Configuring the Automatic Virtual Machine Migration policy

"Administration" menu options > Managing policies > Configuring the Automatic Virtual Machine Migration policy

5.2.2 Configuring the Automatic Virtual Machine Migration policy

Viewpoint allows you to modify the settings of the Automatic Virtual Machine Migration policy, which controls how and when Moab moves virtual machines from one hypervisor to another.

To configure the Automatic Virtual Machine Migration policy

If it is not already turned on, turn on the policy (see Turning Policies On and Off).
Open the Policy Management page and click Automatic Virtual Machine Migration. The policy settings page appears.
Modify your migration preference as desired. To do so, select one of the following options from the Migration Preference section:

Option	Description
Performance	Attempts to equalize loads across hypervisors. The Performance setting migrates virtual machines from source hypervisors that are violating thresholds to the least loaded destination hypervisors possible. Set your Migration Preference to Performance to ensure each virtual machine runs at maximum performance.
Consolidation	Attempts to load hypervisors as close to thresholds as possible without exceeding them. The Consolidation setting migrates virtual machines from source hypervisors that are violating thresholds to the most loaded destination hypervisor possible that are within allowed constraints. This setting also enables a second pass of migrations that selects lightly-loaded hypervisors to be evacuated completely of their virtual machines. Set your Migration Preference to Consolidation to increase the density of virtual machines per hypervisor.

Option

Description

Performance

Attempts to equalize loads across hypervisors. The Performance setting migrates virtual machines from source hypervisors that are violating thresholds to the least loaded destination hypervisors possible. Set your Migration Preference to Performance to ensure each virtual machine runs at maximum performance.

Consolidation

Attempts to load hypervisors as close to thresholds as possible without exceeding them. The Consolidation setting migrates virtual machines from source hypervisors that are violating thresholds to the most loaded destination hypervisor possible that are within allowed constraints. This setting also enables a second pass of migrations that selects lightly-loaded hypervisors to be evacuated completely of their virtual machines. Set your Migration Preference to Consolidation to increase the density of virtual machines per hypervisor.

Modify the processor and memory thresholds as desired. To do so, click and drag the marker on the bar to the left for more conservative settings or right for more aggressive settings.

Image 5-1: Processor and memory thresholds

Viewpoint calculates the numbers for you. The more aggressive your setting, the higher the percentage of processors and memory must be utilized to initiate migration. To set the percentages in manually, click the Custom Settings checkbox and type the desired percentages in the text boxes.

Add custom metric thresholds if desired. To do so, click the Add button under the Other Metric Thresholds header.

Image 5-2: Other metric thresholds

Click the drop-down arrow to select a generic resource to use as a threshold. For information on configuring generic resources, see Managing Consumable Generic Resources in the Moab Workload Manager documentation.

Set the number that will mark the threshold in the text box on the right. This is the number that the metric must be greater than for VM Migration to occur.

To remove a threshold, click the red X icon to the right of it.

Save your changes.