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Intelligent Management: supported server virtualization environments

Before you deploy Intelligent Management on virtualized servers, you must understand the limitations for the server virtualization platform that you are using.

Remember: This topic lists the most up to date information on the support of various server virtualization platforms.

Virtualization platform Restrictions Supported processor sharing mode
AIX 5.3 and AIX 6.1 on POWER5 and POWER6 (Micro-Partitioning )

For more information about required configuration steps, read about configuring AIX 5.3 and AIX 6.1 on POWER5 and POWER6 (Micro-Partitioning).

For uncapped shared processor partitions, equal partition weights are recommended. Intelligent Management does not have a partition to physical machine mapping and thus does not use the partition weight when making workload distribution and server placement decisions.

All Intelligent Management features are supported on AIX Micro-partitioning in capped or uncapped mode.

Shared capped, shared uncapped, and dedicated modes are supported for both POWER5 and POWER6. Support for dedicated donating and multiple shared pools modes are available on POWER6 only.

AIX 7.1 on POWER7 None.

POWER7 processor in POWER6 compatibility mode

POWER7 processor mode

Application Workload Partition (WPAR) AIX 6.1 and 7.1 None. Shared.
KVM in SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 11 None. Dedicated and shared.
Red Hat KVM as delivered with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5.4, 5.5, 6.0 None. Dedicated and shared.
Linux on POWER (Micro-Partitioning) None. Dedicated.
Linux on z/VM

  • The guest operating system must be Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5.0, 5.1, 5.2 or SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 10.

  • Mapping a Linux on zSeries operating system image to a physical logical partition (LPAR): Intelligent Management can balance workload across multiple z/VM virtual machines that are running Linux as the guest operating system. However, it does not have knowledge of the LPAR that is hosting the virtual machines on the z/VM image and is therefore unable to make workload balancing decisions based on the workload at the LPAR level.

  • Service policy goals: Workload that is not under the control of Intelligent Management might be running on other Virtual Machines on the same z/VM image. This workload might affect service policy goals.

Dedicated and shared.
Solaris Operating Environment 10 on Sun (Zones) None for dedicated. Dedicated and shared.

VMware ESX 3.5, 4.0, 4.1, 5.0

VMware vSphere 4, 5

  • For more information about limitations, read about VMware Infrastructure 3 platforms and Intelligent Management.

Dedicated and shared modes are supported for ESX or VMware vSphere 4 and VMware vSphere 5, but configure Intelligent Management to communicate with the ESX or VMware vSphere 4 and VMware vSphere 5 hypervisor or the vCenter that is in control of the hypervisors where Intelligent Management is running.
Linux Xen

  • We must be using SLES 11 or later.

  • We must use the following guidelines for setting up the clock correctly: Virtual Machine Clock Settings.

  • Use para-virtualized mode over full-virtualized mode. Full-virtualized mode can lead to network bottlenecks that can adversely affect performance of the system. This performance problem is particularly possible for large topologies.

Dedicated.
HP-UX 11i v3 on HP using Virtual Partitions (vPars) or Integrity VMs Currently not supported. None.
Microsoft Hyper-V Currently not supported. None.


Related concepts

  • VMware Infrastructure 3 platforms and Intelligent Management


    Related information:

  • Configure AIX 5.3 and AIX 6.1 on POWER5 and POWER6 (Micro-Partitioning)