Following on the theme around licensing, I thought I’d take the opportunity to explain, in detail, for anyone who doesn’t already know, how to license Windows Server Operations Systems in a Virtual Environment.  Now, I’m not a licensing expert, but I’ve been through this enough times to understand it, and articulate it correctly, however, if something doesn’t make sense, add a comment!  It’s important to note, that everything I discuss below, is relevant for Microsoft and non-Microsoft virtualisation environments.

So, let’s start…

Windows Server 2008 Standard

So, say we’ve bought a copy of Windows Server 2008 Standard, and we install it on the Physical box below.

If we’re not bothered about Virtualisation, this is a very simple licensing scenario indeed – all I’ve done is installed (and thus assigned) this Windows Server 2008 Standard license to this physical box.  Easy peasy.  From here, I could enable any of the roles of the OS, such as AD, DNS, DHCP etc, and have a great time doing it.  If need be, I could downgrade this OS to a previous version of Windows Server (but I’m not going to go through this process today).  There are a couple of very important things that we need to get out in the open early on here, as it’s relevant throughout this post.

- First important thing to note is, if I’ve bought this Windows Server 2008 OS on a piece of hardware, through an OEM channel, that license lives and dies with the hardware, so there’s no moving this license to another physical host.

- Second important thing to note is, if I’ve bought this license through a volume licensing program, and I want to re-assign this license to another physical host, I can do this, but, I can’t re-assign it again for another 90 days.

Now, as you know, Windows Server 2008 contains Hyper-V, so, if we enable this role, we can start running virtual machines on that particular host, but, what we do have to think about, is how we license those virtualised Windows Server guest OS’s running on that Windows Server 2008 Standard Host.

So, in this example on the left, we’ve decided to virtualise 1 guest server OS on our Windows Server 2008 Standard Host.  We’ll say, for arguments sake, that this is a Windows Server guest OS.  Now, with Windows Server 2008 Standard, I get 1 free running virtual instance on that particular host.

What that means is, when I assign a Windows Server 2008 Standard license to a physical box, I get the added benefit of not only being able to install the Windows Server 2008 OS on the physical hardware (and thus enable the Hyper-V Role), but I also get 1 free Windows Server guest OS, which can be Windows Server 2008 Standard or Downgraded

Read that last paragraph, then read it again to make sure you’ve got it.

I used a keyword in that paragraph.  That keyword was ‘assign’.  The reason I use the word ‘assign’ rather than ‘install’, is because this licensing is Virtualisation agnostic, which means I can ‘assign’ a Windows Server 2008 Standard license to a physical VMware ESX or Citrix XenServer (or A.N.Other!) host, and for free, run 1 instance of Windows Server 2008 Standard (or downgraded) in a VM on those platforms.  If you want to run 2 instances of Windows Server Standard on those platforms, assign a 2nd Windows Server 2008 Standard license to that physical host, and that will give you another, and so on.

So, those bright sparks among you are going to say, well, if I not only assign the Windows Server 2008 Standard license to a physical host, but choose to install it on the physical host too (instead of A.N.Other Virtualisation platform), and then I create a Windows Server 2008 Standard (or downgraded) VM, am I not effectively getting 2 OS’s for the price of 1?  Well, yes, and no.

The reason I say yes is, because you are getting 2 fully featured versions of Windows Server 2008 Standard – one for use on the actual physical host, and one for use in the VM.  However, here’s the caveat.  If you are using your maximum ‘free allowance’ of Windows Server VMs on a host (1 in this case), you must use the host machine to purely manage the virtual machines running on it, and nothing else.

So, in the example directly above, that physical box, with Windows Server 2008 Standard & Hyper-V running on it, can only be used to support the VM(s) above it, and not be providing other infrastructure features into the environment, such as Active Directory, Domain Controller, Web Server etc.  It should be used purely for Hyper-V and managing the VMs running on it.

So, imagine this scenario:

In this scenario, we’re looking to run 3 Virtual Machines, which, for arguments sake, are Windows Server guests.  To do this, using Windows Server 2008 Standard licensing, we’d assign 3 licenses to the physical box, which would not only give us the OS for the physical host, but the 3 guest OS’s we desire.  If we wanted to move these VMs to another host, we’d have to reassign the Windows Server 2008 Standard licenses to the chosen host, however we wouldn’t be able to move it for another 90 days.  Now, Windows Server 2008 Standard retails at about $999 I believe, so, this scenario will set us back just under $3000, and will go up by $999 for each guest Windows Server OS we want to consolidate.  This pricing does not change whether you have 1 CPU, 2 CPUs or 4 CPUs in the physical box.  So, a license of Windows Server 2008 Standard on a 1 CPU Dual Core System, is the same price as one on a Quad CPU Quad Core System.

If I was consolidating Linux guest’s onto this platform, perhaps open-source rather than commercial distributions, then the guest OS’s would effectively be free.

From a licensing perspective, using Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition is the least beneficial and flexible when compared with Enterprise and Datacenter editions when it comes to Virtualisation.

Windows Server 2008 Enterprise

So, hopefully you’ve got the gist from reading the bit above.  Now, licensing Enterprise is very similar indeed, however, this time, instead of getting 1 free running instances, you receive 4 free running instances when you assign a Windows Server 2008 Enterprise license to a physical host.

