PeopleSoft Virtualization with Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V ...

An ACS: Expertise In Action® White Paper PeopleSoft Virtualization

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PeopleSoft Virtualization with Windows Server 2008

Hyper-V Technology An ACS: Expertise In Action®

White Paper

___________________________________________

Affiliated Computer Services, Inc. Information Technology Outsourcing

December 2008

ACS ® and the ACS design are trademarks of ACS Marketing LP in the US and/or other countries. XEROX ® and

XEROX and Design® are trademarks of the XEROX Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.


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Contents

Contents.......................................................................................................................... 2Authors............................................................................................................................ 4Summary......................................................................................................................... 4Executive Summary ........................................................................................................ 4PeopleSoft Server Virtualization...................................................................................... 5

Virtualization Benefits............................................................................................... 5Hyper-V Virtualization............................................................................................... 5Hyper-V Targeted Scenarios.................................................................................... 6Server Sprawl Reduction ......................................................................................... 6High Availability for PeopleSoft ................................................................................ 6PeopleSoft Application Lifecycle .............................................................................. 7

Hyper-V Technology 6..................................................................................................... 7Dynamic Data Center ............................................................................................... 7

Hyper-V Overview ........................................................................................................... 7Architecture .............................................................................................................. 8Hardware Assisted Virtualization.............................................................................. 9Hyper-V Tools ........................................................................................................ 10System Center Virtual Machine Manager............................................................... 10Server Cloning ....................................................................................................... 11Quick Migration ...................................................................................................... 11Virtual Machine Snapshots .................................................................................... 11Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit Solution Accelerator.......................... 12

Hyper-V Migration ......................................................................................................... 13General PeopleSoft High Availability Configuration................................................ 13PeopleSoft and Hyper-V Environment Sizing Evaluation ....................................... 14Hardware Considerations....................................................................................... 15The Process Scheduler.......................................................................................... 15




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The Application Server........................................................................................... 15SQL Server ............................................................................................................ 17The Web Server ..................................................................................................... 17PeopleSoft Installation to Hyper-V Consolidation................................................... 18The Hyper-V Environment...................................................................................... 19Open Enrollment Preparation................................................................................. 19Change Implementation ......................................................................................... 20Testing and Development ...................................................................................... 21Quick Migration ...................................................................................................... 21Performance Considerations.................................................................................. 22Hyper-V Best Practices .......................................................................................... 22Increase Network Capacity .................................................................................... 22Implement Hyper-V Integration Services................................................................ 22Maximize Memory Usage....................................................................................... 23Minimize OS Overhead .......................................................................................... 23Optimize SCSI and Disk Performance ................................................................... 23

Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 23Additional Resources .................................................................................................... 25




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Authors

William Stevenson, Sr. SQL Server DBA and Sr. PSFT System Administrator, Affiliated Computer Services, [email protected] Jim Davis, Sr. PSFT System Administrator, Affiliated Computer Services, [email protected]

Summary

This paper introduces and describes the benefits of PeopleSoft virtualization using the new Windows® Server® 2008 Hyper-V™ technology and how to effectively implement this new technology into a PeopleSoft environment. This paper discusses the architecture used, and describes various key scenarios including high availability, server consolidation, scaling, and testing. It is written for enterprise business decision makers, technical decision makers, information technology (IT) architects, and deployment managers.

Executive Summary

Server virtualization, also known as hardware virtualization, is a hot topic in the information technology (IT) world because of the potential for serious economic benefits. Server virtualization enables multiple operating systems to run on a single physical machine as virtual machines (VMs). With server virtualization, you can consolidate workloads across multiple underutilized server machines onto a smaller number of machines. Fewer physical machines can lead to reduced costs through lower hardware, energy, and management overhead, plus the creation of a more dynamic IT infrastructure. Enterprises are adopting server virtualization technologies to optimize and streamline the deployment of their enterprise applications such as PeopleSoft Enterprise. For those deploying PeopleSoft into a Windows environment, Microsoft®

Windows® Server 2008 provides virtualization technology out-of-the-box with Hyper-V™. Some benefits that a company installing PeopleSoft Enterprise into a Hyper-V environment can observe include:

Improved server utilization Higher availability Simplified scaling as demand dictates Easier recovery from failed updates or customizations




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This paper introduces and describes the benefits of PeopleSoft virtualization using the new Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V™ technology, and how to effectively implement this new technology into a PeopleSoft environment. This paper discusses the architecture used, and describes various key scenarios such as high availability, server consolidation, scaling, and testing. It is written for enterprise business decision makers, technical decision makers, IT architects, and deployment managers.

PeopleSoft Server Virtualization

Virtualization is a broad term that refers to the abstraction of computer resources or a computing environment. Virtualization provides a platform to present a logical view of physical computing resources to an operating system so that multiple operating systems can share a single computer, unaware that they do not have complete control of the underlying hardware. Virtualization can also refer to making one physical resource appear with different characteristics, as one logical resource. The term virtualization has been widely used for many years to refer to many different aspects and scopes of computing—from entire networks to individual capabilities or components. The common function of all virtualization technologies is to conceal underlying technical characteristics by creating a logical interface that is indistinguishable from its physical counterpart.

