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Guide to Managing the Thinsy Internal Cloud Platform using the VM Orchestrator Shortcuts for the impatient
Introduction The EnSpeed VM Software provides the capability to run unmodified guest OSes such as Windows, in a cluster of Physical Machines. Physical Machines are also called Virtual Machine Monitors (VMMs) or VM Servers. The following Enterprise grade features are provided, all on Physical Machines with Direct Attached Storage, i.e. no SAN or NAS hardware is required.
The Thinsy Internal Cloud Platform consists of the EnSpeed Virtual Machine Monitor (VMM) server and EnSpeed VM Orchestrator. The EnSpeed VMM server is a Xen based Virtualization server that is installed on bare hardware, i.e. it does not require a hosting OS. The EnSpeed VM Orchestrator is a web server hosted application accessible using a standard web browser with java. It provides the following functionality:
The Orchestrator contains the following major components:
Hardware and Software Requirements EnSpeed VM Orchestrator is delivered as a VMware Virtual Appliance, and can be run on the following environments:
The Virtual Appliance Library is stored in a separate virtual disk of the sparse vmdk kind. It starts small, but can grow to about 600 Gigabytes in size. The EnSpeed VMM requires servers that have hardware support for Virtualization, i.e. Intel VT or AMD Pacifica enabled servers. The EnSpeed VM Orchestrator does not need an Intel VT or AMD Pacifica enabled machine. Summary The Summary tab presents an overview of the VM Servers and VMs managed by the EnSpeed VM Orchestrator. The following information is displayed in this tab:
The following function buttons are available on the left hand column of the Summary tab:
Admin Account Actions In addition to the self-explanatory functions Change Password and Change Email Address, there is a function called Display ActionLog that enables users to view a log of their own actions. User Administration User Roles in EnSpeed VM Orchestrator Users can be Managers, Power Users, or Regular Users. Managers have full control over the Orchestrator. Power Users are allowed to create a pre-determined number of VMs using a specified amount of memory and disk space. Finally, Regular Users have no privilege to create VMs, but can operate VMs that they own.
Physical Machines The Orchestrator maintains a database of physical machines in the cluster. These machines are expected to be running a supported version of Virtual Machine Monitor software. Virtual Machine Monitor software supported in this release of the Orchestrator is as follows:
EnSpeed VM Orchestrator provides the following functions relating to VM Servers (Physical Machines).
Adding a Physical Machine definition to the PhysicalMachine Database: In the .VM Servers. tab, click on the .Add New Physical Machine(VMM). button. It takes you to a form where you can enter the hostname or the IP address of the VM Server, and the root password for the machine. You are then presented with a web page where you can enter details of the physical machine that you are adding to the database. Note that the VM Orchestrator has logged into the VM Server, and determined the essential parameters of the machine. These values are filled in for your convenience, but you may override them. Please ensure that the Physical Machine is powered up, and accessible using ssh before starting the process of adding a physical machine to the database. The screen capture below shows a typical form with values filled in.
HostName The DNS Hostname or IP Address of the physical machine being added to the database. Note that the Orchestrator needs to be able to ping and ssh the entry in this field. I.e. if a hostname xyz.example.com is used, then the commands .ping xyz.example.com. and .ssh root@xyz.example.com. executed in the Orchestrator must succeed. Password The root password of server HostName. This is the password that must be typed in when the command .ssh root@HostName. is executed on the Orchestrator. Number of CPUs The number of processors in the server HostName Cores Per CPU The number of processor cores in each CPU of HostName. For example, a Core 2 Duo processor has two cores per CPU. Hyperthreading Indicate whether the Hyperthreading feature is available in the CPU(s) or not. Memory The amount of memory installed in server HostName, expressed in Megabytes. NICs The number of Network Interface Cards installed in this server. MHz Processor speed, in Megahertz. Vmmvendor, vmmtype and vmmversion
In addition, limited support (just physical machine monitoring) for the following VMMs is provided:
When the .Save. button in this form is pressed, the .Add Physical Disk. form is brought up. Here is a screen capture of the .Add Physical Disk. form with values filled in.
