To configure and start the virtual machines, complete the following steps.
Note
The illustrations in this document might differ slightly from what you see on your screen.
1. Log in to the VMware vSphere Client. Type the IP address or host name of the host system, and your user name and password and click the Login button.
(a) If a security warning window opens, ignore the warning and install the certificate.
(b) On a new server, you might also see a warning that there is no datastore; ignore this warning, too.
2. The virtual machine is created with the aid of the vCenter GUI. You can use the WEB-GUI as well, if you prefer it.
Figure 62: Create new virtual machine
3. Choose Custom.
Figure 63: Choose custom configuration
4. Choose a name.
Figure 64: Choose a name
5. Choose a datastore for the VM files.
Figure 65: Choose disk storage for VM files
6. Choose the newest virtual machine version.
Figure 66: Newest virtual machine hardware version (a) Windows Based Client (Version 8)
If you use the Vmware vSphere Microsoft Windows client, you will only be presented with the possibility to choose a VM Hardware version of 6, 7 or 8. In order to run a virtual machine above 32 vCPUs, you must upgrade the VM hardware at the end or use the vCenter’s vSphere web client. See step 6b: Configuring and Starting VMs with vSphere Client on page 141 for more details on upgrading the version using the Windows client.
(b) Web Based Client (Version 9)
Figure 67: Configure the use of more than 32 CPUs
7. Choose SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 (64-bit).
Figure 68: Choose Operating System
8. Choose number of virtual CPUs according to table 48: SAP HANA Virtual Machine Sizes by Lenovo on page 128.
It is important to note that if you are using the vSphere Microsoft Windows Client, you will not be able to configure a virtual machine over 32 vCPUs until you upgrade the VM hardware. If you wish to create a virtual machine using more that 32 vCPUs, first select the maximum of 32 now and change it following the directions in step 19: Configuring and Starting VMs with vSphere Client on page 148.
Figure 69: Choose number of CPUs
9. Choose memory according to table 48: SAP HANA Virtual Machine Sizes by Lenovo on page 128.
Figure 70: Choose Memory
10. Select the network cards.
Figure 71: Choose Network Cards
11. Choose the SCSI controller.
Figure 72: Choose SCSI controller
12. Disk layout for virtual machines. Two disks needed for a VM. One for the OS, and one for GPFS.
Please see table 48 for required disk sizes.
13. Create a new virtual disk.
Figure 73: Create new HANA datastore
(a) Choose the OS size according to table 48: SAP HANA Virtual Machine Sizes by Lenovo on page 128.
Figure 74: Choose datastore size
(b) Choose a datastore for the OS.
Figure 75: Choose datastore
(c) Choose the correct SCSI node. The first virtual disk you create is assigned to "SCSI (0:0)", the second to "SCSI (0:1)", and so on.
Figure 76: Choose SCSI Node
(d) Finish the virtual drive creation.
14. Repeat steps 13 to 13d for virtual disks for GPFS.
Select Edit the virtual machine settings before completion to do this.
In the case that your virtual machine requires a drive size that is larger than the capacity of a single available device, you must repeat steps 13 through 13d to include the total amount of storage across multiple devices.
15. Add a new CD/DVD device.
Figure 77: Add a new CD/DVD device (a) Select Datastore ISO File.
Figure 78: Select ISO image
(b) Select Connect at power on.
(c) Select Browse... and look for the "SLES for SAP ISO (NFS Mounted Datastore)".
You need two CD/DVD drives for the installation. One for the SLES DVD ISO and one for the non-OS components ISO.
(d) Select IDE (0:0).
Figure 79: Select IDE device 0:0
(e) Finish the creation of the SLES for SAP DVD.
Figure 80: Finish creation of SLES ISO mount
16. Create the non-OS components DVD.
Repeat step 15 for a second CD/DVD and include the Lenovo HANA ISO. Both ISOs are best put into an NFS datastore that has been attached previously in the server settings of the VMware ESX server.
17. Change the boot options to Boot to BIOS at the next reboot.
18. Press OK to create the virtual machine.
19. Upgrading the Virtual Machine to VM Version 9 using Windows Client.
If it is required to use more than 32 vCPUs in your SAP HANA virtual machine (sizes larger than 3 slots), you must use the version 9 of the VMware virtual hardware. This is not possible during a virtual machine creation using the Microsoft Windows client.
After creating a virtual machine, right mouse click on the newly created virtual machine in the vSphere client and select "Upgrade Virtual Hardware". A pop-up will show asking you to confirm the upgrade. Press "Yes" and continue.
Figure 81: Upgrade virtual hardware
Figure 82: Confirm upgrade (a) Increasing the number of virtual CPUs for larger VMs.
If you are installing a virtual machine larger than 3 slots, you will need to update the number of vCPUs required for this system. Right mouse click on the newly created virtual machine in the left-hand side of the vSphere client and select Edit Settings.
(b) Select the CPUs.
Select the CPUs and increase the number of virtual sockets and CPUs as required. We rec-ommend to use 10 CPUs per socket for the SAP HANA virtual machine.
Figure 83: Upgrade virtual hardware
20. Upgrading the VM to VM version 10 using command line.
This describes the upgrade of the virtual hardware, CPU and RAM if a vCenter is not available.
You may be in need to do this, if you want to run the VM with large RAM, e.g. more than 256GB RAM. To accomplish this, it is mandatory to have SSH to ESXi hypervisor enabled.
Every virtual machine has a VMX file, which contains all configuration data for the machine.
Usually the format is<vmname>.vmx. You can find the VMX file for your VM with the command
1 ~ # find . -name '*.vmx'
This will list all available VMs. Choose the one you need and change into the directory. Open the VMX file with an editor (e.g. vi). The VM has to be shut down to do this. Edit and change following lines:
1 virtualHW.version = "10"
2 memsize = "<sizeoframyouneed>"
3 numvcpus = "<numofcpuyouneed>"
To take the changes in effect you must reload the VM
1 ~# vim-cmd vmsvc/reload <vmid>