So, in this scenario, we’ve simply assigned the Windows Server 2008 Enterprise license to the physical box, and we receive 4 free running instances of Windows Server 2008 Enterprise, or downgraded, in virtual machines.  We could have 100 virtualised Windows Servers on this particular box, but the license gives you 4 free running instances at one time.

So, if you assign this license to an ESX or XenServer host – no problems, you receive 4 free running Windows Server instances.  If you assign and install it, you’re getting a Hyper-V platform for free, and the 4 free running instances.  Same rule as above applies – If you are using your maximum ‘free allowance’ of Windows Server VMs on a host (4 in this case), you must use the host machine to purely manage the virtual machines running on it, and nothing else.

This licensing is cumulative too, so if you want to assign 2 licenses of Windows Server 2008 Enterprise to the physical host, for 8 free running instances, just do it!  Or assign 3 licenses for 12 free!  It just keeps going, but remember, you can’t reassign Windows Server licenses from physical host to physical host more than once every 90 days.  Another key area to be aware of is when you are using migration technologies, like Quick Migration on Hyper-V, VMotion on VMware’s platform, or XenMotion on the Citrix platform to name but a few.  So, take this scenario:

In this example, we’ve assigned a Windows Server 2008 Enterprise license to both physical nodes, and we’re using our maximum 4 free running instances on both nodes.  All is great :-)

We encounter a situation (Manual, DRS etc) where we need to migrate a virtual machine from one node to another.  Technically, not a problem, however a move is going to put us out of compliance from a licensing perspective, because what we may find is that we’re running more than 4 guests on one of the nodes and less than 4 on the other.  On the node that’s running less than it’s maximum of 4, there’s no problem.  It’s just we’re incorrectly licensed on the node that’s now running more than 4.

One way to counter this, is to assign 2 Windows Server 2008 Enterprise licenses to each node, giving us a free allocation (or, breathing space) of 8 free running Windows Server VMs on each node.  Whether we choose to use all 8 on each node is up to us, but if we do, we could get into a similar situation as we found before if we’re not careful.  If it’s only a very temporary situation, i.e. you’ve moved all VMs onto physical host 2 for a short window whilst host 1 is patched, then you should be fine – Microsoft’s licensing is based on a trust model and understands the importance of temporary maintenance etc.

In the same way Windows Server 2008 Standard was licensed per box, so is Enterprise, so again, this pricing does not change whether you have 1 CPU, 2 CPUs or 4 CPUs in the physical box.  So, a license of Windows Server 2008 Enterprise on a 1 CPU Dual Core System, is the same price as one on a Quad CPU Quad Core System.  The retail price of Windows Server 2008 Enterprise is $3999, which, if you think about 4 free VMs per license, it works out at about $1000 per VM, so roughly the same price as Windows Server 2008 Standard, yet you get the Enterprise features like Clustering etc, inside the VMs.

Also remember, that any of these VMs can be downgraded to older Windows Server versions, such as 2003, or 2000.  2000 SP4 is the earliest supported version on Hyper-V, and runs great! :-)

Windows Server 2008 Datacenter

OK, so, we’re on the home straight here – just Datacenter edition to go!  Stay with me!

Hopefully you understand what I’ve been talking about so far, because it’s very important when devising solutions based on Microsoft server technologies, regardless of the Virtualisation platform.  I wouldn’t want to be a customer, who’s paid good money to embrace VMware’s technologies (for example), and been told incorrect information about Windows licenses running on those ESX hosts, which has resulted in the customer buying more licenses that necessary.  Not good.  It’s therefore critically important that both customers, and partners understand and can articulate this information.

So, what’s the deal with Datacenter edition, and is it too ‘big’ for my business?  Well, let’s dip into a little history first – In previous versions of Windows Server, i.e. 2003, you could only buy Datacenter edition on hardware.  There was no other channel, bar OEM, that organisations could get hold of Datacenter, so, in many cases, it would have been restricted to the larger organisations who were buying whopping hardware.  That’s changed for 2008.

Update - As Mike rightly points out in the comments section "Windows Server 2003 Datacenter became available through normal channels in October 2006 - the same day these virtualization rights were introduced. You still get the rights with Windows Server 2003 and 2008 and can use the downgrade rights for earlier versions of the OS"

For the first time, Datacenter edition of Windows Server is available through regular Volume Licensing channels, so it’s instantly more mainstream and accessible for many more people, but, why would you want it?  Well, if you take Windows Server 2008 Datacenter as an OS, it’s our most scalable version of the Windows Server 2008 versions, supporting the highest number of procs/cores, but feature wise, it’s pretty much the same as Enterprise.  Where it changes massively, is when you bring in Virtualisation.

The Hyper-V bits themselves are identical to those in Enterprise, scaling up to 1TB RAM in the physical box, 24 cores with the latest Intel 6-core chips, 64GB RAM per VM etc etc.  It’s the Virtualisation licensing that’s pretty darn different than Enterprise.  Here’s the scenario:

Imagine we want to achieve a 16:1 consolidation ratio, so, 16 VMs (in this case, Windows Servers) running on 1 pretty powerful box.  Seems pretty achievable I’d say, but what’s the most cost effective way of licensing it?  Well, so far we have Standard edition, which gives us 1 free VM per assigned license, so we’d need 16 licenses @ $999 each, so we’re talking around $16k.  We don’t have much flexibility using Standard edition, plus we can’t use any Failover Clustering, so we’re putting quite a few eggs in one basket here!  What are the alternatives?

