Novell Cluster Services is installed and configured in a virtualization environment by using the same methods and processes as those used on a physical Novell Open Enterprise Server (OES) 11 SP1 server. It can be used in the host and guest virtual environments.
For a virtual machine, you can use any virtualization hypervisor (such as Xen, KVM, VMware, and Hyper-V) that supports the 64-bit SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP2 or later operating system, which is the platform used for OES 11 SP1 services. For information about using OES 11 SP1 with Xen and KVM, see the following resources:
For information on setting up virtualized OES 11 SP1, see Installing, Upgrading, or Updating OES on a VM
in the OES 11 SP1: Installation Guide.
To get started with Xen virtualization, see the Virtualization with Xen documentation.
To get started with KVM virtualization, see the Virtualization with KVM documentation.
You can install Novell Cluster Services on an OES 11 SP1 Xen virtualization host server (Dom0). You can create cluster resources that contain the virtual machine information by using the Xen and XenLive resource templates. You can fail over or cluster migrate these virtual machine cluster resources to different physical nodes in your cluster. Only the Xen and XenLive templates can be used in the OES 11 SP1 Xen host server environment. You can modify these templates to work with other types of hypervisors.
All templates except Xen and XenLive are valid on guest servers (DomU). When Novell Cluster Services is installed on an OES 11 SP1 guest server environment, no additional changes or special configuration are required. You can create clusters consisting of all virtual nodes, or use a combination of virtual and physical nodes.
Use the information in the following sections to help you deploy and run Novell Cluster Services in a virtual environment: Although many different cluster virtualization scenarios are possible, only those outlined in the following sections have been tested.