Physical disks on the VMM server are used by the Orchestrator to place VMs on. Four physical disks, along with their mount points on the VMM server may be specified in this form. The Orchestrator will attempt to distribute the VMs onto these physical disks, in terms of disk space utilized by the VM virtual disk files, and disk I/O requirements of the VMs. IMPORTANT NOTE REGARDING LIVE MIGRATION In order for Live Migration of a VM from the Primary to Secondary to work, the MountPoint must be identical. For example, if a VM’s Primary VMM is 192.168.1.201 and its secondary VMM is 192.168.1.202, then the mountpoint where the VM is loaded has to be identical (for example, /vmspace0) on both VMMs. Specifying a Disk A disk is merely a location on the VMM where the VM Orchestrator will place virtual machines. It is specified as a mountpoint on the VMM. For example, in the EnSpeed VMM installation guide, a directory called /vms was created using webmin. This is the MountPoint for that disk. Another example would be two seperate disks mounted as /disk0 and /disk1 on the VMM. More disks on the VMM allow for more VMs to be hosted. Four distinct disks may be specified in this form. The two parameters of use here are the size in Gigabytes, and mountpoint. In the example above, a disk of 200 Gigabytes mounted at the location /mnt/vmspace0 on the machine 192.168.1.221 is specified. When the Orchestrator is asked to .Create a Virtual Machine. and load it into the cluster, it will create a new sub-directory under /mnt/vmspace0, e.g. /mnt/vmspace0/11, and copy the VMs virtual disk image files into that directory. Once the .Save. button is pressed, the .Physical Machines. tab is displayed. The newly created entry in the PhysicalMachine database table is displayed, as shown below.
Deleting a Physical Machine Definition from the PhysicalMachine Database In order to delete a physical machine defined in the PhysicalMachine database, go to the .Physical Machines. tab in the Orchestrator, check the .Check to Delete. checkbox next to the machines to be deleted, and press the .Delete. button. Mark Machine Down Functionality In the course of normal operation of the EnSpeed VM Orchestrator, it logs into and checks the state of every physical machine every 30 seconds. If a particular Physical Machine has been taken out of service temporarily, it is useful to inform the Orchestrator of this downtime. This is accomplished by clicking the ‘Mark Machine Down’ link. Once the machine has been marked as ‘Down’ in this manner, the Orchestrator will not poll the machine till the machine is marked as being up again. Integrated Nagios Monitoring The EnSpeed VM Orchestrator has integrated functionality for monitoring physical machines. The monitoring function is implemented using a customized version of the open source Nagios monitoring system. Automatic Add of Physical Machines to Monitored Machines Database The EnSpeed VM Orchestrator has integrated functionality for monitoring physical machines. The monitoring function is implemented using a customized version of the open source Nagios monitoring system. Graphs of Physical Machine Parameters In addition to Nagios Monitoring, graphs of Physical Machine parameters such as memory and disk are automatically generated. These can be accessed using the “Graphs..” link in the “Physical Machine” tab’s table of “Physical Machines”. Virtual Machines EnSpeed VM Orchestrator provides the following function groups relating to Virtual Machines:
The following screen capture shows the Virtual Machine tab of the Orchestrator User Interface, along with the four function buttons at the top.
Each Virtual Machine has a Virtual Machine Brief Dashboard that facilitates the following operations on the Virtual Machine:
Virtual Machine Creation Functions Create VM from Virtual Appliance A Virtual Appliance is basically an image of a Virtual Machine stored in the VM Orchestrator. It consists of virtual disk images, and XML files that describe the Virtual Appliance. A VM may be created using a Virtual Appliance image from the Virtual Appliance library and loaded onto the Physical Machine cluster. While loading a Virtual Machine image into the cluster, a High Availability mode may be chosen, wherein, the Virtual Machine image is loaded onto two Physical Machines . a Primary VMM that runs the VM, and a High Availability backup VMM that takes over and runs the VM should the primary fail. The High Availability Backup VMM has a LiveSync synchronized copy of the VM\.s virtual disk files. It is also possible to choose to keep a LiveSync copy of the disk files on the Backup VMM, but not do automatic startup of the virtual machine on the Backup VMM, should the Primary VMM fail. This case is useful, if you wish to use an external monitoring application to restart the VM. Click on the .Create VM from Virtual Appliance. button to start the process of creating and loading a Virtual Machine using a Virtual Appliance from the Virtual Appliance Library. The following is a screen capture of the first form. Explanations for the sample entries in this screen capture follow the image.