We have Enterprise edition, which, as I detailed above, provides 4 free running instances per assigned license, so, for 16 VMs, we’d need 4 Enterprise licenses assigned to this box.  4 Enterprise licenses @ $3999 per license weighs in at $16k, so pretty similar to Standard edition really, but with greater scalability and features under the hood.  Final option?  Datacenter Edition.

Now, first important point, Datacenter edition is licenses per physical processor, not per box, like Enterprise/Standard are.  So, in our scenario, imagine the box on the left has 2 physical procs, each with quad cores.

So, in this case, we’d need to assign 2 Datacenter licenses to the box on the left, as it has 2 physical processors.  Datacenter licenses go for $2999 per processor.  That would mean that this scenario would cost us just under $6k.  But what are we getting for our money?  I haven’t mentioned any ‘free’ virtual machines yet….

Windows Server 2008 Datacenter Edition, when assigned to a host, allows an unlimited number of free running Windows Server guest OS’s on that host.  So, for our scenario, where we want a 16:1 ratio, assigning 2 Datacenter licenses to that box (for a total of just under $6k) gives us what we need, and more.  I could double, triple or even quadruple (and more!) the number of Windows Server Guest OS’s on that box, and still only ever pay $6k.  This would only change if I upped the number of physical procs in the machine. So, $6k Datacenter, vs. $16k for Standard/Enterprise.  Double the ratio to 32:1 and Datacenter is still $6k, but Enterprise & Standard are now coming in at around $32k – in fact, Standard would probably have hit it’s limit by that point, depending on how ‘big’ the VMs are  (Standard edition supports 32GB RAM in the host).

The great thing to mention about Datacenter Edition (aside from the great Virtualisation licensing benefits!) is that it really eases the licensing headache around migration of virtual machines between hosts.  If you have a 3 node cluster, each with Datacenter licenses assigned, it will never matter how many Windows Server VMs you’re running on each physical node.  You can have 20 VMs on one, 10 on another, and 35 on another, and never have to worry about being incorrectly licensed from a Windows Server perspective.  Excellent.

To summarise:

If these were the requirements of a project, on the top right, the first thing to note is, Standard Edition is pretty much out.  It doesn’t have the clustering element to it, so it would have to be Windows Server 2008 Enterprise of Datacenter.  I’m using Hyper-V as my virtualisation technology here, as I’m getting it as part of my license anyway, but if there was a requirement for a VMware or Citrix (or A.N.Other) deployment, then you’d factor those costs on top.  So, Enterprise and Datacenter licensing assigned to the physical hosts will give me the features I need in terms high availability, and migration with minimal downtime.

So, do I choose Enterprise, or Datacenter for my licensing?  Well, I think these results speak for themselves – I’d save $30k on these 3 nodes alone by using Datacenter.  I could double my CPUs in each node too, up to 4 CPUs in each node, and it would still only come to $36k using Datacenter, so it would still be cheaper than Enterprise, and I get the added flexibility that Datacenter brings, plus, and this is a key point, future scale-up growth at no cost.  I wouldn’t get this with Enterprise.  For every 4 VMs I wanted to scale up, I’d be paying an extra $4k per license with Enterprise.  Datacenter really is a compelling choice from a licensing, and a cost saving perspective.

Summary

Well, phew, we made it!  Hopefully that’s made sense – if it hasn’t, that’s what the comment box is for on this post!  Let me know!  Hopefully this has given you clarity around licensing the different versions of Windows Server in virtual environments, and also some of the caveats you need to be aware of, like not being able to move OEM licenses around, or re-assigning licenses to hosts more than once every 90 days.  You should also remember that the keyword is assign, not install.  Microsoft would be naive to think that just because someone has bought Windows Server 2008 licenses, that they will always use Hyper-V as their virtualisation platform.  Using the word ‘assign’, clears this up; simply assign a Windows Server license to a physical box, and you get the free VM rights.  Whether you choose to utilise the added benefit of a free virtualisation layer in the form of Hyper-V on that system, is entirely up to you…

Say you've got a nice new machine, with a 100gb hard disk, efficiently running Windows XP, but what if, for one reason or another, you want to split that hard disk into multiple partitions.  What are some of the reasons you would want to create multiple partitions?  Well, how about a separate drive for your paging file, to aid system performance, a separate drive for all your media / photo's / movies, or, a separate drive, to run another operating system, in a dual boot environment.  Sound good?  How can you do it in XP?  Well, it's not the easiest thing to do...

• Method 1: - Re-install XP (Using your bootable DVD) and partition on setup.
• Method 2: - Use a third-party Partitioning tool, such as partition magic.

Well, looking at the first one - it's abit of a hassle, and what if you already have alot of work on there?  You will need to back it all up etc, taking valuable time and effort.  This is obviously assuming that you have the DVD of XP.  The second method would provide you with a feature-rich application, but, it's not free, and if you are only to use it once or twice, maybe the cost isn't quite justified.

So, how does this all change with Vista?

Well, although not as full featured as some third party partition management applications, in the Disk-Management snap-in, pictured below, users can shrink, extend, create, and format partitions. The new resizing features will allow users to shrink a single partition with unused space, and then create a new partition in the resulting free space, as well as extending a current partition if there is available free space after it.