Virtualization BenefitsSystem virtualization enables you to consolidate systems, workloads, and operating environments, optimize resource use, and increase server flexibility and responsiveness. It can be implemented using hardware partitioning or hypervisor technology. Hardware partitioning subdivides a physical server into fractions, each of which can run an operating system. These fractions are typically created with coarse units of allocation, such as whole processors or physical boards. This type of virtualization allows for hardware consolidation, but does not have the full benefits of resource sharing and emulation offered by hypervisors. Hypervisors use a thin layer of code in software or firmware to achieve fine-grained, dynamic resource sharing. Because hypervisors provide the greatest level of flexibility in how virtual resources are defined and managed, they are the primary technology choice for system virtualization.

Hyper-V Virtualization With Windows Server 2008, everything needed to support PeopleSoft server virtualization is available as an integral feature of the operating system—Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V. With Hyper-V, Microsoft‘s next-generation hypervisor-based server virtualization technology, it is now easier than ever to take advantage of virtualization cost savings through Windows Server 2008. This enables you to make the best use of your PeopleSoft server hardware investments by consolidating multiple servers as separate virtual machines (VMs) running on fewer physical machines dynamically configured for higher availability.




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Hyper-V Targeted ScenariosHyper-V provides a dynamic, reliable, and scalable virtualization platform combined with a single set of integrated management tools to manage both physical and virtual resources. It is targeted at the following scenarios in a PeopleSoft environment.

Server Sprawl Reduction One of the main complaints of the PeopleSoft technical solution has always been the total number of physical servers required for the solution. The fundamental use of virtualization is to consolidate many servers on a single system while maintaining isolation between the servers. As all layers of the PeopleSoft server model can be virtualized, Hyper-V provides a way to reduce the physical server landscape. This reduction immediately provides customers with a return on investment (ROI) not only by lowering hardware requirements, but by reducing their power consumption, cooling, and physical space costs. For example, a highly available PeopleSoft environment would need at least four to six dedicated servers, possibly two each for the Web server, the application server, and SQL Server®

2005/2008. Using virtualization, this workload can be spread across as little as two appropriately configured servers showing a dramatic reduction in the server footprint as well as an increase in server utilization.

High Availability for PeopleSoft A constant challenge for PeopleSoft system architects is to deliver a cost effective method for isolating the application from the failure of a single component. In the past, a common method for accomplishing this was using failover clustering. With this solution, the database would run on one cluster node while the application would run on the other node. If either node died, the surviving node would run everything. This model works well with 32-bit systems; however, to take advantage of the 64-bit SQL Server, it is important to note that only PeopleTools version 8.49 supports the application running on a 64-bit system. Therefore, this model might require upgrading to a different PeopleTools toolset version. Hyper-V simplifies this situation. With Hyper-V, the database can continue to run on the cluster as before, however, the PeopleSoft application can now be virtualized in Hyper-V running on a 32-bit version of the operating system. Hyper-V also provides a solution to the daunting issue of how to minimize the amount of downtime for production PeopleSoft environments. The solution is to perform a quick migration of your virtualized machines from one host server to another. This allows you to take down any physical host server for maintenance without disrupting the production environment. The quick migration is accomplished by hibernating the guest VM, moving the shared storage to a new node, and waking the guest VM back up. Since the state is maintained, end users might only experience 20 to 40 seconds of unresponsiveness depending on what they are doing, and then the application resumes where it left off.




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PeopleSoft Application Lifecycle Testing and development are obvious PeopleSoft processes that can benefit from the virtualization technology. Affiliated Computer Services has found that even clients who are not ready to move to a fully virtualized production environment are taking advantage of virtualization in their test and development environments. Using virtual machines, a development staff can create and test a wide variety of scenarios in a self-contained environment that accurately approximates the operation of physical servers and clients. Hyper-V maximizes the utilization of test hardware which can help reduce costs, improve life cycle management, and improve test coverage. With extensive guest OS support and checkpoint features, Hyper-V provides a great platform for test and development environments. PeopleSoft Virtualization with Windows Server 2008

Hyper-V Technology 6

One of the most challenging and time consuming processes within the PeopleSoft environment is the contingency planning surrounding software changes to Guest operating systems, databases, or applications. Currently, for most PeopleSoft customers, when a change causes problems, recovery can involve anything from reinstalling a previous PeopleSoft configuration to reinstalling the server itself. Hyper-V offers a much more elegant solution. Using the Snapshot feature within Hyper-V, any virtual machine can be quickly backed up, and recovered to its original state.

Dynamic Data CenterToday, most dedicated servers underutilize their hardware capabilities. Server virtualization enables improved server capacity utilization. Although industry best practices recommend isolation of the hardware level of production and nonproduction systems, some companies find that budget constraints do not allow for this level of segregation. Hyper-V enables the next best thing. By segregating production and nonproduction systems from an operating system perspective, the overall system is better protected from the results of a rogue update. Hyper-V, together with your existing system management solutions, such as Microsoft System Center, can help you realize the dynamic data center vision of providing self-managing dynamic systems and operational agility. With features like automated virtual machine reconfiguration, flexible resource control, and quick migration, you can create a dynamic IT environment that uses virtualization to not only respond to problems, but also to anticipate increased demands. For example, during open enrollment, new virtual machines can be brought on line very quickly as the demand dictates as long as enough capacity exists on the host servers.

Hyper-V Overview

Hyper-V is Microsoft‘s next generation hypervisor-based server virtualization technology. It allows customers to make the best use of their server hardware




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investments by consolidating multiple server roles as separate virtual machines (VMs) running on a single physical machine. Hyper-V provides enterprises with the ability to efficiently run multiple, different operating systems in parallel, on a single server, and fully leverage the power of x64 computing.

