KB #4961 - Building a Parallels Virtual Appliance

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Building a Parallels Virtual Appliance

Article ID: 4961

Last Review: Apr,15 2008

APPLIES TO:

Parallels Technology Network

RESOLUTION

Building a Parallels Virtual Appliance (PVA) is similar to installing software, but it requires much more attention to detail. Thorough configuration allows a more flexible integration into the existing virtual infrastructure.

Three keys to successfully building a PVA are:

Making sure your PVA presents a comprehensive solution for the targeted tasks

Making the PVA installation as simple as possible

Making sure that the PVA update procedure will not affect the user’s data

To the user, a PVA is a “black box”, which provides services that can be controlled with the help of a suitable interface. The user should be able to start, stop, or move the PVA to any physical computer with minimal effort.

Each PVA is completely isolated and self-contained within the virtual environment. It will perform exactly the same, regardless of the operating system, preferences, networking type, or application set of the host machine.

Disk Requirements

PVA hard disks must have enough space for a guest OS, applications, logs, and the user’s data files. The logs, if any, must be rotated regularly.

You should create three virtual hard disks for your PVA:

First disk – is bootable and contains the guest OS and core application files. It should be as small as possible.

Second disk – contains the user’s and application’s data.

Third disk (for PVAs that use Unix-like guest OSes) – a “swap” disk. If the swap space is on a separate disk, it is easier to change the amount of memory used by the PVA.

Important! The first disk is the only one that should be upgraded. Do not store any user data on this disk. Any file meant to be modified by the user must be placed on the second disk.

Name the disks accordingly for future reference. For example, use app.hdd for the first disk, data.hdd for the second one, and swap.hdd for the third.

Such PVA configuration enables the user to perform updates by replacing only the first disk.

Software Requirements

For optimum efficiency:

The guest OS must be installed in a minimal configuration. Only those components or features necessary for the target service or application to operate successfully should be installed.

The software installed inside the PVA should not use the 16-bit programming mode as it may result in dramatic performance losses.

To create a minimal configuration of the guest OS, either:

Build the PVA from scratch with minimal required configuration, including the OS kernel and libraries necessary for the PVA’s applications, or

Install the guest OS in the standard way. Remove unused features, OS locale settings, documents, and unnecessary applications. Install the target application or service.

Important! You must provide an update feature for your PVA with all of the necessary documentation. Activation of this feature must be optional, but updating itself may be configured to be performed automatically. Each update cycle should provide increases in stability, performance and security.

Interface Requirements

A PVA must have a well documented and clearly understandable Administrator Interface. The user must be able to use this interface to start, restart, shut down, and configure the PVA.

Do not use GUI-based interfaces unless the PVA’s design requires one as this interface consumes additional resources. You can use a text console to execute only a minimal set of necessary commands, such as start, restart, and shut down.

We recommend using both a text console inside the PVA with basic functionality and a full-featured web-based Administrator Interface. The Administrator Interface should be ideally accessible by secure protocol, HTTPS, and the address must be displayed on the PVA console when the booting process is complete:

The Administrator Interface is available at: https://<PVA-IP-address>:<port>/

It’s recommended that you support your PVA and provide the necessary updates for it. However, if you do not plan to support your PVA, you must provide full management capability and allow full access with administrator's rights to the PVA operating system to enable the user to control and configure it.

Network Configuration Requirements

Use a DHCP server for network configuration and protect the PVA by firewall. You may allow third party applications to monitor PVA parameters using SNMP by creating your own MIBs subtree.