Compare this with the options you have in XP:

And you can see the number of features has increased a great deal.

So, you've installed Vista, on your single-partition, but you've decided that you'd like to create another couple of partitions, one for your media, and one for your other data, keeping just your system files on the current partition.  All you have to do is click Shrink Volume, enter the details...

and your unallocated space is created, where you can subsequently create your new volume with the New Volume Wizard, allocating size and choosing drive letter, or, you can extend an already existing volume.  You can split this space again, and again, to create your required partitions.

I think you'll agree, with the new enhancements to Windows Vista Disk Management, the wizard-driven shrinking and extending partitions is now easily accomplished. As always, when making changing to the partition structure, users should ensure that all important files and data are backed up.

We had the first of our 'Ask the Expert' sessions this morning (you can still register for the others, here!) and there were a load of great questions - some even had us stumped!

One of the questions that we were asked was around upgrading from Windows XP to Windows Vista Business, but on different architecture, so from x86 (32-bit) to x64 (64-bit).  Initially, I thought this couldn't be done, and would require a clean wipe, and a reinstall with the full Vista version rather than the upgrade version.  I was a little bit wrong...

This KB Article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/932795/en-us details the ways you can upgrade from x86 to x64, in a number of different scenarios.  In response to the actual question, to go from x86 XP to x64 Vista Business, you need to do the following, but before this, there are a few pre-requisites:

You need to have purchased the Windows Vista Upgrade (Or Full version) - in this case, we'll be using Vista Business 32-bit Upgrade.  You will then have to access the 64-bit version (unless you are running Ultimate, as this ships in the box) from here.

After you get hold of the editions, x86 and x64, follow these steps:

1. Back up all the data and the settings by using Windows XP Backup.
   Note You can also use Windows Easy Transfer. This back up program is available on the Windows Vista DVD. However, you must use the version that is on the 32-bit Windows Vista DVD if you want to use Windows Easy Transfer to back up a 32-bit version of Windows.
2. Insert the 64-bit version of Windows Vista into the system DVD drive, and then restart the computer.
3. Start Windows Vista Setup from the DVD when you are prompted.  Note You must start Windows Vista Setup by starting the computer from the Windows Vista 64-bit DVD. The installation package will not run on a 32-bit operating system.
4. When you are prompted during Windows Vista Setup, remember to select Custom as the installation type.
5. After installation is complete, you can restore the data from its backup location.

OK, so that was pretty straightforward - if you want any further info on 32-bit upgrades on their own, you can read this KB Article here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/932616/en-us

Now, as you'll probably have guessed, I love Vista, and it genuinely has changed the way I work, for the better, but every so often it does something which makes me laugh, and although this happened to a colleague of mine, and not me, I thought I'd share it with you anyway....

Hee hee :-) Made me laugh anyway!

It works!

OK, it's not native USB support, but, this piece of equipment will allow you to access USB devices from within your virtual machines, running on Hyper-V, Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 etc

There is an argument as to why you really need to give your servers access to any USB devices, but, I guess it's nice to have the option.

"AnywhereUSB is a network-enabled USB hub. It is the first remote networking solution to utilize RealPort® USB, Digi's patented USB Over IP® technology, making it easy to connect USB devices anywhere on a wired or wireless LAN, while eliminating the need for locally-attached host PCs."

Sounds useful to me, and at just over 300 EURO, it's not ridiculously expensive, and chances are, you may only need 1...

A couple of days back, I wrote a war-and-peace-length (OK, not quite!) post on the investigation of the VMware Cost-Per-Application Calculator.  If you haven’t read it, you can read it here.  To summarise, it showed:

• On like for like hardware, a Microsoft Virtualisation solution encompassing Hyper-V and System Center, plus Windows licenses, would have a 3% cost-per-application over a vSphere Enterprise Plus and Windows Licenses combination.  Here’s a few caveats on that summary though:
  • 3% is very different to 20-30% that VMware tout as their cost-per-app saving
  • Hyper-V required 9 hosts, versus 6 on VMware, therefore Microsoft required 3 hosts worth of infrastructure costs, and software costs on top.
  • The whole argument relies on Memory Oversubscription, which can be countered by adding more RAM to the physical servers.
  • On actual hardware, from Dell’s website, the difference in cost was actually less than 1%.
  • However, when you doubled the RAM in the Hyper-V hosts, to run more VMs, for just $900 per host, we actually dropped to 5 hosts, thus bringing a saving of 31% in a cost-per-application model, in Microsoft’s favour.

So, to today.  I read this: http://blogs.vmware.com/virtualreality/2009/09/did-microsoft-just-agree-with-us-that-hyper-v-is-not-16th-the-cost-of-vsphere.html

The answer, plain and simple is, no, Microsoft, nor I, did not just agree with you that Hyper-V is not 1/6th of the cost of vSphere.  What I proved in this post, is, when comparing a Microsoft and System Center solution, with Windows licenses, with a vSphere Enterprise Plus with Windows Licenses solution, providing you provide more RAM to compensate for the use of memory oversubscription (which not everyone, believe it or not, uses), Microsoft’s Cost-per-App is 31% cheaper than on vSphere.