ArchitectureHyper-V virtualization architecture can be divided into the following three high level elements:

Microsoft Hypervisor Parent (Root) Partition Child Partition

The following diagram illustrates these elements, and the components required to support virtualization. These components are discussed in the following sections.

Figure 1. Hyper-V High Level Architecture

Hyper-V provides virtual machine isolation in terms of a partition. A partition is a logical unit of isolation that operating systems execute to. A hypervisor instance requires at least one parent partition, also called a root partition, running Windows Server 2008 with the Hyper-V role installed. The virtualization stack runs in the parent partition, and has direct access to the hardware devices. The parent partition can then create child partitions which host guest operating systems. A parent partition creates child partitions




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using the hypercall API, which is the application programming interface (API) exposed by Hyper-V. Child partitions do not have access to the physical processor, nor do they handle the processor interrupts. Instead, they have a virtual view of the processor, and run in a virtual memory address region that is private to each guest partition. The hypervisor handles the processor interrupts, and redirects them to the respective partition. Hyper-V can also accelerate the address translation between various guest virtual address spaces by using an Input Output Memory Management Unit (IOMMU) which operates independent of the memory management hardware used by the CPU. An IOMMU is used to remap physical memory addresses to the addresses that are used by the child partitions. Child partitions also do not have direct access to other hardware resources, and are presented with a virtual view of the resources as virtual devices. Requests to the virtual devices are redirected either by the VMBus or the hypervisor to the devices in the parent partition which handles the requests. The VMBus is a logical inter-partition communication channel. The parent partition hosts Virtualization Service Providers (VSPs) which communicate over the VMBus to handle device access requests from child partitions. Child partitions host Virtualization Service Clients (VSCs) which redirect device requests to VSPs in the parent partition through the VMBus. This entire process is transparent to the guest operating system.

Hardware Assisted Virtualization Virtual devices can also take advantage of a Windows Server virtualization feature known as the Enlightened I/O for storage, networking, graphics, and input subsystems. The Enlightened I/O is a specialized virtualization-aware implementation of high level communication protocols like SCSI to utilize the VMBus directly, bypassing any device emulation layer. This makes the communication more efficient. Using Hyper-V hardware assisted virtualization requires an enlightened guest operating system that is both hypervisor and VMBus aware. In addition, when using Hyper-V hardware assisted virtualization, a processor that includes virtualization extensions that support hardware assisted virtualization is required. To date, the following operating systems are enlightened:

Windows Server 2008 Windows Server 2003 SP2 Windows Server 2000 SP4 Windows HPC Server 2008 SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP1/SP2 Windows Vista® SP1 (except home editions) Windows XP SP2/SP3




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Hyper-V Tools Although a discussion of the full functionality of Hyper-V is beyond the scope of this paper, there are many tools that are useful in a virtualized PeopleSoft environment that should be mentioned. Here is a brief overview of some of these tools and features.

System Center Virtual Machine Manager System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) 2008 is a cost effective solution for IT professionals responsible for managing the virtual infrastructure, providing unified management of physical and virtual machines, consolidating underutilized physical servers, and enabling the rapid provisioning of new virtual machines that leverage their expertise and investments in Microsoft Windows Server technology. It was designed for virtual machines running on Windows Server 2008 and Microsoft Hyper-V. SCVMM is designed to manage Hyper-V through a powerful yet easy-to-use console which streamlines many of the tasks necessary to manage a virtualized infrastructure in a PeopleSoft environment. The SCVMM requires additional licensing, but is highly recommended for implementing and managing Hyper-V in a PeopleSoft environment. Some of the specific values it provides are:

Simple physical to virtual machine conversions - Converting a physical machine to a virtual one can be a daunting undertaking that is slow, problematic, and typically requires an individual to stop the physical server. But thanks to the enhanced physical to virtual (P2V) conversion in SCVMM, P2V conversions will become routine. Similarly, SCVMM also provides a straightforward wizard that can convert VMware virtual machines to virtual hard disks (VHDs) through an easy and speedy virtual-to-virtual (V2V) transfer process.

Quick provisioning of new machines - In response for new server requests, a truly agile IT department delivers new servers to its business clients anywhere in the network infrastructure with a very quick turnaround. SCVMM enables this agility by providing IT administrators with the ability to deploy virtual machines in a fraction of the time that it would take to deploy a physical server. Through one console, SCVMM allows administrators to manage and monitor virtual machines, and hosts to ensure that they are meeting the needs of the corresponding business groups.

Delegated virtual machine management for development and testing - Virtual infrastructures are commonly used in test and development environments where there is constant provisioning and tear down of virtual machines for testing purposes. This latest version of SCVMM features a thoroughly reworked and improved self-service Web portal. With this Web portal, administrators can delegate the provisioning role to authorized users while maintaining precise control over the management of virtual machines.

For more information about SCVMM, go to: http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/4/5/94590442-f5eb-4201-b552-92e11f27c146/SCVMM08_Top_10_Benefits_updated082708.pdf




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Server Cloning Once an initial virtual machine is installed for each server type, a gold image can be created and stored in the SCVMM library. This is a very important benefit as it eliminates the installation time for all future PeopleSoft installations using that same configuration. For example, it is easy to dynamically scale your environment by quickly adding servers to your PeopleSoft landscape as the load dictates. The image is simply brought online using the SCVMM to place the virtual machines on the appropriate physical server. In addition, this step reduces the test time in the lab. Since servers are built from a proven server image, testing cycles are reduced or eliminated.