Enter a 8 character name for this VM This is the name used to identify the Virtual Machine. It must be unique within the VM Orchestrator, and must be shorter than 8 characters. In this example, the name .myalf. is used to signify that this is a VM that provides Alfresco CMS functionality. Choose a VM Image from the repository The Virtual Appliance images stored in the repository are available in this drop down list. The Virtual Appliance called alfresco is chosen for this Create VM operation. In the next form, memory allocated to the VM, primary VM Host (VMM Server) and the VM Backup feature are chosen. One feature of note is the ability to specify a custom MAC address for the VM. By default, the EnSpeed VM Orchestrator generates a unique MAC address using the EnSpeed VMID as a component. A custom MAC address for the VM is useful if you have a DHCP server configured to allocate a specific IP address for this custom MAC.
Memory for VM (in MB) This is the amount of physical memory that the Virtual Machine Monitor (VMM) server will allocate to the hr-jabber virtual machine. Clone VM Feature If the Clone VM Feature is checked, the EnSpeed VM Orchestrator creates VMs that do not modify the base disk. The changes made by the VM’s guest OS are stored in a separate file. Clone VMs can be created in around 15 seconds, if the Virtual Appliance has been used to create a VM at least once on that server. Essentially, the base virtual disks are copied to the VM Server the first time. subsequently, Clone VMs created reference the same virtual disk base image. Note that copying a multiple gigabyte Virtual Disk image could take 10 minutes or more. USB Mouse Checking the USB mouse feature creates VMs which have a USB mouse device emulated. All Windows Operating Systems have USB mice support built in, whereas Linux needs special steps to install the device driver for a USB mouse. The advantage of a USB mouse is that mouse tracking works well when using the VM Orchestrator’s web based remote console facility. Select Primary VM Host This drop down box lists the VMM servers (Physical Machines) along with each disk in the Physical Machine. In this example, 192.168.1.221 is the machine chosen to host the VM, and the VM files will be located in the directory /vms. Choose VM Backup Three choices are available for VM backup. They are listed below:
No VM Backup If this option is chosen, then the VM\.s virtual disks are present only on one VM Server. Failure of the VM Server with the virtual disk files will cause the VM to be non functional. Further, data loss may occur if the hard disk on the VM Server fails. On the plus side, this manner of hosting VMs consumes the least amount of Resources, and offers higher performance. LiveSync Backup of VM Virtual Disks When this option is chosen, a drop down box lists the various LiveSync backup capable servers.
As seen in the above screen capture, the machine selected as Primary VM Host is marked as ineligible for use as the Backup VM Server. The Virtual Disks for this VM are copied to both the VM Hosts, and LiveSync is configured to keep both copies of each virtual disk in sync. However, if the Primary VMM fails, the Backup VMM will not automatically start up the VM using its synchronized copy of the virtual disks. This is a manual operation. The operator may click on the power on button for the VM when the Primary VMM is down, and this will cause the VM to be started on the backup VMM. LiveSync Backup VM Virtual Disks and Start VM on Backup VM Server if Primary Fails This is the most feature rich option. Not only will the Virtual Disks be copied to and synchronized on the Backup VMM Server, the VM will be automatically started up on the backup VMM, should the primary fail. Once this failover action happens, user intervention is required to relocate the VM back to the primary VMM server. It is critical to have the EnSpeed VM Orchestrator up and running all the time if LiveSync with Automatic Failover is used. This is necessary since the Primary VMM and the Secondary VMM communicate with the VM Orchestrator to determine quorum. When the .Next.. button is pressed, the Orchestrator swings into action, loading the VM files into the appropriate VMM machines. The web browser is redirected back to the Virtual Machine tabe. Status of the Virtual Machine being created can be observed by clicking on the “Status” link under the “Create VM From Virtual Appliance” button. Status is displayed using a 15 second refresh webpage.