Where Microsoft quote 1/3rd of the cost, 1/5th of the cost, or even 1/6th of the cost, it isn’t about Cost-per-Application.  Cost-per-Application is a new method, conceived by VMware, to try to get away from the fact that the upfront licensing costs, of which the 1/3rd, 1/5th, or 1/6th refer to, is in fact, on a number of occasions, true.

Let’s have a look shall we, forgetting about the cost-per-application side of things, which I've shown is 31% cheaper on the Microsoft side, when, assuming common sense, you’d put more RAM instead of buying more hosts, and instead focus on the upfront software costs of a solution.

I’ll base this on an example I received through on email a while back, which was a quote for 15 Servers worth of Virtualisation and Management.  Each of these servers had 4 Quad Cores.  So, off I went to VMware’s website, added it to my basket – 60 CPU’s worth of vSphere Enterprise  (not Plus) and a vCenter Server, both with 2 year Platinum S&S.  What was the total software costs, regardless of infrastructure, hardware, power, cooling etc?  $260,058.54.

Now let’s look at the Microsoft side – well, 60 CPUs of Hyper-V Server 2008 R2, is $0.  Good start.  60 CPU’s worth of Server Management Suite Datacenter (unlimited agents for SCOM, SCCM, SCDPM, SCVMM, and the SCVMM Server bits too) come in at $744 per CPU, and include 2 years SA.  Add on to that, a Server license for SCCM SVR, SCOM SVR and SCDPM SVR, and you’re looking at about $2605 total including 2 years SA.  Grand total?  $47,425.

Both of these calculations exclude SQL, and Windows Licenses.

Now, let’s focus on the 1/3rd, 1/5th and the 1/6th cost differences that the Virtual reality post so kindly points out.

$260,058.54 / $47,425 = 5.483574907749077, which we’ll call 5.48 for simplicity.

So, to summarise with this simple example, it’s clear to see that in fact, a Hyper-V and System Center solution is between 1/5th and 1/6th of the VMware costs, and that was versus Enterprise.  If you use Enterprise Plus, the total for the VMware software is $314,556.54 with 2 year Platinum S&S, which means that the the cost of Hyper-V and System Center is actually between 1/6th and 1/7th (6.63 times) of vSphere.

If I halve the number of CPUs, down to 30, we’re now at $160,937.34 for vSphere Enterprise Plus with vCenter and 2 years Platinum S&S, versus $24,925 on the Microsoft side, which, again, means that a Microsoft solution comes in at between 1/6th and 1/7th of the cost of the vSphere solution.

So, to wrap up – hopefully readers of this blog will share my frustration with the Virtual Reality blog post, and how they have taken a post that had a clear objective of looking at the cost-per-application calculator, and instead, turned it round to focus on something it clearly wasn’t aiming to address.

The final part of the Virtual Reality post reads as follows:

“The bottom line is that Microsoft’s blog doesn’t uncover anything new about the VMware Cost Per Application Calculator. Quite the opposite, it confirms it. Try our calculator for yourself and create a customized report. You will find that it includes a sensitivity analysis showing vSphere’s cost per application at different consolidation ratios. The analysis clearly demonstrates that even at equal consolidation ratios (worst case scenario for vSphere), Hyper-V’s total acquisition cost is, at best, only marginally lower. Once you factor in vSphere’s tremendous consolidation ratio advantage over Hyper-V and vSphere’s ability to scale up to 2X more VMs than Hyper-V (check-out the “Evaluating the ESX 4 Hypervisor and VM Density Advantage” report), vSphere delivers the lowest cost per application by up to 20-30%. In fact, often vSphere becomes a less expensive solution than Hyper-V with just 1-2 more VM’s per ESX host – in addition to being a much more functional, more scalable, more proven product.

So you can either believe us when we say that Microsoft Hyper-V is actually about the same cost as VMware products or you can believe Microsoft when they say that VMware solutions cost about as much as Hyper-V – take your pick!”

My blog post does not actually confirm the cost-per-application calculator – did you stop reading?  It confirms that, with an ability to spec hardware effectively, you can save 31% on a cost-per-application calculation, using Hyper-V and System Center.  This is very different from the 20-30% cheaper in a cost-per-app calculation that VMware claims they have.

Sensitivity Analysis for different consolidation ratios?  The analysis clearly demonstrates that even at equal consolidation ratios (worst case scenario for vSphere), Hyper-V’s total acquisition cost is, at best, only marginally lower?  Let’s have a look at this table shall we?

At equal consolidation ratios, we’re only marginally lower?  Come again?  $2366 or $3257? That says to me that a Microsoft solution is 27% cheaper, cost-per-application than vSphere – don’t tell me you were actually comparing Hyper-V and System Center to vSphere Standard Edition…?

“Tremendous consolidation ratio advantage over Hyper-V and vSphere’s ability to scale up to 2X more VMs than Hyper-V” – or, you could buy more RAM?  Yes, that’s a simplistic way of looking it it, but you’ve wound me up on this, so I tend to make things clear then!

“vSphere delivers the lowest cost per application by up to 20-30%” – Right, OK.  Assuming you don’t upgrade the RAM, as detailed in the previous post.