Quick MigrationMost medium to large businesses want to implement high availability within their virtual infrastructures. Quick Migration helps make this possible with the ability to rapidly migrate a running virtual machine from one physical host system to another. Quick Migration takes advantage of the failover clustering functionality and the Windows Server Hyper-V hypervisor-based virtualization technology included in many 64-bit editions of Windows Server 2008. If a physical host server experiences an unscheduled service disruption or requires scheduled downtime, another host server is ready to begin supporting services quickly with minimal downtime. For a planned migration, Quick Migration saves the state of a running guest virtual machine by saving the memory of original server to disk or shared storage, moves the storage connectivity from one physical server to another, and then restores the guest virtual machine onto the second server by moving the disk or shared storage to memory on the new server. The speed of the migration depends on how much memory needs to be written to the disk, and the speed of the connectivity to storage. In general, migration takes just a few seconds. In the case of unplanned downtime, you would not be able to save the state of the workload. Instead, the images written to the disk would automatically be failed over from the shared storage.

Note: To use the new Windows Server Hyper-V Quick Migration functionality, you have to create a cluster. Therefore, Windows Server 2008 Enterprise or Windows Server 2008 Datacenter is required to use Quick Migration.

For more information about Quick Migration with Hyper-V, go to: http://download.microsoft.com/download/3/B/5/3B51A025-7522-4686-AA16-8AE2E536034D/Quick%20Migration%20with%20Hyper-V.doc

Virtual Machine SnapshotsHyper-V provides the ability to take snapshots of a running virtual machine so you can easily revert to a previous state, and improve backup and recoverability solutions. This




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functionality allows you to undo any problem changes. For example, if you are applying updates or patches to the operating system and want the ability to easily undo them; create a snapshot before making the change. The same process applies to VM configuration setting changes or changes to critical guest operating system services. In general, create snapshots of VMs prior to making any type of change with an associated risk. This simple tool can create VM snapshots from the Hyper-V Management Console. Creating a snapshot usually takes only a few seconds and does not require the VM to be paused, stopped, or powered off. For more information about Hyper-V snapshots, please see: http://blogs.technet.com/roblarson/archive/2008/04/26/virtual-machine-snapshots-with-hyper-v.aspx

Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit Solution AcceleratorThe Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit (MAP) is a network-wide agent-less tool that can help you quickly find out where your desktops and servers are as well as automatically generate upgrade recommendations for multiple products and technologies including server, desktop, and virtualization migration scenarios covering:

Server consolidation reports and proposals using Hyper-V or Virtual Server 2005 R2.

Virtualization infrastructure assessment. SQL Server database instance discovery and assessment. Microsoft online service needs assessment and survey. Forefront client security / NAP readiness assessment. Power savings calculator. Desktop Security Center assessment. Windows Server 2008 hardware and device compatibility assessment including

server discovery. Windows Vista and Microsoft Office® 2007 hardware assessment. Microsoft application virtualization hardware compatibility assessment. SNMP inventory reporting.

The MAP Toolkit can help you determine which subset of your physical servers are good candidates for Hyper-V virtualization. By capturing the workloads and utilization of each server over a defined period of time, this tool can recommend a set of consolidated hosts for your existing servers. MAP looks at many factors such as CPU utilization, memory utilization, Network IO and Disk IO rates. It then automatically generates a set of proposal documents and detailed spreadsheets for the virtualization planning process. For more information about the Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit Solution Accelerator, please see: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=111000




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For more information on the features and functionality of Microsoft Server 2008 Hyper-V, please see: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/hyperv.aspx

Hyper-V Migration

Most individuals immediately recognize the value in virtualization. The problem is that once they decide to virtualize, they must determine what platform to use to enable the virtualization. If you are currently running a Windows/SQL Server environment, then Microsoft's Hyper-V solution will provide some unique benefits. To fully understand these benefits, it is necessary to discuss the typical highly available solution most customers deploy.

General PeopleSoft High Availability ConfigurationFor many years, a very common method of configuring a PeopleSoft solution was to implement an enterprise cluster. The typical configuration for this cluster was to have SQL Server running in the cluster group on one node, and the PeopleSoft application running in the same cluster group on the other node. This approach worked well for several years until Oracle began to support the 64-bit version of SQL 2005. Since the 64-bit version of SQL provided significant performance improvements over the 32-bit version, significant adoption of the 64-bit version followed. The problem associated with the clustering methodology is that, although the 64-bit version of SQL Server is strongly preferred, it is not supported by all versions of the PeopleTools toolset or third party supporting software such as BEA Tuxedo, and so on. In order to be able to support clustering, both nodes need to be running the same version of Windows. Due to this restriction, system architects were required to change their clustering strategy by either choosing a passive node which leaves them with an unutilized box, or foregoing clustering altogether. With the introduction of Hyper-V in Windows 2008, Microsoft has provided a solution for this problem. In cases where this 32-bit versus 64-bit conflict exists, the solution is to architect a 64-bit cluster with SQL Server running in a single cluster group while ensuring that the Hyper-V virtual machines are running in cluster groups on the opposite node. Within the Hyper-V virtual machines, you can run whichever operating system supports the PeopleTools and third party applications required for your installation. This enables users to remain on a supported operating system version while still leveraging the clustering technology to ensure a high availability solution. In addition, since Microsoft includes four guest instances with the Windows Server 2008 Enterprise edition, you can also run additional servers on your cluster such as a development server and Web servers. This approach increases the overall availability of your solution while helping to address the issue of server sprawl that affects all PeopleSoft installations. Depending on the number of virtual machines that are required, the Windows 2008 Data Center edition might be a better option as it allows an unlimited number of guest operating systems. To determine the number of