Once the VM virtual disk images have been copied to the Primary VMM, and possibly the secondary VMM, they are uncompressed if necessary. Configuration files are written out to configure the software involved, and the VM tab in the Orchestrator main webpage is brought up. The newly created VM is listed in the VM list. It is powered off and ready for use. Create Blank VM with virtual CDROM emulated using bootable ISO image Press the .Create Blank VM. button in the .Virtual Machines. tab. The following page is displayed.
Enter a name (8 characters or less) for the VM. In this example, .myxp. is chosen. Pick a VM from the ISO Library for use as the CDROM in this VM. This is typically a boot CDROM.s ISO image such as a Windows XP boot CD iso image, or a Centos boot CD image. Up to three virtual disks can be configured for this VM. Specify the sizes, in MB, of each of these three virtual disks. In this example, just one virtual disk of size 8192MB is configured. Nominal sizes for Virtual Disks range from 2GB to 8 GB (2048MB . 8192MB). You can also choose to emulate a USB mouse for the Guest OS by checking the USB Mouse checkbox. When you press the .Create VM. button, the CDROM ISO image is copied over to the VMM, the virtual disk images are created, the configuration files are written out, and the VM is added to the Orchestrator.s VM table. The browser is redirected to the Virtual Machines tab, from where you can power on the VM. Virtual SCSI Disks There is a SCSI checkbox next to each virtual disk that causes the Virtual Disk to be an emulated SCSI disk. Currently, SCSI drives are not supported for booting. Most linuxes do not have support for the emulated SCSI card built in. Hence the only way to use a SCSI disk is by specifying it as the second, third or fourth disk in a Windows Guest install. Performance of Virtual SCSI disks are higher than the regular IDE drives. Hence it is suitable for storing data. USB Mouse The USB Mouse emulation in EnSpeed VMM fixes the mouse tracking problems experienced with older versions of the software. Windows has native support for the USB tablet emulated by EnSpeed VMM, however linux does not. Hence certain steps have to be taken to enable Linux guests to use the USB Mouse. These steps are described here. Misc Functions Change VM Ownership A VM’s owner can be changed by pressing this button. It brings up a form where the VMID and the new owner can be chosen from drop down boxes. To create a new user, use the “User Management” button in the “Summary” tab. Delete Partially Created VM If a VM Creation task was aborted, it leaves behind a partially created VM. This partially created VM may be deleted from the Orchestrator using this function. Library Management EnSpeed VM Orchestrator provides library management functions related to managing the Virtual Appliance (VM Image) library, and the ISO library. Manage Virtual Appliance Library Clicking the .Library Mgmt Tab. of the VM Orchestrator brings you to the Virtual Appliance Library Management page shown below.
The functions accessible from the top of this page provide various ways to add Virtual Appliances to the Virtual Appliance library, and monitor the progress of such actions. These are:
Copy Back VM The .Copy Back VM. function enables you to take a Virtual Machine running on the cluster, one that you have customized to you preference, and copy it back to the virtual appliance library under a new name. For example, a typical scenario may be described as follows:
The following screen capture shows the form fields that are necessary to initiate the process of copying back a VM into the Virtual Appliance Library.