“Believe Microsoft when they say that VMware solutions cost about as much as Hyper-V” – I’m not going to rise to this one, if you’ve read this far, and if you’ve read the previous post, if you think that it what I was trying to say, I’d suggest you read them again.  Maybe I should just turn it round and say that VMware vSphere Cost-Per-Application Calculator Sensitivity Analysis proves Microsoft solution is 27% cheaper than a vSphere Enterprise Plus solution!  How about that one?

Then we get on to the comments section of the Virtual Reality post, which starts off promisingly, discussing the deep management offering that the full System Center Suite can provide, to which the response discusses an add-on technology for vSphere, known as AppSpeed.  On the surface, you could compare AppSpeed with SCOM, but then, we’d be in the reverse situation that we are in when we talk about Hypervisors, in the sense that you’re comparing AppSpeed, with a technology that Microsoft acquired in 2000, and has developed ever since.  This is a well adopted, mature monitoring technology, and contrary to the comment in the post, now, in R2, comprehensively monitor heterogeneous environments, including hardware, storage, network I/O and more, across servers, and desktops, and in terms of SCOM only being useful in pure-Microsoft environments, again, check out the cross-platform monitoring, the extensive Management Pack catalog to monitor Microsoft, and non-Microsoft platforms (heard or Veeam, or Bridgeways, for VMware monitoring?) or what about the new announcements from HP, around integration with Insight Control, or IBM’s Integrated PRO Management Pack?

Final thing to add about AppSpeed – it’s on at $1832.18 per CPU with 2 Year Platinum S&S.  The reason that I chose 2 year S&S, is to add-on to our example before:

“(If you use Enterprise Plus, the total for the VMware software is $314,556.54 with 2 year Platinum S&S, which means that the the cost of Hyper-V and System Center is actually between 1/6th and 1/7th (6.63 times) of vSphere.)”

So now we’ll add on 60 x $1832.18 = $109930.80, so add to that, our previous Enterprise Plus total of $314,556.54, and we’re at a total of $424487.34

So, $424,487.34 versus $47,425, which means we’re looking at 1/9th of the cost of vSphere and AppSpeed versus a Microsoft solution.

I’ll leave you with that.

That’s an acronym-filled title!

Just a quick one – If you’re currently planning, or are underway with a deployment of Data Protection Manager 2010 (RC), and you plan to protect Hyper-V R2 VMs, on Cluster Shared Volumes, DPM will tell you to install a couple of patches on the Hyper-V R2 hosts in the cluster.

The first one, is KB975921, and is specifically aimed at solving the following: “You may be unable to perform certain disk-related operations after an exception when a hardware provider tries to create a snapshot in Windows Server 2008 R2 or in Windows 7”

The second (set) is KB975354, and has the more general title of “A Hyper-V update rollup package is available for a computer that is running Windows Server 2008 R2”, but when you drill into the details, you can see that many of the fixes are aimed at VSS, backup and the like.  Now, when you request, download, and extract KB975354, you’ll notice there are actually 2 patches to install.  One is Windows6.1-KB975354-x64, and the other is Windows6.1-KB975354-v2-x64.  It’s important that you install Windows6.1-KB975354-x64 first, and Windows6.1-KB975354-v2-x64 second.  If you don’t, you’ll find that when you come to install Windows6.1-KB975354-x64 (assuming you’ve already installed the v2 patch), you’ll get a pop up message stating that ‘the update is not applicable to your system’.  If you’ve got that already, uninstall the v2 patch, and install the first one, first.  All being well, you should have no problems from this point forward.

One key point to note though, After you install this hotfix on the Hyper-V server, you must update the Integration Components in the virtual machines. To do this, open the Virtual Machine Connection for the virtual machine in Hyper-V Manager, and then select the Insert Integration Services Setup Disk option on the Action menu.

Hope it doesn’t catch you out!

Verdict: Tricky.

I’ve just got back from sitting the 70-659 TS exam, on WS 2008 R2, Server Virtualization, and thankfully, I passed!  To anyone thinking of sitting the exam, I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s really difficult, but it’s the little aspects of the technology, like the features and functionality you don’t necessarily use very often, that may catch you out.

If we take a look at the skills being measured, from here: http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/exam.aspx?ID=70-659#tab2

Skills Being Measured

Installing and Configuring Host and Parent Settings

• Add the Hyper-V role on Windows Server 2008 R2.
  • This objective may include but is not limited to: installing and configuring Hyper-V on Server Core, verifying BIOS settings (i.e. DEP), adding the Hyper-V role using Virtual Machine Manager, configuring Hyper-V Server R2, identifying hardware requirements
• Enable remote management.
  • This objective may include but is not limited to: deploying Virtual Machine Manager Agent, configuring firewall rules, configuring Virtual Network Manager settings
• Configure virtual networks and VLAN security.
  • This objective may include but is not limited to: configuring Media Access Control (MAC) address pools, configuring network locations, configuring VLAN tags, configuring VLAN security, configuring virtual networks
• Configure storage.
  • This objective may include but is not limited to: configuring Multi Path Input Output (MPIO), executing the mpiocpl.exe command, dynamic I/O redirection, iSCSI initiator, executing the iscsicli.exe command