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instances that are needed to run your environment, please see the Windows Server Virtualization calculator at: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/howtobuy/licensing/calculator.mspx The following Table 1 illustrates a typical small two node highly available Hyper-V configuration. The Web, application, development servers, and the SQL Server are all clustered as virtual machines in guest partitions on each of the two nodes. The SQL Server data, logs, and TempDB RAID configurations are detailed in Table 2. This basic configuration can be scaled up for larger installations by adding more virtual machines as needed, and by placing the SQL Server on the root partition, and clustering between the two nodes.

Description Operating System Memory VirtualProcessors

RecommendedParent Mode

Web01 PSFT Web Server Windows Server 2003 R2 32-bit Standard Edition

4 GB 2 Hyp01

Web02 PSFT Web Server Windows Server 2003 R2 32-bit Standard Edition

4 GB 2 Hyp02

App01 PSFT Application and Process Scheduler Server

Windows Server 2003 R2 32-bit Standard Edition

4 GB 2 Hyp01

App02 PSFT Application and Process Scheduler Server

Windows Server 2003 R2 32-bit Standard Edition

4 GB 2 Hyp02

Sql01 SQL Server Windows Server 2008 64-bit Enterprise Edition

16 GB 4 Hyp01

Table 1. Small High Availability PeopleSoft Enterprise Cluster Configuration

Description Raid Configuration

SQL Data RAID 5

SQL Logs RAID 0 + 1

SQL TempDb RAID 0 + 1

Table 2. Small High Availability PeopleSoft Enterprise SQL Server RAID Configuration

PeopleSoft and Hyper-V Environment Sizing EvaluationWhen sizing a PeopleSoft Hyper-V environment, it is important to remember that the main bottleneck is memory, so the more memory the better. In addition, these sizing suggestions are for static environments. Company growth must be taken into account just as with any non virtual environment. Furthermore, these sizing suggestions are




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N+1. As it makes sense, add an additional unit of capacity to maintain peak performance at times of high utilization.

Hardware Considerations The first consideration in setting up a Hyper-V environment is to ensure that the infrastructure hardware will support your virtual machines. Here are some basic hardware requirements:

SAN - Ensure that your disk subsystem has adequate throughput to support your virtual machines.

− Fiber Channel - Ensure that your host servers use a fiber channel to attach to the SAN. Ensure your host bus adaptors (HBAs) are at least 2 GB, but 4 GB is preferable.

− iSCSI - If deploying iSCSI technology in your environment, please ensure that the chosen hardware has received the Designed for Windows logo. Using qualified iSCSI hardware ensures support from Microsoft for your iSCSI deployment.

− Throughput Speed - Once the host operating systems have been installed and the SAN is attached, test the throughput by copying files back and forth from SAN drive to SAN drive. Ideally, throughput should be at 150 MB per second, but the higher the number the better.

− NICs - Ensure that each physical host has multiple gigabit NICs. Ideally have one physical NIC reserved for each virtual guest.

Failover Overhead - For an active/active two node Hyper-V cluster, it is necessary to reserve sufficient memory on each node for any virtual machines running on one node to successfully failover to the second node.

− Two Node Configuration - This effectively limits only 50 percent of the total cluster memory resources to be used.

− Greater than Two Node Configuration - A better solution is to implement a three or four node cluster where one of the nodes is passive allowing full utilization of all resources on the active nodes.

Physical Cores - For PeopleSoft systems, target at least two physical cores per guest operating system.

The Process SchedulerThe Process Scheduler is used for batch and interactive transaction processing. The typical configuration for the Process Scheduler server would be two to four CPU cores, one to four gigs of RAM, and enough disk space to house the required PS_HOMES.

The Application ServerThe Application Server is the middleware server that facilitates the communication between the application and the database. It is very memory intensive so the more memory the better. Below are guidelines for the PeopleSoft Application Server memory footprint:




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PeopleSoft Application Server Memory Footprint - Each module has different memory requirements per process and supports varying numbers of users. Use the following guidelines to plan server configuration:

− Financials - Use 150 to 300 MB per process. It supports about 20 to 30 users per process. So, for example, if you have 1 GB of memory available for a financial application server, boot no more than four PeopleSoft application server processes.

− CRM and HRMS - Use 100 to 150 MB per application server process. CRM supports 50 users per process and HRMS supports less.

− Supply Chain - Use 300 to 500 MB per process. It supports about 10 to 20 users per process.

Memory Support for Domains - Include memory calculations for all test, development, and production domains in your calculations for each server. A common problem is having four large domains on one server with insufficient memory to support them.

Current Memory Usage Determination - To determine the current PeopleSoft Application Server memory usage, use Windows TaskManager to monitor all the PeopleSoft processes. PeopleSoft processes have a process name prefix with ‗ps‘.

To Monitor the Processes: Start TaskManager. On the menu bar, select View and choose Select Columns.

