypervisors, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server may be used to provision, de-provision, install, monitor and manage multiple virtual machines (VMs) on a single physical system. Out of the box, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server can create VMs running both modified, highly tuned, paravirtualized operating systems and fully virtualized unmodified opera ting systems. Full virtualization 1 allows the guest OS to run un modi fied and requires the presence of either Intel Virtualization Technology (Intel VT) or AMD Virtualization (AMD-V). The primary component of the operating system that enables virtualization is a hypervisor (or virtual machine monitor, VMM) a layer of software that runs directly on server hardware. It controls platform resources, sharing them among. 1 SUSE strongly recommends using paravirtualized device drivers for fully virtualized machines. These drivers enhance network and storage I/O performance. For SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, they are included directly in the operating system. For Windows, they are available in the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server Virtual Machine Driver Pack. For additional information on paravirtualized device drivers for Windows please visit: multiple VMs and their operating systems by presenting virtualized hardware interfaces to each VM. is an enterprise-class Linux server operating system that offers two types of hypervisors, and KVM. Both hypervisors support virtualization on 64-bit x86-based hardware architectures. Both and KVM support full virtualization mode. In addition, supports paravirtualized mode. with or KVM acts as a virtualization host server (VHS) that supports VMs with their own guest operating systems. The SUSE VM architecture consists of a hypervisor and management components that constitute the VHS, which runs many application-hosting VMs.. In, the management components run in a privileged VM often referred to as dom0. In KVM, where the Linux kernel acts as the hypervisor, the management components run directly on the VHS. 2

guest operating systems. Certified systems and their combinations are listed in certification bulletins at www.suse.com/yessearch/search.jsp.

3 Figure 1. SUSE virtualization host server architecture: Hardware, hypervisor and management domain provide the foundation to host virtual machines SUSE supports various combinations of virtualization hosts and guest operating systems. Certified systems and their combinations are listed in certification bulletins at (under Product, select SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 for x86 with. or SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 11 for AMD64 and Intel EM64T with or SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 11 for AMD64 and Intel EM64T with KVM ). SUSE Technical Support Services require certified system configurations and are offered at several different service levels (SLAs). Figure 2. SUSE KVM virtualization host server architecture: adds Guest mode to traditional Kernel and User modes 3

4 Enterprise Linux Technical White Paper SUSE Linux Enterprise Server: Supported Virtualization Technologies Upgrade Guidelines If you wish to upgrade from a previous version of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server to the latest Service Pack, there are different options available: Upgrade Path: SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP1 to 1. If you have Microsoft 2008 VMs, VMDP must be upgraded. to version 2.0 in all Windows 2008 VMs before upgrading. to SLES 11 SP2. Without the upgrade Windows VMs will not use the paravirtual drivers. 2. Upgrade all virtualization host servers (VHSs) running SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP1 to run SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP2. 3. Upgrade all VMs to run SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11. SP2 after upgrading the host server. The upgrade is backward compatible: SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP1 VMs can run on a SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP2 host. Upgrade Path: SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP4 to 1. If you have Microsoft VMs, VMDP must be upgraded to version 2.0 in all Windows VMs before upgrading to SLES 11 SP2. Without the upgrade Windows VMs will not use the paravirtual drivers. 2. Upgrade all virtualization host servers (VHSs) running SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP4 to run SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP2. 3. Since the use of network scripts is deprecated in, use YaST (or other tools) to set up any custom networking configuration. using standard sysconfig networking scripts. See the SUSE online virtualization documentation for more. details at: 4. Upgrade all VMs to run SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11. SP2 after upgrading the host server. The upgrade is backward compatible: SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP4 VMs can run on a SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP2 host. The 32-bit hypervisor as a virtualization host is no longer supported. 32-bit virtual guests are not affected and fully supported with the provided 64-bit hypervisor. Premium Support Offerings for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP2 SUSE offers subscriptions at different levels, as well as premium support services: Basic, Standard and Priority as well as Enterprise Services that might include a Service Account Manager and dedicated Premium Service Engineers. For the latest information, visit: When deploying SUSE Linux Enterprise Server on IBM System z. hardware, customers are required to have a paid subscription. for each Integrated Facility for Linux (IFL) or CP to be entitled. for service. Each additional IFL or CP which will run SUSE Linux Enterprise Server requires an additional subscription. Any number of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server instances (using. multiple LPARs or z/vm) can run on the entitled IFLs or CPs. (See also: html) Supported Virtualization Technologies SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 SP2 includes 4.1 and KVM 0.15 and fully supports virtualization on 64-bit x86-based architectures. Please consult SUSE certification bulletins for certified combinations and configurations. Please check your hardwarespecific information for the limits of supported physical memory and consult Novell bulletins for certified combinations and configurations. Only x86-64 (64bit) VHS is supported for and KVM. For host, it is highly recommended that dom0 has a minimum of two CPUs at its disposal. We also recommend to disable ballooning and giving dom0 an explicit amount of memory. 4