Configuring Child Settings

• Configure child resources.
  • This objective may include but is not limited to: configuring disks, networks, CPU, and memory
• Configure child storage.
  • This objective may include but is not limited to: configuring Dynamic VM storage, creating differencing disks, configuring pass-through disks, taking snapshots, managing GUIDs, managing logical unit numbers (LUNs), editing VHDs, copying physical disks to VHDs
• Configure child network adapters.
  • This objective may include but is not limited to: creating synthetic and emulated network adapters, configuring MAC spoofing, configuring VLAN ID, configuring Jumbo frame, configuring TCP Offloading Engine (TOE)
• Create and deploy virtual machines.
  • This objective may include but is not limited to: creating, cloning, deploying, and saving virtual machines using Virtual Machine Manager; creating virtual machines using Hyper-V Manager, configuring Self-Service Portal, scripting and deploying virtual machines using Windows PowerShell

Managing and Monitoring Virtual Environments

• Solve performance and resource issues.
  • This objective may include but is not limited to: configuring Performance and Resource Optimization (PRO), monitoring the environment by using System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2, configuring event triggers, allocating resources by using Virtual Machine Manager, monitoring performance and diagnosing issues by using Performance Monitor or Resource Monitor
• Configure delegation of rights.
  • This objective may include but is not limited to: creating user policies for Self Service Portal, creating and managing templates, managing and replicating libraries in Virtual Machine Manager
• Create roles and configure authorization rights.
  • This objective may include but is not limited to: creating roles and delegating rights using Authorization Manager (AzMan), delegating rights manually
• Manage non-Hyper-V-aware virtualization hosts.
  • This objective may include but is not limited to: managing ESX/VI3 VMware hosts by using Virtual Machine Manager, managing Virtual Server 2005 R2 hosts using Virtual Machine Manager

Ensuring High Availability and Recoverability

• Manage snapshots.
  • This objective may include but is not limited to: taking, reverting, merging, deleting, and applying snapshots; configuring storage locations
• Manage backups.
  • This objective may include but is not limited to: managing online and offline backups by using DPM, Windows Server Backup, or Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS)
• Perform non-clustered migrations.
  • This objective may include but is not limited to: performing a SAN migration of child partitions, performing a network migration of child partitions
• Configure quick and live migrations.
  • This objective may include but is not limited to: configuring network and storage for clustered Hyper-V setup, enabling Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV), configuring dynamic I/0 redirection

Performing Migration

• Perform physical-to-virtual (P2V) migration.
  • This objective may include but is not limited to: configuring Virtual Machine Manager Intelligent Placement, performing online and offline migrations
• Perform virtual-to-virtual (V2V) migration.
  • This objective may include but is not limited to: configuring Virtual Machine Manager Intelligent Placement, performing online and offline migrations
• Perform import/export migration.
  • This objective may include but is not limited to: migrating virtual machines between Hyper-V hosts using the Export/Import feature in Hyper-V

Configuring Remote Desktop (RD) Role Services Infrastructure

• Configure RD session host.
  • This objective may include but is not limited to: configuring session host settings, network-level authentication settings, license settings; restricting users to single remote session; allowing time zone redirection; configuring resource redirection, configuring encryption, configuring multi-monitor support
• Configure RD licensing.
  • This objective may include but is not limited to: activating and deactivating Remote Desktop License Service, installing and revoking client access licenses (CALs), reporting on CAL usage
• Configure RD Connection Broker.
  • This objective may include but is not limited to: installing the RD Connection Broker, configuring DNS for Connection Broker, configuring Connection Broker farms, integrating with RD Virtualization Host role service
• Configure RD Gateway.
  • This objective may include but is not limited to: configuring RD Gateway, integrating RD Gateway with network access protection (NAP), configuring authentication authorization
• Configure RD Web Access.
  • This objective may include but is not limited to: configuring RD Web Access, configuring authentication options (forms, single sign-on), configuring per-user RemoteApp program filtering, configuring public and private computer options

My Advice

The majority of the pieces of information above, are focused on the core features and functionality around the products, Hyper-V, SCVMM and RDS, however, in my particular exam, there were a number of questions around lesser features, which may, if you’re like me, be less frequently used, and these are the ones that will catch you out if you’re not au fait with them.  If there’s any on the list above that you think “hmm, I don’t know that 100%!”, I would advise you to read up on it, or it will catch you out!

So, specifically for me, I wouldn’t say I'm a frequent user of CMD tools, like scconfig, icsicli etc, but I would recommend you brushing up on the relevant information around these commands, and having a good old play with a test box if you can get your hands on one.  You could do this virtually between 2 VMs if need be.

It’s important to understand the subtleties between the different types of networks that Hyper-V provides, and how these can be configured around isolation.  Understanding the 2 different types of VM NIC, along with IDE/SCSI controllers inside VMs is also important.  You also need to know your storage, and by that, I don’t just mean iSCSI/Fiber, but more specifically around VHDs, Pass Through Disks and so on.

A relatively high proportion of my exam was focused on VMM, which included looking at delegated administration, through to the usage and configuration of the self-service portal, again, features that I personally don’t use all the time, hence you become rusty around those areas over time, so sharpen up!  Also, I don’t tend to use VMM to manage VMware infrastructures, yet, as it lists above, it’s a core piece of SCVMM, so even if you can’t try it out, I would definitely recommend brushing up your reading around that!

Sticking with the management theme, because I use SCVMM the majority of the time, and that provides me with pretty much all I need from a control and administration perspective, I’ve never actually used Authorization Manager, or AzMan, which is more specific to Hyper-V.  If you’re in the same boat, I’d strongly consider reading up on it.  Again, I’ll reiterate what I said earlier – it’s the little things that will catch you out!