Select the Memory Usage and Virtual Memory Size columns. − Sort the process by name and the two memory columns will tell you

approximately the amount of memory each PeopleSoft process is using. The memory usage reading is not the entire memory consumption of the process, but only the amount of physical RAM that the process is using. However, with Windows, an application might be using much more virtual memory than physical memory, so if you are gauging memory at all, select both of these fields.

− The memory usage columns will include the shared libraries loaded into each process. Therefore, if you add up all the processes, you will be double counting the shared libraries portion. Since PeopleSoft shares a lot of the common libraries, the summation of all PeopleSoft processes is a quick estimate, not an absolute measurement of memory usage.

− The total memory usage and the VM size of the combined PeopleSoft processes should not be higher than 70 percent of the real server memory.

Excessive Memory Swapping - It is important to determine if excessive memory swapping happens using Windows. This would indicate the need for more memory.

To Check for Excessive Memory Swapping:




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1. Start the Windows Performance Monitor by clicking Start, clicking Run, and then typing perfmon into the text box.

2. Click on the Performance Monitor, click the green plus icon, and then under Memory grouping, select Page/sec.

Note: Pages/sec is the number of pages read from the disk or written to the disk to resolve memory references to pages that were not in memory at the time of the reference. This is the sum of Pages Input/sec and Pages Output/sec. This counter includes paging traffic on behalf of the system Cache to access file data for applications. This value also includes the pages to/from non cached mapped memory files. This is the primary counter to observe if you are concerned about excessive memory pressure or thrashing, and the excessive paging that might occur. When the Page/sec count exceeds 100 hard pages per second, there is a swapping problem. Either the number of PSAPPSERV processes should be reduced, or more memory must be added to the server.

SQL ServerHyper-V supports a maximum limit of four virtual CPUs for Windows Server 2008 guest OSes. Therefore, small to medium sized environments that can support their workload within this limit might choose to virtualize the database tier. However, larger environments needing higher performance should install SQL Server as a clustered application directly onto the host server at peer level with Hyper-V. Most PeopleSoft clients in 24x7 operating environments choose to utilize SQL Server 2005 64-bit Enterprise Edition. Although SQL Server 2005 Standard Edition can be clustered, it does not contain enterprise features such as online index rebuilds, table partitioning, fast disk initialization, or online recovery.

The Web ServerThe PeopleSoft user interface is available through Web services delivered by IBM Websphere, Oracle application server (OAS), or BEA (now Oracle) WebLogic. Web servers are generally standalone servers, and are often clustered and load balanced. Here are some guidelines for configuring the memory for a WebLogic server:

Memory Per Server Installation - BEA Systems recommends installing a minimum of 256 MB of memory for each WebLogic server installation that will be handling more than minimal capacity.

Memory Per Connected User - Memory should be approximately 0.5 to 1.0 MB per connected user.




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PeopleSoft Installation to Hyper-V ConsolidationThe consolidation of an existing environment to Hyper-V is accomplished through the use of Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM). All references to the physical server will be referred to as the Hyper-V host server. Previous physical servers will be referred to as existing physical servers. Below is an example of a high level plan. Note: All existing physical environments running Windows Server 2003 must be upgraded to Service Pack 2 to support enlightenments.

1. Identify existing physical servers to convert to virtual machines. a. Best choices for conversion.

i. Web servers (any environment) ii. Application and Process Scheduler Servers (any environment) iii. Development Database server

2. Choose the tools to convert existing physical servers to virtual machines. a. Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) b. Microsoft Virtual Server Migration Toolkit c. Third party tool

3. Create specifications and build Hyper-V host servers. a. Identify CPU, memory, disk, and network resources. b. Follow the steps to set up new host servers.

i. Load and patch Windows 2008. ii. Set up the disk, network, and so on. iii. Install the conversion/management tool.

c. Consider High Availability requirements. i. If High Availability is required, install failover cluster role. ii. Cluster host servers.

4. Clean up servers that are being converted. a. Remove any unwanted or unnecessary applications or files. b. Bad sectors on the disk cannot be transferred during a P2V conversion. To avoid data loss, run a disk maintenance tool such as Chkdsk on the source computer to detect and correct any file system errors. c. To help minimize the time required for the imaging phase, perform a disk defragmentation on the hard drives of the source computer. Also, ensure that there is a fast network connection between the source computer and the host.

5. Follow the steps defined for the chosen conversion tool.




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a. SCVMM b. Virtual Server Migration toolkit c. Third party tool

6. If high availability is required, do the following. a. Using the Failover Cluster Manager, add in the resources needed to cluster the VM.

i. Disk ii. Network

b. Using the Failover Cluster Manager, cluster the VMs. 7. Turn off existing physical server being converted. 8. Turn on the new virtual machine. 9. Test the server and the application. 10. Decommission the old physical server.

Note: Transition users from the physical Web servers to the virtual ones over a two to four week period. A slow, consistent migration will help you identify any potential issues before the entire population of end users is impacted. For users who are experiencing problems, instruct them to connect to the old URL.

For detailed information on converting physical computers to virtual machines in SCVMM or P2V conversions, please see: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb963740.aspx

The Hyper-V EnvironmentOperating within the Hyper-V environment provides several advantages to the PeopleSoft administration. The following sections provide some insight into how these advantages can be used.

Open Enrollment PreparationThere are some obvious situations where the PeopleSoft system will become taxed due to high usage. Fortunately with Hyper-V and virtualization, it is easy to scale up operations to effectively handle these situations as described in the steps below.