In this example, you can use the drop down list to choose from the VMs loaded in the cluster . , and give the Virtual Appliance a name. Pressing the .Create Virtual Appliance from VM. causes the copyback process to start. The progress of the copyback process will be displayed in the web page that follows. The process of copying back a Virtual Machine and creating a Virtual Appliance from it is very time consuming. In case you choose to close the browser window, and come back later to check the status, you can press the .Copy Back VM Status. link in the .Lib Mgmt. tab in order to return to this copy back status page. Download EnSpeed Virtual Appliances The EnSpeed VM Orchestrator has the capability to download compatible Virtual Appliances from the Internet and load them into the Virtual Appliance Directory. This functionality can be reached by pressing the .Download EnSpeed Virtual Appliances. button at the top of the Virtual Appliance Library Management page. This takes you to a page that looks like this:
There is one link included with the EnSpeed VM Orchestrator distribution. This link points to “enspeedva” directory . This EnSpeed published directory of Virtual Appliances includes useful Virtual Appliances that you may download and use. All Virtual Appliances include full GUI configuration, and are free of charge. Pressing the EnSpeed button here takes you to a page that lists Virtual Appliances and their characteristics. Here is an example:
Here the EnSpeed SugarCRM CRM Virtual Appliance is listed as requiring 512M of RAM and 10GB of disk space to run. Pressing the Download link starts the process of downloading the Virtual Appliance. Progress is displayed using the status page that follows. This download process could take considerable time. If you choose to close your browser window, and come back later, you can reach the Virtual Appliance Download Status page by pressing the .Download Virtual Appliance Status. link in the .Lib Mgmt . tab. Upload Virtual Disks This method of creating a Virtual Appliance is by uploading individual virtual disk files created using other means. Note that the EnSpeed Virtual Machine Monitor is based on open source Xen. Hence Xen VMs created using the Hardware Assisted Virtualization method of Xen are fully compatible with the EnSpeed Virtual Machine Monitor, and the EnSpeed VM Orchestrator. In this method of creating a Virtual Appliance, you will be asked to name the Virtual Appliance, choose upto four files to upload to the Orchestrator, specify the minimum and the maximum memory settings for the Virtual Appliance, and then finally, the appliance will be created by the VM Orchestrator. ISO Library Management The ISO Library is used to store bootable ISO image for use in creating blank VMs and installing Operating Systems on the blank VMs. See the .Create Blank VM. section for more information. VM Dashboard The Virtual Machine tab of the VM Orchestrator has a brief VM dashboard for each VM in the system. Pressing the VMID or the VM Name in the brief Dashboard takes you to the Full VM Dashboard. Pressing the Monitor icon on either dashboard takes you to the Remote Graphical Console page, an example of which is shown below. The Full Dashboard provides visual indication of the status of each VM, and provides buttons to access the following functions.
The screen capture above is annotated with some highlights of the VM display. Here is a brief description of the various features highlighted above. (a) VM Name As specified in the Import VM Page. The owner of the VM is listed in braces in this field. (b) VMID This is an EnSpeed Orchestrator assigned unique numeric ID for the VM. It is valid across the entire cluster. It is different from the Xen Domain ID, which is valid only on one single physical machine. (c ) Power State Indicates whether the VM is powered on or off. (d) Primary VMM Indicates whether the Primary VMM configured for this VM is up or down. If the Primary VMM Server cannot be pinged from the VM Orchestrator, it is marked as down, and the section of the VM title bar is red in color. If the Primary VMM Server is up, that section of the title bar is green in background color. (e) H/A Backup VMM This section of the VM title bar describes the state of the High Availability Backup VMM Server, similar to the Primary VMM Section of the VM title bar. (f) Power Operations This section of the VM display has power operations buttons, which are described in more detail in a following section of this document. (g) Remote Console The Remote Console button in this section may be used to start a web browser embedded java applet Remote Console to the VM. This link is context sensitive, i.e. it is not active when the VM is powered off. (h) VM Migrate Operations One of the features of LiveSync is the ability to Live Migrate a VM from the Primary to the Secondary VMM or back. There are certain conditions that need to be satisfied for successful Live Migration. The two VMMs have to have similar CPUs, the location of the VM on the two VMMs has to be identical, and neither of the two VMMs must have suffered an outage prior to the time of attempted migration. This link is context sensitive, i.e. it is not active when these conditions are not met. (i) Backup Operations Full backup of a running VM, without shutting it down, is possible using this button. (j) VM Settings Click on the VM Settings link to change the memory allocation for the VM, virtual disk, etc. This link is enabled only when the VM is powered off.
