VSE Management 4.0: Known Issues

»	Occasional Errors During Logical Server Live Moves
»	Check Firmware and BIOS to Correct Power Issues for Server Blade Bay
»	Secure Communication in gWLM Requires Perl
»	Known Issues With VSE Management Software Version A.03.00.x

Please see the following manuals for information about known issues in this release:

The sections that follow provide additional information about issues that may not be covered in the release notes.

	Occasional Errors During Logical Server Live Moves

If you attempt to move an ESX virtual machine logical server from one VM host to another, and the VM hosts involved in the move operation are managed by VMware VirtualCenter, occasionally the VM guest becomes unregistered on both the source and target VM hosts. (This sometimes also occurs when you activate an ESX virtual machine logical server and then immediately deactivate it.) Although the move operation succeeds, subsequent operations fail with the following error:

  Inconsistent data on LSA inventory

This problem is related to timing and may occur intermittently. The moved VM guest may be orphaned (if the timing problem occurred during a SAN move), or may have a changed UUID (if the problem occurred during a copy move). After the move, the associated virtual machine is unusable, and will cause logical servers to be unusable until resolved.

	NOTE: HP strongly recommends that you install the latest patch to HP ProLiant Essentials Virtual Machine Management Pack (VMM) 3.5.1 to resolve these issues. A patch to update to VMM 3.5.1 is available for download from the following location: ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softlib2/software1/pubsw-windows/p636436617/v45101

	Check Firmware and BIOS to Correct Power Issues for Server Blade Bay

There is a known issue related to Onboard Administrator (OA) and Virtual Connect Manager (VCM) that could deny power for a specific bay. This may interrupt operations such as moving and activating Virtual Connect blade logical servers. Make sure that your firmware is updated to reflect the requirements for Integrated Lights-Out (iLO), OA, and VCM, and that you have the latest available update for your server blade BIOS. For information about required firmware versions, see “Logical Server Management Requirements” in the Insight Dynamics - VSE for ProLiant Version 4.0 Release Notes.

	Secure Communication in gWLM Requires Perl

To secure communications on a gWLM managed system, /opt/perl/bin/perl (version D.5.8.0.D or later) must be installed on the managed system.

	Known Issues With VSE Management Software Version A.03.00.x

The following sections describe important known issues with the previous release of the VSE Management Software.

Incompatibility With HP SIM 5.1

The VSE Management Software is not supported under HP SIM version 5.1 (C.05.01.00.00.xx). If you have installed that version of HP SIM, upgrade to version C.05.01.00.01.xx. Refer to the VSE Management Software Installation and Update Guide for the recommended upgrade procedure.

Install / Capcollect Errors due to /opt Filesystem Layout

If you install the VSE Management Software on a CMS where the directories /opt/vse and /opt/hpwebadmin are on different file systems, the warning messages and errors described below will occur. This behavior occurs in VSE Management Software versions 3.0 and 3.0.1.

Warnings During Installation

During installation of the VSE Management Software, the following warning messages are displayed. These warnings are also logged in the file /var/adm/sw/swagent.log.

WARNING: Cannot create hard link "/opt/vse/lib/jcommon-0.9.6.jar"
from source file
"/opt/hpwebadmin/webapps/vse.war/WEB-INF/lib/jcommon-0.9.6.jar".
Cross-device link (18).  Copying from source file instead.
...
WARNING: Cannot create hard link "/opt/vse/lib/jfreechart-0.9.21.jar"
from source file
"/opt/hpwebadmin/webapps/vse.war/WEB-INF/lib/jfreechart-0.9.21.jar".
Cross-device link (18).  Copying from source file instead.
...
ln: different file system
ln: different file system
        

Errors Using Capcollect

After installation, the following error messages are displayed when you execute capcollect. This occurs in any of the following situations:

Tool ran on:   CMS (Central Management Server)
  Exit code:   1
  Stdout: 
...
  Stderr:

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError:
com/hp/amgr/core/api/AdException
   at java.lang.Class.forName0(Native Method)
   at java.lang.Class.forName(Class.java:168)
   ...
        

These errors occur because the following files could not be linked into the directory /opt/vse/lib at installation time:

Two other files, jcommon-0.9.6.jar and jfreechart-0.9.21.jar, also could not be linked, but were automatically copied instead.

You can verify this situation from the command line as shown below

$ cd /opt/vse/lib
$ ls -l jcommon-0.9.6.jar jfreechart-0.9.21.jar vsui.jar AdVseApiClient.jar
-r-x------   2 root   bin   354611 Mar  1 10:08 jcommon-0.9.6.jar
-r-x------   2 root   bin   962701 Mar  1 10:08 jfreechart-0.9.21.jar
vsui.jar not found
AdVseApiClient.jar not found
        

To fix this problem, copy the missing files manually:

# cp /opt/hpwebadmin/webapps/vse.war/WEB-INF/lib/vsui.jar \
  /opt/vse/lib/
# cp /opt/hpwebadmin/webapps/vse.war/WEB-INF/lib/AdVseApiClient.jar \
  /opt/vse/lib/
# chmod 500 /opt/vse/lib/vsui.jar /opt/vse/lib/AdVseApiClient.jar
# chown root:bin /opt/vse/lib/vsui.jar /opt/vse/lib/AdVseApiClient.jar
        

Utilization Provider Can Report Incorrect Clock Speed for Dual Core Intel® Itanium® Processors

On Dual Core Intel® Itanium® 2 processors running HP-UX 11i v2 (11.23), Capacity Advisor’s data collection mechanism (the Utilization Provider) may use the wrong clock speed for the system. Systems running HP-UX 11i v3 (11.31) are not affected. Systems using Utilization Provider version A.01.06.02 or later are not affected, provided that patch PHKL_33752 is installed. For affected systems, the magnitude of all reported CPU data is incorrect but can be corrected. Capacity Advisor will show the clock speed of such systems as approximately 400 MHz when it should be approximately 1.6 GHz. This causes the default scaling of CPU data in What-If scenarios moving a workload to or from an affected system to be off by approximately a factor of 4.