1. Estimate the anticipated load increase to determine the number of servers required to handle the additional load.

a. Web server – about 250 users per Web server (2 CPU/4 GB)




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b. Application server – (user/process specs) 2. Identify the time frame for how long the additional servers will be needed. 3. Create VM clones from gold instances.

a. If capacity exists on servers already in the landscape, create the needed VMs on those servers based on the specifications notated in step 1.

b. If additional servers are needed to host VMs, set up new host servers and create the necessary VMs based upon the specifications above.

4. Monitor and adjust the environment as necessary during the enrollment period. 5. Once the enrollment period is over, do one of the following tasks.

a. Decommission your servers. b. Leave the new VM servers running if necessary.

Change ImplementationChanges can be made at any layer, such as in the operating system, application, or database. Below are suggestions for the layers that changes are typically made to.

Operating System - Changes at this level can be applied to a VM to see what impact they can have on PeopleSoft processes and services so that they are isolated from the production, development, and test environments.

Application - Changes at this level would include patches, maintenance packs, upgrades, and other solutions that can be applied and tested without impacting any current development or testing efforts. With Hyper-V you can set up and run an entire upgrade environment without having to reallocate or overtax servers which could lead to performance issues or conflicts, especially when the upgrade requires a change in an underlying application that has to be made at the server level. For example, multiple versions of BEA WebLogic can be run on the same server, but multiple installations of BEA Tuxedo middleware cannot.

Database – There are a number of options to perform a database layer upgrade. For example, you could start up a temporary database server to use to upgrade a database instance. In addition, you could add a new host system to host a new database instance, as well as any clones of the VMs on the current database server and/or node. After the database and application upgrades are complete, the new host system could replace the current server, enabling the current server to take on another task, or be retired.

Note: Before any change is implemented, a snapshot should be taken of the current state of the servers. Should issues or problems arise during change implementation, such as a corrupted operating system install or a Tuxedo uninstall that will not complete cleanly, the VM can be quickly restored from the snapshot. A rerun of the change process can then be performed immediately as opposed to potentially having to reinstall the operating system and applications from scratch to get the system back to its pre-change state.




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Testing and DevelopmentIn the event that all PeopleSoft environments are engaged in other project or testing activities, the ability to bring up new, discrete development and/or testing environments on demand can be valuable. For example:

As noted above, if a break/fix solution has been developed and needs to be tested, a new testing environment can be set up that will keep the results of the solution, and any potential issues it causes, isolated from the production environments.

If a new application, such as a reporting or business intelligence tool, needs to be set up and configured, cloning a gold instance can allow this to happen quickly. Once set up, and the configuration and testing for the new application is complete, the VM can be left in place for production use.

If the end users have identified a modification to PeopleSoft that will be months in development, a new project environment can be set up to allow the development to run in parallel with normal operations including daily use, patching, low level modifications, and so on. This would also enable the project environment to catch up with the production environment in a more controlled fashion for the developers.

Quick MigrationHyper-V provides the ability to rapidly migrate a running virtual machine from one physical host system to another with minimal downtime, leveraging the familiar high availability capabilities of Windows Server 2008 and System Center Management tools. Quick Migration is done using the SCVMM. Here are some observations Affiliated Computer Services learned from completing the process in their lab:

During the quick migration of the application tier comprised of the Application Server, Process Scheduler, and so on, all of the PeopleSoft processes were kept alive, but any active batch died. Web users also experienced degraded performance during the failover, but did not lose their session.

During the quick migration of the database tier, the Application Server and Process Scheduler processes were kept alive. However, Web tier users lost their sessions, and had to log back into the application. All active batch processes died.

The speed of a quick migration is dependent on the amount of memory the virtual machine possesses plus the speed to the SAN. The more memory the guest OS has, the longer the migration will take. The faster the disk subsystem is, the quicker the migration will go.




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Performance ConsiderationsTo determine the performance difference of a virtualized PeopleSoft environment for a client, Affiliated Computer Services has tested their client‘s recommended PeopleSoft environment in both a virtualized and a physical configuration in the lab. The performance impact was less than five percent overall which is in line with the other research findings that Microsoft provided. Affiliated Computer Services found this to be insignificant relative to the advantages that the Hyper-V environment provided, and is recommending this configuration to all appropriate PeopleSoft clients. At a minimum, they are recommending using the Hyper-V virtualization for testing and development. For more Hyper-V performance findings, please refer to the white paper, ―Running SQL Server 2008 in a Hyper-V Environment - Best Practices and Performance Recommendations� located at: http://sqlcat.com/whitepapers/archive/2008/10/03/running-sql-server-2008-in-a-hyper-v-environment-best-practices-and-performance-recommendations.aspx

Hyper-V Best PracticesTo maximize your Hyper-V environment, there are several practices that must be considered and environment adjustments made to ensure optimal performance. The following sections list some of the higher priority considerations.

Increase Network Capacity Reliable network performance is critical for many applications and services. When running just one or a few VMs, a single physical NIC on the host server will often suffice. However, if there are several VMs competing for resources and a physical network layer and security measures are being implemented, consider incorporating multiple gigabit ethernet NICs on the host server. Some NICs provide features that enable load balancing and/or automatic failover. In addition, NICs that support features such as TCP offloading can improve performance by managing the overhead at the network interface level. If this is a consideration, ensure that this feature is enabled in the adapter drivers in the root/parent partition. Also, be sure to segregate VMs onto separate virtual switches whenever possible. Each virtual switch can be bound to a different physical NIC port on the host. This enables VM compartmentalization for security and performance reasons. VLAN tagging can also be used to segregate traffic for different groups of VMs that use the same virtual switch.