Obviously snapshots are an important consideration in a Hyper-V environment (and one that can sometimes bite you in the backside if you’re not careful!), so I would say ensure you understand the subtleties around snapshots, and also backup.  You may never use things like SAN Migration, but again, it’s important to know the details around it.

In my role, it’s rare that I need to perform any kind of P2V, and in fact, I’m yet to perform one with SCVMM 2008 R2, but I wish I had before I sat the exam!  Again, it’s the little details, like Service Pack levels, FAT disks, Minimum RAM etc that can catch you out, but also, and more specifically for Offline P2V, troubleshooting drivers etc, which I would recommend brushing up on.  If you’ve never done a P2V, you don’t technically need a Physical machine to test it on – you can use a current VM, and do it from that if you like.  P2V aside, it’s also important to have a play with the Export/Import side of things.

Final part, and something that came as a bit of a surprise to me, was the RDS bits.  If you’ve watched any of my RDS videos, you’ll have a good idea about what the different components with RDS look like, and have a reasonable idea of how they work together, and are installed/configured, but I’d recommend having a deeper look at the bits above, especially things like the RD Gateway, with it’s RAP/CAP options  There’s some good information on TechNet about the RDS side of things.

If you’re thinking about sitting the exam, best of luck!

If I said there was a tool that could accelerate fixed-sized VHD copies by 10 times, would you be interested?  If I said you could instantly provision and boot a new VM from a currently copying VHD file, would you be interested?  Well, if the answer is yes, to either of those questions, then I have a couple of tools that you may find useful.

Hat-tip to Dilip, one of our MVPs for File Systems/Storage and author of ‘Inside Windows Storage, for providing the link to VMUtil.

VHDCopy

When you think about it, a fixed-sized VHD, typically, contains a lot of nothing.  What I mean by that is, think about it, if you have a 100GB fixed-size VHD, and inside that VHD, you’re only using say, 30GB, why should you have to transfer (for whatever reason) the full 100GB, when only 30GB is actually useful stuff?  You could apply the same example to a backup drive – if I had a new backup drive of 1TB, and I’d only backed up 50GB so far, and I needed to move the files somewhere else, what would be quicker to transfer, 50GB or 1TB?

This is just one of many inefficiencies that exist within a file copy of a VM, that VHDCopy solves, by refraining from copying the meaningless portions that exist within a VHD.

Advantages include:

• Significant reduction in disk I/O - typical savings may range from 20% to 90% reduction in disk I/O - your mileage will vary
• Significant reduction in file copy time - typically order of 2X to 10X faster - your mileage will vary
• Scriptable command line tool that requires no installation
• Use VHDCopy to migrate from Windows Server 2008 based Hyper-V to Windows Server 2008 R2 based Hyper-V and its Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV)

There’s a datasheet here for more information, and you can always head over to the VHDCopy page for more stuff, including download links.

VHDCopEE

Building on VHDCopy, but providing more functionality, particularly around network transfers, as you can see from the table below:

Although it’s not quite clear from the website, depending on the page you’re looking at, both VHDCopy and VHDCopEE do run on the latest Windows OS’s, both Server and Desktop, yet VHDCopy will only accelerate local transfers, rather than network transfers, for which you’ll need VHDCopEE.

Advantages include:

• Significant reduction in disk I/O of up to 90% depending upon VHD contents
• Significant reduction in file copy time - up to 10 X faster based on VHD file contents
• Scriptable command line tool that requires no installation
• Use VHDCopy to migrate from Windows Server 2008 based Hyper-V to Windows Server 2008 R2 based Hyper-V and its Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV)
• Use VHDCopEE with Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 and its Rapid Provisioning feature
• Get SAN storage features such as Instant Clones and Instant Provisioning while using low cost non SAN storage

More on the ‘bolded’ ones later…

Again, there’s a datasheet here, and you can head over to the VHDCopEE page for more info.  You can grab the download here.

VMProv

This one’s pretty darn clever too.  Think about it, you want to create a VM from say, a VHD that already exists.  So, you copy, and past the VHD, and it takes x-minutes to copy.  Using the above technologies, it’ll be quicker, but we’re still going to have to wait until the copy has finished to start the VM, right?  Wrong.

VMProv allows a VM to be provisioned and available for use within seconds, well before the accelerated file copy has finished. Once the file copy finishes, the provisioned VM is no different than if it had been utilized after the file copy operation had finished. While the file copy is happening, the VM is fully available, and you may install any updates or new software. All changes made to the VM while the file copy is happening are preserved.

Cool hey?

On top of that, and going back to the bolded points under VHDCopEE, VMprov is designed to be used with Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager R2 and its Rapid Provisioning feature.

Think about using SCVMM – whenever you’re sending out a VHD from the library, it’s typically going to be a file copy process, and the bigger the file, the longer it will take.  Using VHDCopEE will speed up the transfer, and combining that with VMProv will mean you can start the VM up without waiting for the VHD to finish copying.  Combine that with a Rapid Provisioning PowerShell script, found here, and you’re going to accelerate stuff considerably.

You can read the VMProv datasheet here, and check out the VMProv page for further info.  If you want to download it, you can, here.

That’s all from me – make sure you check out the tools if you get chance!