Consolidating the DB2 pureScale Feature in a virtual environment (Linux)

You can use server consolidation to efficiently use server resources, and reduce the number of servers that you need for your work environment.

About this task

You can consolidate multiple database servers into a set of physical machines that run multiple DB2® pureScale® instances. You must be using VMWare ESXi 5.0 or Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 6.2 KVM. Figure 1 shows the network topology of a consolidated virtual Linux environment. You can have only a single VM per physical server, per instance.

Figure 1. Network topology of a consolidated virtual Linux environment

To consolidate a DB2 pureScale instance in a Linux virtual environment:

1. Install and configure your hypervisor.
   Note: The RHEL 6.2 KVM hypervisor is available as part of the Linux kernel.
2. Create a guest VM image for the first DB2 pureScale member on one physical server.
3. On VMWare ESXi, assign logical unit numbers (LUNs) from SAN storage as RDM disks to the member VM. On RHEL 6.2 KVM, assign SAN disks as virtual disks to the member VM. Refer to pureScale disk requirements for how many shared disks that are required.
4. Assign public and private NICs to the guest VM.
5. Install a Linux operating system on the guest VM.
   Note: If you are using the RHEL 6.2 KVM hypervisor, you must install RHEL 6 as your operating system.
6. You can create more DB2 pureScale members, the primary cluster caching manager (CF), and the secondary CF by cloning the VM image of the first member or following the same procedure. Each VM must reside on a separate physical server. For example, if you have two members, a primary CF, and a secondary CF, you must use four physical servers.
7. Install the DB2 pureScale Feature. When you create the pureScale instance, choose the guest VMs that you created on the physical servers.
   Note: Tie-breaker support is not available when using virtual disks.
8. Create a database or move existing databases to the instance you created.