5 Host and VM Generic Technical Support Limits The table below summarises generic limits for support offered by SUSE. might work well with extended parameters, but SUSE support is limited to the values listed below. Please consider that the virtualization host server needs at least 512 MB of memory. If you are adding VMs, you must add additional memory to this base requirement. The limits for KVM are equal to the limits for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP2. VHS Limits The second table contains the generic limits for VMs running with or KVM supported by SUSE. Dom 0 CPUs 2 64 Logical CPUs 256 Physical Memory Block Devices iscsi Devices 128 Network Cards 8 VMs Per CPU Core 8 VMs Per Host 64 Virtual Devices Per Host 2, GB (dom0), 2 TB () 12,000 SCSI logical units Virtual Machine Limits Per VM KVM Virtual CPUs, Paravirtualization (PV) 32 Virtual CPUs, Full Virtualization (FV) Virtual Memory (Min.) Guest specific 3 Guest specific 3 Virtual Memory (Max.) 512 GB 512 GB Virtual NIC 8 per VM 8 per VM Virtual Block Devices PV 100 Virtual Block Devices FV 4 (100 with PV drivers) 4 (20 with PV drivers) For Windows SVVP, systems are certified with up to 64. vcpus and 128 GB memory on and 63 vcpus and 128 GB memory on KVM. Note: Virtual memory requirements may vary with the purpose of the overall VM configuration, including operating systems and application solution stacks. For an installation of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, a minimum of 256 MB is required and 512 MB is recommended. After installation, the amount of memory may be adjusted dynamically for paravirtualized VMs either a) with the administrative user interface, b) by using the command line, or c) by statically adding the required entries in the VM configuration file. For vendor system-specific limits please consult the SUSE YES Certification page at: jsp Paravirtualization and Full Virtualization OS Support PARAVIRTUALIZED OS SUPPORT (VMs FOR SUSE LINUX ENTERPRISE SERVER 11 SP2 HOST) VM Host 64-bit VM SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP1 SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP4 SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 SP4 Novell Open Enterprise Server 2 SP3 Novell Open Enterprise Server 11 Novell NetWare 6.5 SP8 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 4 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 4 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Processors are hot-pluggable into the available sockets of the system s motherboard. Intel and AMD processors may feature one, two or more CPU cores. CPU cores can provide logical CPUs if supported by the CPU design. Logical CPUs are often referred to as logical hardware threads (LHT). In some circumstance SUSE recommended to disable Hypertreading (in old style dual core hyperthtraded processors) to improve the VM performance. 3 See online documentation for guest-specific guidelines. 4 Supported by SUSE with Best Effort. 5