vPars / gWLM Restrictions

vPars A.03.05 supports HP Integrity Essentials Global Workload Manager (gWLM) with the following restrictions:

Rare Incompatibility with Virtual Partitions

Depending on workload characteristics, gWLM can migrate CPU resources rapidly. This frequent migration can potentially, although very rarely, produce a race condition, causing the virtual partition to crash. It can also produce a panic, resulting in one or more of the following messages:

No Chosen CPU on the cell-cannot proceed with NB PDC.

or

PDC_PAT_EVENT_SET_MODE(2) call returned error

Workaround

Upgrading to vPars A.03.04 resolves this issue.

With earlier versions of vPars, you can work around this issue as follows: Assign (using path assignment) at least one CPU per cell as a bound CPU to at least one virtual partition. (It can be any virtual partition). This ensures that there is no redesignation on CPU migrations. For example, if you have four cells (0, 1, 2, 3), each with four CPUs (10, 11, 12, 13) and four virtual partitions (vpar1, vpar2, vpar3, vpar4), you could assign 0/1x to vpar1, 1/1x to vpar2, 2/1x to vpar3, and 3/1x to vpar4, where x is 0,1,2,3.

gWLM Fails to Start with Certain Time Zone Settings

In gWLM A.03.00.00 and A.03.00.01, gwlmcmsd and gwlmagent can fail to start with certain time zone settings. The following message is displayed in the gwlmagent.log.0 file or the gwlmcmsd.log.0 file when you attempt to invoke either daemon:

Unable to call method, 'main', with signature, 
'([Ljava/lang/String;)V', in class, 'com/hp/gwlm/node/Node'.
Exception in thread "main"

Workaround

Use Java 1.4.2 or Java 1.5.0.12 (or later). Versions 1.4.2 and later include a number of security fixes and other improvements that are used by gWLM. Do not use gWLM with Java 1.4.0 or Java 1.4.1.

To revert to Java 1.4.2, use the following commands:

# ln -sf /opt/java1.4/jre /opt/gwlm/jre
# chown -h root /opt/gwlm/jre
# chgrp -h bin /opt/gwlm/jre 

2007 Daylight Saving Time Changes

The Energy Policy Act of 2005 changes the dates of Daylight Saving Time (DST) in the United States, beginning in 2007. Previously, most of the U.S. has observed Daylight Saving Time from 2:00 a.m. on the first Sunday of April to 2:00 a.m. on the last Sunday of October. Beginning in 2007, most of the U.S. observes Daylight Saving Time beginning at 2:00 a.m. on the second Sunday in March (March 11, 2007) until the first Sunday in November (November 4, 2007). This is not unique to HP products. All devices and operating systems that automatically adjust Daylight Saving Time or rely on a local time zone that observes Daylight Saving Time will be affected by this change.

	NOTE: Some U.S. time zones do not observe Daylight Saving Time at all.

Similar Daylight Saving Time changes have been made or are being made in other countries, as well. For more information about how these changes affect HP products, refer to the HP Daylight Saving Time Page.

Because of these changes, patches are required for most operating systems (including HP-UX, Microsoft® Windows®, and Linux), and for the Java™ Run-time Environment (JRE), in order for local time to be displayed correctly during times affected by this change. For specific patch information, refer to “OS Patch Information” and “Java Update Information” below.

Impact on VSE Management Software

During the time periods in which the new Daylight Saving Time rules differ from the previous rules (for example, from October 28 through November 3), you may observe the following symptoms:

	NOTE: Although displayed times may be affected, as described above, timestamps used internally by the VSE Management Software are recorded using UTC, and therefore are not affected by this change.

Recommended Action

	IMPORTANT: Do not attempt to fix this problem by adjusting the system time on the CMS or managed systems (for example, by using the HP-UX date command). Adjusting the system time may modify the UTC setting on that system, which can cause utilization data to be recorded incorrectly.

HP recommends that you take the following actions as soon as practical:

Performing the steps above should resolve the issues described in “Impact on VSE Management Software”.

OS Patch Information

HP-UX.  HP-UX patches to correct for the new Daylight Saving Time rules are listed in Customer Notice c00832124. Note that these patches may have additional patch dependencies, or may be superseded by more recent patches. Refer to the patch database at the HP IT Resource Center for patch details.

	NOTE: The new HP-UX Software Assistant tool can assist with patch management. For details, refer to http://www.hp.com/go/swa.

Microsoft Windows.  Information about time zone updates for Microsoft Windows operating systems can be found at the following locations on Microsoft's Web site.

	NOTE: The following links refer to external resources outside of HP. HP is not responsible for the information at these sites.

Linux.  Information about time zone updates for Linux operating systems can be found at the following Web sites.

	NOTE: The following links refer to external resources outside of HP. HP is not responsible for the information at these sites.

Java Update Information

For specific information about HP-UX Java versions that support the new Daylight Saving Time rules, refer to the following sites:

Conditional Policies Not Captured in Advanced Report

In gWLM A.03.00.00 and A.03.00.01, the "Top borrowers" advanced report does not capture data for policies that are in effect due to conditions being met. This issue is scheduled to be addressed in the gWLM A.04.x release.

Advanced Reports Cannot Process Workloads with Spaces at Start/End of Name

Starting with gWLM A.03.00.00, workload names could contain spaces. However, the gwlmreport utility, which generates advanced reports, cannot process workload names that start or end with spaces.

Workaround

Rename your workloads to not start or end with spaces.