LDOMS (H/W level Virtualization) Concept

In Solaris we have two beautiful concepts of Virtualization.

1) LDOMS (Logical Domains): Hardware level Virtualization.
2) ZONES: Operating System Level Virtualization.
Now in this document let us discuss about LDOMS in brief.
Logical Domains (LDOMS) :
LDOMs are also called as Oracle VM for SPARC. LDOMS can be created on High
End servers like T5 series, M5 series and on all above that.
Before splitting High end server into Logical Domains we need Primary Domains.
A server like M5-32 can have maximum of 4 PDOMS. We can create the whole
server as a single PDOM also.
For every Pdom we need a Control Domain that controls the Logical Domain
Environment. Control domain will have the control of all resources and guest
domains.
Here for every PDOM we can create a control domain itself or we can make a
Control and I/O Domain.
Every LDOM is a full virtual machine that runs an independent operating system
instance. Below are different domains that can be created on a PDOM.

Control domain
Service domain
I/O domain
Root domain
Guest domain

The Control domain, as its name implies, controls the logical domain
environment. It is used to configure machine resources and guest domains, and
provides services necessary for domain operation, such as virtual console
service. The control domain also normally acts as a service domain.
Service domains present virtual services, such as virtual disk drives and network
switches, to other domains.
I/O domains have direct ownership of a PCI bus and direct access to physical I/O
devices, such as a network card in a PCI controller.
Root domains have direct ownership of PCIe "root complex" and all associated
PCIe slots. This can be used to grant access to physical I/O devices. A root
domain is also an I/O domain.
Guest domains run an operating system instance without performing any of the
above roles, but leverage the services provided by the above in order to run
applications.
Control and service functions can be combined within domains, however it is
recommended that user applications not run within control or service domains in
order to protect domain stability and performance.

It is better to create both Control and I/O Domain individually, so that we can
achieve redundancy while ldoms are accessing the hardware resources.
We need to install Logical Domains Manager software to enable ldm commands
in control domain.
Every ldom will have three states:
1) INACTIVE ---- state achieved by a ldom immediately after creating it.
(ldm add-domain ldom)
2) BOUND ------- state achieved by a ldom when we bind it. (ldm binddomain ldom)
3) ACTIVE ------- state achieved by a ldom when we start the domain (ldm
start-domain ldom)
To perform any action related to adding,removing resources from a ldom we need
to bring that particular domain either to BOUND or INACTIVE state.
We can bring back a ACTIVE domain to BOUND state by giving ldm stop-domain
ldom.
We can bring back a BOUND domain to INACTIVE state by giving ldm unbinddomain ldom.
Let us see few basic ldm commands needed while creating a new ldom,
*********
ldm list ------------ to list all ldoms.
ldm add-domain ldom ---------- to add a new ldom.
ldm remove-domain ldom ---------- to remove a particular ldom.
*********
ldm add-vcpu number ldom ---------- to add virtual cpu's to a ldom.
ldm remove-vcpu number ldom ---------- to remove virtual cpu's from a
ldom.
*********
ldm add-memory size [unit] ldom ---------- to add memory from a ldom.
ldm remove-memory size [unit] ldom ---------- to remove memory from a
ldom.
*********
ldm add-vsw vswitch-name ldom ---------- to add virtual switch from a
ldom.
ldm remove-vsw vswitch-name ---------- to remove virtual switch from a
ldom.
*********
ldm add-vnet vnetname vsw=vswitch-name ---------- to add virtual net
from a ldom.

ldm remove-vnet vnetname ldom ---------- to remove virtual net from a

ldom.
*********
ldm add-vds service-name ldom ---------- to add virtual disk service.
ldm remove-vds service-name

---------- to remove virtual disk service.

*********
ldm add-vdsdev devname volume-name@service-name ---------- to add a
device to vds.
ldm remove-vdsdev volume-name@service-name ---------- to remove a
device from vds.
*********
ldm add-vdisk disk-name volume-name@service-name ldom --- to add a
disk from vds to ldom.
ldm remove-vdisk disk-name ldom --- to remove a disk of vds from
ldom.
*********
ldm start-domain ldom
ldm stop-domain ldom
*********
ldm bind-domain ldom
ldm unbind-domain ldom
*********
ldm list-bindings ldom
ldm list-devices ldom
ldm list-services ldom
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