6 Enterprise Linux Technical White Paper SUSE Linux Enterprise Server: Supported Virtualization Technologies PARAVIRTUALIZED OS SUPPORT (TECHNOLOGY PREVIEW) VM Host 64-bit VM Note: Technology Preview only The operating system listed above has been tested to install and run successfully. Bugs may be reported to and will be tracked by SUSE Technical Services, but no support commitments or service level agreements apply. Potential fixes and patches will be evaluated for future inclusion. FULLY VIRTUALIZED OS SUPPORT (VMs FOR SUSE LINUX ENTERPRISE SERVER 11 SP2 XEN HOST) VM Host 64-bit VM FULLY VIRTUALIZED OS SUPPORT (VMs FOR SUSE LINUX ENTERPRISE SERVER 11 SP2 KVM HOST) VM Host 64-bit VM SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 SP2 SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP1 SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP4 SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 SP4 Novell Open Enterprise Server 2 SP3 5 Novell Open Enterprise Server 11 5 Windows Server 2008 SP2 (Enlightened) Windows Server 2008 R2 (Enlightened) Windows Server 2003 SP2 Windows Vista SP2 6 Windows 7 SP1 (Enlightened) 6 Windows XP SP3 (Uniprocessor only) 6 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 6 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 6 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 6 KVM SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP1 SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP4 SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 SP4 Novell Open Enterprise Server 2 SP3 5 Novell Open Enterprise Server 11 5 Windows Server 2008 SP2 Windows Server 2008 R2 Windows Server 2003 SP2 Windows Vista SP2 6 Windows 7 SP1 6 Windows XP SP3 (Uniprocessor only) 6 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 6 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 6 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 6 For the most current support status, please visit the SUSE certification web pages. SUSE strongly recommends the use of SUSE paravirtual drivers to enhance fully virtualized VM performance. The drivers for Windows on and KVM are available through an add-on product called SUSE Linux Enterprise Virtual Machine Driver Pack (VMDP). SUSE Linux Enterprise VMDP is a fee-based bundle of paravirtualized network, bus and block device drivers. They let you run fully virtualized Windows workloads on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server with near-native performance. It does this by opening additional channels of communication between the and KVM hypervisors in SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and the unmodified guest operating systems running in a virtual environment. This accelerates network and storage input/ output and improves overall efficiency. Also, any guest OS support is valid as long as the original vendor supports that OS as part of the product lifecycle. Feature Support for VHS SUSE LINUX ENTERPRISE SERVER 11 SP2 FEATURE SUPPORT HOST (dom0) Network and Block Device Hotplugging Physical CPU Hotplugging Virtual CPU Hotplugging Virtual CPU Pinning Virtual CPU Capping Intel VT-x2: FlexPriority, FlexMigrate (Migration Constraints Apply to Dissimilar CPU Architectures) Intel VT-d2 (DMA Remapping with Interrupt Filtering and Queued Invalidation) AMD IOMMU (I/O Page Table with Guest-to-Host Physical Address Translation) The supported features for KVM are the same as the supported features for. Note: The addition or removal of physical CPUs at runtime is not supported, however virtual CPUs may be added or removed for each VM. CPU pinning allows logical CPU to virtual CPU assignment for a specific VM. 5 Only the Linux flavor. 6 Supported by SUSE with Best Effort. No 6