Power On and Power Off Virtual Machines loaded into the cluster In the above screen capture, (f) is the Power Operations pane of the VM. There are two power operations of interest . Power On and Power Off VM. These links are context sensitive. Hence, when the VM is powered off, the .Power On. button is green and active, whereas the .Power Off. button is grey and inactive. The converse is also true, I.e. when the VM is Powered On, the .Power On. Button is greyed out and the .Power Off. button is red in color, and active. Open a remote console to the VM (g) of the above screen capture is the .Remote Console. function of the VM Orchestrator. If you click on that link using a java enabled web browser, then you will be taken to a webpage with the Remote Console Java Applet. This gives you a Remote Console to the VM, as shown below. High Availability Failover and Failback Failover The High Availability feature of the EnSpeed Virtual Machine software allows Virtual Machines to be restarted on a High Availability Backup VM Host in case the primary VM Host should fail. When a Virtual Machine is created with the High Availability Backup VM Host, the Backup VM Host monitors the status and health of the Primary VM Host. Should the primary VM Host fail, the backup VM Host takes over the job of hosting the Virtual Machine. This automated action is called Failover. Note that this involves the Guest Operating System running on the VM being rebooted. In the screen capture below, the Primary has failed. The Power Status of the VM in the VM Dashboard states .Powered Up On H/A Backup VMM. (Not ready to relocate back to Primary VMM).. Further, the status bar also indicates that the Primary VMM is down.
In the next screen capture, the Primary VMM has been restored to service. However, the VM.s power status still says .Powered Up On H/A Backup VMM. (Not ready to relocate back to Primary VMM).. In this state, the backup VMM is synchronizing changes made by the Virtual Machine to its virtual disk state back to the Primary VMM. Once this synchronization, which could take several minutes, is complete, the VM is ready for Failback to the Primary VMM, as described in the next section.
Failback Once a virtual machine has failed over to the backup VM Host, the primary VM Host may be taken down and serviced. Upon bringing back the Primary VM Host, the Virtual Machine can be relocated to the Primary VM Host. This action, termed Failback is operator initiated. The Virtual Machine may be migrated from the Backup VMM back to the Primary without shutting down the Guest Operating System Delete VM from cluster The Delete VM from cluster operation can be performed while the VM is powered off. This action is initiated by pressing the red X icon of the .Power Operations. section. Once confirmation of the delete operation is obtained, the virtual disk image files, any full or incremental backup files and all configuration files are removed from the Physical Machines, I.e. the VMM Servers in the cluster. This action is not reversible. Note however, that the Virtual Appliance images in the Orchestrator Virtual Appliance Library are untouched by this delete operation. Hadoop Management Hadoop is an exciting new development in cloud computing. Using hadoop, a large (Peta Byte) dataset is split and distributed across thousands of machines. The compute is now divided into thousands of tasks on these machines. Quick Link: Creating a VM from an OS ISO Image, and loading it into the VM Servers To create a VM from an ISO image, perform the following steps.
Quick Link: Downloading EnSpeed Virtual Appliances, and storing them in the Orchestrator The EnSpeed Virtual Appliance directory is a collection of interesting Virtual Appliances published by Thinsy Corporation, and generally free for download and use.
Quick Link: Creating a VM from a Virtual Appliance stored in the Orchestrator To create a VM from a Virtual Appliance, perform the following steps.
Quick Link: Copying back a VM From the VM Server(s), and storing it as a Virtual Appliance in the Orchestrator A Virtual Machine that has been loaded into the VM Server cluster can be copied back, and saved as a Virtual Appliance in the Orchestrator. Here’s how: Quick Link: Migrating VMs from Primary to Backup VM Server, or vice versa LiveSync maintains a mirrored copy of the virtual disks for a Highly Available VM on the backup VM Server. This enables the migration of a VM from the Primary VM Server to backup VM Server, should the need arise. Note however, that the CPUs on the two VM Servers should be of the same family, i.e. Core2 with Core2, or AMD with AMD. Further, the VMM version, and LiveSync version should match. |
Thinsy Internal Cloud Platform – Management
