Parallels Server Bare Metal — What’s New

Parallels Server Bare Metal is a cloud-ready virtualization solution that allows you to simultaneously run multiple Parallels virtual machines and containers on the same physical server, thereby making more efficient use of your hardware resources. The 5.0 release:

• Optimizes system performance with features like no-downtime migration
• Adds CPU and memory hot-plug support, enabling you to build scalable infrastructure-as- a-service solutions
• Supports IO and CPU limits and accounting, so you can ensure good performance for all tenants in a multi-tenant environment

Parallels Server Bare Metal includes the following new features and improvements:

• RHEL/CentOS 6 Compatibility. PSBM5.0 is rebased for Cloud Linux 6.1 (http://cloudlinux.com) giving a new kernel (2.6.32) and RHEL/CentOS 6 compatibility and bringing PSBM into alignment with the latest enterprise distributions.
• New memory management scheme for Containers. Parallels Server Bare Metal introduces VSwap, a new scheme for managing memory-related parameters in Containers that makes it easy for users to specify RAM and Swap amounts for a Container, effectively enabling it to behave like a dedicated machine. For more information, please, refer to Parallels Server Bare Metal User Guide, section “Managing Memory Resources for Containers”.
• Improved memory management for virtual machines. You can now configure how much memory to reserve on the host for all the virtual machines. In addition you can define granular memory usage parameters for a particular virtual machine including memory guarantee, priority, limit and balloon driver limit. For more information, please, refer to Parallels Server Bare Metal User Guide, section “Managing Memory Resources for Virtual Machines".
• Support for servers with 64 CPU cores and 128 GB of RAM. Parallels Server Bare Metal 5.0 can be installed on servers with up to 64 CPU cores and 128 GB of RAM.
• Host-routed networking mode for virtual machines. Network adapters of virtual machines can now operate in the host-routed mode. In this case, all network traffic is routed via special virtual network adapters on the physical server.
• Disk I/O limits. You can configure the bandwidth that a container or virtual machine is allowed to use for disk input and output (I/O) operations with the pctl set --iolimit command. Limiting disk I/O bandwidth can help prevent situations where high disk I/O activities in one container or virtual machine will slow down the performance of other containers and virtual machines on the same server.
• Disk I/O accounting. You can view disk I/O statistics for containers and virtual machines by using the pstat utility or by examining the /proc/bc/<ID>/iostat file. These statistics will enable you to easily identify the containers and virtual machines that generate the highest disk I/O load on the server.
• Parallels Virtual Automation 4.6.3 support. Parallels Virtual Automation (PVA) 4.6.3 can now manage servers running Parallels Server Bare Metal 5.0. If you want PVA support, you can install the PVA components (PVA Agent and PVA Master Node) at the same time that you’re installing Parallels Server Bare Metal 5.0.

  Note: To set up the PVA Master Node component, an active Internet connection is required.

• Online migration for virtual machines. The pmigrate utility now supports migrating virtual machines with zero downtime, eliminating any service outages or interruptions for end users.
• Online migration improvements for containers. You can now migrate containers that have one or more Network File System version 3 (NFSv3) directories mounted; containers that have one or more AutoFS mount points (including NFSv3 directories managed by AutoFS); and containers with processes that have open device files, named pipes, and Unix sockets hidden by another file system mounted over the directory where these objects reside.
• IPv6 support. This version provides full support for using IPv6 addresses with virtual machines and containers, including support for traffic shaping and accounting.
• Customizable DHCP pools for host-only networks. You can now configure the range of IP addresses that the Parallels DHCP server allocates to virtual machines in host-only networks. You can either define a custom IP address range in a kickstart file when performing an unattended installation of Parallels Server Bare Metal 5.0, or change the default IP address range after the installation using the Parallels Management Console or the prlsrvctl utility.
• E1000 virtual adapter support. Now E1000 virtual network adapters are used to handle network traffic in virtual machines running operating systems that support the E1000 driver. The E1000 virtual network adapters support jumbo frames─extended Ethernet frames that can carry up to 9,000 bytes of payload.
• USB device assignments. You can assign a USB device to a virtual machine, causing the device to be automatically connected to the virtual machine when you plug the device into the Parallels server—or when you start the virtual machine.
• Viewing statistics for virtual machines. You can now monitor resource statistics (such as CPU usage, disk usage, and network traffic) for virtual machines using the pnetstat and pstat utilities.
• CPU limit in megahertz. Along with setting a CPU limit for virtual machines and containers in relative units, you can now set such a limit in MHz. In such a case, the CPU limit will remain the same regardless of the total CPU power of the server on which the virtual machine or container resides.
• SATA support. Parallels Server Bare Metal 5.0 now supports using SATA devices (virtual disks and CD/DVD-ROM drives) in virtual machines. SATA devices can be added to and removed from both running and stopped virtual machines.
• CPU and memory hotplug support. You can now turn on CPU and memory hotplug functionality in virtual machines, which enables you to dynamically configure both the number of CPUs and the amount of memory in your virtual machines.
• Compatibility with Parallels products. You can use virtual machines created in Parallels Server Bare Metal 5.0 with the following Parallels products (as long as they have the latest updates installed):
  • Parallels Desktop 6,7 for Mac
  • Parallels Server for Mac 4.0
  • Parallels Server for Mac 4.0 Bare Metal Edition
  • Parallels Desktop 4 for Windows and Linux
  • Parallels Workstation 6 Extreme
• Support for converting third-party virtual machines. You can now convert Microsoft Hyper-V, Microsoft Virtual PC, Virtual Box, VMware, and Xen virtual machines to Parallels virtual machines. Depending on the type of virtual machine, the conversion can be performed by means of the pctl, prl_convert, or pmigrate utility.
• Traffic shaping and accounting. Network traffic can be now shaped and accounted for in both containers and virtual machines.
• CPU affinity. On physical servers with multiple processors, you can now bind virtual machines and containers to specific CPUs, so that only those CPUs are used to handle the processes running in these virtual machines and containers. This approach can increase your system performance by up to 20%.
• NEW In Update 3! Increased VM Machine capacity. Includes support for up to 24 virtual CPUs, up to 96 GB RAM for Virtual Machines and up to 5TB virtual disk space
• Private Networks. You can now create private networks on physical servers to include virtual machines and containers to different subnets. The virtual machines and containers from one subnet are not allowed to access virtual machines and containers from other subnets, outside the private network, and computers on external networks. At the same time, you can create weak private networks where virtual machines and containers cannot communicate with virtual machines and containers on other subnets but can connect to virtual machines and containers outside the private network and to computers on external networks.