7 Note: Virtual CPU capping allows you to set vcpu capacity to percent of the physical CPU capacity. SUSE LINUX ENTERPRISE SERVER 11 SP2 FEATURE SUPPORT PARAVIRTUALIZED GUEST Virtual Network and Virtual Block Device Hotplugging Virtual CPU Hotplugging Virtual CPU Overcommitment Dynamic Virtual Memory Resize VM Save and Restore VM Live Migration Virtual CPU over-commitment is the ability to assign more virtual CPUs to VMs than the actual number of physical CPUs present in the physical system. This procedure does not increase the overall performance of the system, but might be useful for testing purposes. For live migration, both source and target system architectures need to match; that is, the processors (AMD or Intel) must be the same. Unless CPU ID masking is used such as Intel s FlexMigration the target should feature the same processor revision or a more recent processor revision than the source. If VMs are moved among different systems, the same rules apply for each move. To avoid failing optimised code at runtime or application startup, source and target CPUs need to expose the same processor extensions. exposes the physical CPU extensions to the VMs transparently. To summarise, guests can be 32- or 64-bit, but the virtual host servers must be identical. VM Snapshot 8 Advanced Debugging with GDBC Dom0 Metrics Visible to VM Memory Ballooning PCI Pass Through 9 (excludes SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 SP4 in Multiprocessor Mode) Between like Virtual Host Systems with Similar Resources 7 (Excludes SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 SP4 in Multiprocessor Mode) SUSE LINUX ENTERPRISE SERVER 11 SP2 FEATURE SUPPORT FULL VIRTUALIZATION GUEST KVM Virtual Network and Virtual Block Device Hotplugging 10 Virtual CPU Hotplugging No No Virtual CPU Overcommitment Dynamic Virtual Memory Resize 11 VM Save and Restore VM Live Migration Between like Virtual Host Systems with Similar Resources (i.e., from 32-bit to 32-bit, 64-bit to 64-bit) 7 VM Snapshot No Advanced Debugging with GDBC Dom0 Metrics Visible to VM PCI Pass Through 12 For KVM, a detailed description of supported limits, features, recommended settings and scenarios and other useful information is maintained in the kvm-supported.txt document, available as a part of the kvm package and located at /usr/ share/doc/packages/kvm path on an installed SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP2 system. 7 For machines that have Intel FlexMigration, CPU-ID masking allows more flexibility in cross-cpu migration. 8 QCOW2 disk image format required for all writable disks. 9 Specific guests excluded are NetWare and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 SP4. 10 Windows guest: Virtual Network and Virtual block device hotplug ging is supported in and KVM only if PV drivers are being used (VMDP). 11 Windows guest: Dynamic virtual memory resize, shrinking and restoring, is supported in and KVM only if PV drivers are being used (VMDP). 12 IOMMU is needed for PCI Pass Through, which requires underlying support from the hardware (e.g Intel VT-d extensions or AMD IOMMU extensions). 7

8 Other Supported Platforms Supported Software Virtualization Technologies has been optimised to function as a performance tuned guest OS on other third party hypervisors, such as VMware ESX, Citrix Server and Microsoft Hyper-V. The paravirtualized SUSE Linux Enterprise Server kernel extracts better response times in interactions with Citrix Server. Also, SUSE has partnered with Microsoft to develop a shim (or hypercall adapter) that translates -specific calls from the paravirtualized SUSE Linux Enterprise Server kernel into Hyper-V compatible calls, thus allowing to run as a paravirtualized guest., in various forms, is a supported guest OS on these leading host platforms with YES Certification assurances. Supported Hardware Virtualization Technologies is supported on z9, z10 and IBM zenterprise class systems, in both logical partition (LPAR) and z/vm versions 5.4, 6.1 and subsequent releases. (64bit) features a 32-bit application environment to deploy legacy 31-bit applications. Non-supported Virtualization Technologies and KVM are not available nor supported with SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP2 for POWER and Itanium Processor Family (IPF) hardware. Resource virtualization may be achieved for IPF by using CPUSETs or using LXC (container type technology). IBM POWER provides a different technology called dynamic logical partitions (DLPARs) to operate VMs. Virtuozzo and OpenVZ are not included in SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP2. Special offers are available from Parallels. Please contact Parallels for information on specific product and support offerings. Contact your local SUSE Solutions Provider, or call SUSE at: Australia China Hong Kong India Japan Malaysia New Zealand Singapore South Korea Taiwan SUSE Maxfeldstrasse Nuremberg. Germany AP / SUSE LLC. All Rights Reserved. SUSE and the SUSE logo are registered trademarks of SUSE LLC in the United States and other countries. Novell and NetWare are registered trademarks of Novell, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All third-party trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Three Steps Toward Zero Downtime. Guide. Solution Guide Server.

Three Steps Toward Zero Downtime Guide Solution Guide Server Server Solution Guide Three Steps Toward Zero Downtime Introduction Service uptime is a top priority for many business operations. From global