Top
ServerView Resource Coordinator VE Setup Guide

A.3 Functional Differences between Products

This section describes the functional differences of each server virtualization product when used with Resource Coordinator VE.


Display of VM Guest Names

The names of VM guest displayed in Resource Coordinator VE vary according to the server virtualization product used.

[VMware]
The RC console displays either a VM guest's VM name (as defined within VMware), or the hostname of its guest OS.
The guest OS hostname is displayed only after VMware Tools have been installed and the VM guest has been restarted once. The following conditions illustrate this behavior.

If symbols were used in the VM name, those may be shown as percents ("%") or a pair of hexadecimal characters (example: "%5c"). Such behavior is similar to that of some parts of VMware's management console.

[Hyper-V]
The RC console displays either a VM guest's VM name (as defined within Hyper-V), or the hostname of its guest OS.
The guest OS hostname is displayed after the VM guest has been started up at least once.


High-Availability Features of Each Product

Each server virtualization product provides its own high-availability feature. For details about such features, refer to the manual of each product.

Table A.6 High-availability features of each product

Server Virtualization Product

High-availability feature

VMware

VMware HA

Hyper-V

None (*1)

*1: Hyper-V doesn't provide a high-availability feature itself, but an equivalent feature is provided by a separate Microsoft product.


Sharing of spare servers between physical servers and VM guests

Resource Coordinator VE allows sharing of spare servers between physical servers and VM guests by combining its own spare server functionality with the high-availability features available in each server virtualization product. This can be done using the following procedure.

  1. Choose a VM host that is not running any VM guest, and set it as a VM guest recovery server using the high-availability feature of the virtualization product used.

  2. In Resource Coordinator VE, set the server chosen in a. as the spare server of other physical servers.

Refer to "A.1 Supported Functions" for details on which virtualization product can be used to share a common spare server with Resource Coordinator VE.


Backup and restore of VM hosts when VM guests are stored on their boot disk

Depending on the virtualization product used, the behavior of backup and restore functions differs whether or not VM guests are stored on the VM host's boot disk.

[VMware]
VM guests are not included in the VM host's backup and restore.

[Hyper-V]
VM guests are included in the VM host's backup and restore. However, only the data stored on the VM host's boot disk is subject to backup and restore.

Table A.7 Backup and restore behavior for each virtualization product

Disk

Partition

Backup and Restore Target

VMware

Hyper-V

First disk

VM host

Yes

Yes

swap

No (*1)

-

VM guest

No (*2)

Yes

Data

Yes

Yes

Second disk

VM guest

No

No

Data

No

No

*1: The data inside the swap partition is not backed up. On restoration, only the swap partition's configuration is restored.

*2: VMFS partitions are not subject to backup and restore.


VM Guest Migration

Migration of VM guests is only supported for VMware environments with VMware vCenter Server installed.

The terminology used to describe different types of migration may differ depending on each virtualization vendor. For unification purposes, Resource Coordinator VE uses the following terminology.

Table A.8 Migration Terminology

Resource Coordinator VE terminology

VMware Terminology

Description

Live migration

VMotion

Migration of an active virtual machine (without interruption)

Cold migration

Cold migration

Migration of a powered off virtual machine


VM Guest Statuses

Displayed VM guest statuses may differ depending on the configuration of its server virtualization environment.

[VMware]

[Hyper-V]
VM guest statuses can be either one of the following: "normal", "unknown" or "stop".


VM Maintenance Mode

VM maintenance mode settings are only available for VMware environments.

The terminology used to describe VM maintenance mode may differ depending on each virtualization vendor. Refer to the manual of each product for details on VM maintenance mode settings and their requirements.

Table A.9 VM Maintenance Mode Terminology

Server Virtualization Product

Vendor Terminology

VMware

Maintenance mode

Hyper-V

None


Migration Conflicts

A VM guest migration may fail if another migration was already launched from outside (*1) or Resource Coordinator VE. In such cases, select [Operation]-[Update] from the RC console menu to refresh the screen and check that the VM guest is not already being migrated.

*1: This may happen when using an automatic migration feature within the server virtualization software, or when a migration was run directly from a VM management console. Refer to the virtualization software manual for details on automatic migration features.