Implement Hyper-V Integration Services The integration services provided with Hyper-V are critical to incorporate into general practices. The integration service setup program will install the latest drivers for supported guest operating systems including some drivers that are not officially supported. These drivers improve performance when VMs make calls to hardware. After installing a guest operating system, be sure to install the latest drivers. Periodically check for integration services updates between the major releases of Hyper-V.




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Maximize Memory Usage In general, allocate as much memory to a VM as you would for the same workload running on a physical machine without wasting physical memory. If you know how much RAM is needed to run a guest OS with all required applications and services, begin with this amount. Be sure to include a small amount of additional memory for virtualization overhead. 64 MB is typically sufficient. Insufficient memory can create many problems including excessive paging within a guest OS. This issue can be confusing because it might appear to be that the problem is with the disk I/O performance. In many cases, the primary cause is because an insufficient amount of memory has been assigned to the VM. It is very important to be aware of application and service needs before making changes throughout a data center.

Minimize OS OverheadRunning a full operating system on virtual host servers might increase OS overhead. If this is an issue, deploy Hyper-V in a streamlined version of Windows Server 2008 by using the Server Core installation option. Although the basic administrative tools will not be available, this configuration option will minimize the OS overhead. In addition, this option will reduce the security surface area of the server, and will remove many services and processes that might compete for resources. Keep in mind that management tools from another Windows machine are needed to manage Hyper-V, but the performance benefits often make it worth the effort.

Optimize SCSI and Disk PerformanceDisk I/O performance issues are typical when using many types of VMs. One way to control this is to attach virtual hard disks (VHDs) to a Hyper-V VM using either a virtual integrated development environment (IDE) or SCSI controllers. IDE controllers are the default because they provide the highest level of compatibility for a large range of guest OSes. However, SCSI controllers can reduce CPU overhead, and enable a virtual SCSI bus to provide multiple transactions simultaneously. If your workload is disk intensive, consider using only virtual SCSI controllers if the guest OS supports that configuration. If this is not possible, add additional SCSI connected VHDs. It is optimal to select SCSI connected VHDs that are stored on separate physical spindles or arrays on the host server. Additional Hyper-V performance tuning guidelines can be found in the ―Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2008 white paper at: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/sysperf/Perf_tun_srv.mspx

Conclusion

There are many challenges to administering a PeopleSoft installation that can be solved by moving to a virtualized environment. The most obvious advantage to virtualization is the ability to provide high availability to an environment that previously did not have this




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option, or the ability to reduce the footprint of an existing multiple server configuration. However, as shown in this paper, there are many other important benefits that enhance the flexibility and scalability of the solution that maximize the success of a PeopleSoft installation. As a relatively new technology, some enterprises are still hesitating to make the transition. Their concerns revolve around stability concerns and performance questions. As seen in the lab results, the ability to spread the workload across multiple VMs provides the same and often improved performance compared to a pure physical environment. In addition, the added flexibility in configuring high availability in a virtual environment increases the overall flexibility of the PeopleSoft environment. But regardless of an enterprise‘s concern for their production environment, virtualization through Hyper-V provides unprecedented flexibility to the test and development environment that no company should be without. Once PeopleSoft administrators become comfortable with Hyper-V in their test environment, it will naturally be moved to the production environment as well. When migrating PeopleSoft to a Hyper-V environment, it is important to note that not everything should be virtualized. There are product versions and situations that do not support virtualization. For example, Microsoft still recommends placing SQL Server on the physical layer as a peer to the Hyper-V environment. Therefore, infrastructure assessment and migration planning are essential to a successful migration. As server hardware prices go down and utility prices continue to skyrocket, virtualization has become a hot topic that most companies are seriously investigating. As seen in this paper, Hyper-V will accelerate the adoption of the virtualization paradigm within a PeopleSoft environment. To learn more about Hyper-V, please visit the Microsoft Web site at: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/hyperv.aspx

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Additional Resources

Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V Overview http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=0fe4e411-8c88-48c2-8903-3fd9cbb10d05&DisplayLang=en Step-by-Step Guide to Getting Started with Hyper-V http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=bcaa9707-0228-4860-b088-dd261ca0c80d&DisplayLang=en Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V Performance Tuning Guide http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/sysperf/Perf_tun_srv.mspx Converting Physical Computers to Virtual Machines in VMM (P2V Conversions) http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb963740.aspx Step-by-Step Guide for Testing Hyper-V and Failover Clustering http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=cd828712-8d1e-45d1-a290-7edadf1e4e9c&DisplayLang=en Quick Migration with Hyper-V http://download.microsoft.com/download/3/B/5/3B51A025-7522-4686-AA16-8AE2E536034D/Quick%20Migration%20with%20Hyper-V.doc Running SQL 2008 in a Hyper-V Environment – Best Practices and Performance Recommendations http://sqlcat.com/whitepapers/archive/2008/10/03/running-sql-server-2008-in-a-hyper-v-environment-best-practices-and-performance-recommendations.aspx Microsoft Virtualization Blog http://blogs.technet.com/virtualization/ Microsoft/Oracle Customer Information Center http://www.microsoft.com/isv/oracle/



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