Here are some guidelines for optimizing the performance of your virtual machines from Jeff Woolsey, Lead Program Manager for virtual machine technologies here at Microsoft. Thanks Jeff!

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Hardware virtualization is an extremely powerful tool. When wielded properly, virtualization can result in benefits such as:

• Higher Server Utilization: Fewer physical servers needed and running with greater efficiency.
• Reduced physical footprint and power consumption: Fewer physical servers requires a smaller footprint and greatly reduced power consumption. 

However, virtualization is not a panacea. Before discussing specific techniques to maximize Virtual Server performance, let’s clarify some misconceptions about virtualization and performance. Virtualization is a technology that runs contrary to performance. Virtualization does not make things run faster. Say it with me.
 
Virtualization is at odds with performance.

Virtualization is the process of dividing a physical server to run more workloads and increase efficiency of the physical hardware. If you decide to consolidate the workloads of 20 physical servers onto a single physical server running virtualization, what are the affects of that process? The result of this consolidation is that 20 physical servers, which used to have their own dedicated I/O for CPU, memory, disk and network, are now running on a single server where these 20 workloads are now sharing I/O for CPU, memory, disk and network. Numerous potential bottlenecks have just been created. The good news is that modern server hardware is very fast and there are many techniques to help mitigate these bottlenecks. But, the key to a successful virtualization experience is to understand and alleviate these bottlenecks.
 
With this in mind, this discussion will discuss techniques to improve performance and mitigate these bottlenecks.

1. Install Virtual Machine Additions.
2. Install as much memory as you can on your physical server.
3. More host processors = more virtual machines.
4. Use a fast disk subsystem.
5. Put virtual hard disks on a different physical disk than the host operating system.
6. Use virtual SCSI disks instead of virtual IDE hard disks.
7. Use fixed-size virtual hard disks instead of dynamically expanding virtual hard disks.
8. Install multiple host NICs.
9. Avoid running other peer apps/services on a Virtual Server.
10. Virtual Server SP1 Beta + Windows x64 Editions + x64 servers = Joy. 

Install Virtual Machine Additions. By far, one of the most overlooked steps in creating virtual machines is installing Virtual Machine Additions after the guest operating system has been installed. Virtual Machine Additions, included with Virtual Server, is a set of features that improve the integration of the host and guest operating systems. It also improves the performance and manageability of the guest operating system. For more information about Virtual Machine Additions, see Installing Virtual Machine Additions in the Virtual Server Administrator’s Guide.

Install as much memory as you can on your physical server. The most limiting factor to how many virtual machines can be run on a Virtual Server is the amount of physical memory in the hardware. The host operating system and each running virtual machine all require adequate memory. To calculate the total memory needed, you must allocate enough memory to each virtual machine to run its operating system (and its applications) in addition to the memory required by the host operating system. Additionally, Virtual Server can require up to an additional 32 MB of RAM per virtual machine. Here’s an example of how to calculate memory needs:

Host Operating System: Window Server 2003, Standard Edition: 512 MB

Virtual Machine 1: Guest OS Win NT 4.0 SP6 Server #1 128 MB + 32 MB

Virtual Machine 2: Guest OS Win NT 4.0 SP6 Server #2 128 MB + 32 MB

Virtual Machine 3: Guest OS Win 2000 SP4 Server #1 256 MB + 32 MB

Virtual Machine 4: Guest OS Win 2000 SP4 Server #2 256 MB + 32 MB

Virtual Machine 5: Guest OS Win 2003 Server #1 512 MB + 32 MB

Virtual Machine 6: Guest OS Win 2003 Server #2 512 MB + 32 MB

Virtual Machine 7: Guest OS Win 2003 Server #3 512 MB + 32 MB

Virtual Machine 8: Guest OS Win 2003 Server #4 512 MB + 32 MB

Total Memory Required: 3584 MB of RAM
 
As on physical hardware, allocating additional memory to a guest operating system results in improved performance.

More host processors = more virtual machines. Virtual Server is heavily threaded to allow it to scale on larger server hardware. At present, each virtual machine operates as a uni-processor; one host thread is created to act as the virtual processor. Multiple virtual machines will create multiple virtual processor threads, and those will be scheduled across the host processors.

Use a fast disk subsystem on the physical server. Like any application that is disk intensive, Virtual Server will take advantage of a fast disk subsystem on a physical server. Serial ATA (SATA) disks are faster than traditional IDE (Parallel ATA) and SCSI is typically faster than both of these. Of course, using a striped RAID configuration (more spindles = better performance) will result in even better performance as well as provide redundancy. If you’re in a SAN environment and are going to place virtual machines on a SAN, consider investing in multiple fibre channel host bus adapters. With enough virtual machines and disk activity, it is possible to saturate fibre channel. The way to determine if the fibre channel is saturated is to monitor the performance of the fibre channel card on the host Virtual Server and see if its performance is maxed.

Put virtual hard disks on a different physical disk than the host operating system.

In particular, you want to put virtual hard disks on a different physical disk than the host page file.

Use virtual SCSI disks instead of virtual IDE hard disks. Using virtual SCSI disks can provide up to ~20% performance improvement on disk activity. Remember, IDE (specifically, parallel ATA) is limited to one transaction on the bus, whereas, SCSI can handle multiple concurrent transactions. This is true on hardware as well. Use SCSI virtual hard disks when you can.

Use fixed-size virtual hard disks instead of dynamically expanding virtual hard disks. The two most common virtual hard disks are the fixed-size virtual hard disk and the dynamically expanding virtual hard disk.

When a fixed-size virtual hard disk is created, the entire space required by the virtual hard disk is reserved. So, if you create a 100 GB virtual hard disk, it will take up 100 GB of space on the physical disk. The space on a fixed-size disk is more likely to be contiguous than on a dynamically expanding disk, so fixed-size disks generally provide better performance. Also, the file size of a fixed-size virtual hard disk does not need to be expanded before data is written to the file, which also helps provide better performance.
A dynamically expanding virtual hard disk is one in which the size of the .vhd file grows as data is written to the virtual hard disk. This is the default type of virtual hard disk created by Virtual Server. When you create a dynamically expanding virtual hard disk, you specify a maximum file size. This size restricts how large the disk can become. For example, if you create a 100 GB, dynamically expanding virtual hard disk, the initial size of the .vhd file will be about 3 MB. As a virtual machine uses the virtual hard disk, the size of the .vhd file grows to accommodate the new data. Because dynamically expanding virtual hard disks grow as needed, it is less likely to be contiguous on the physical disk resulting in possibly reduced performance depending on the amount of fragmentation.
 
Install multiple host NICS. This is probably one of the easiest and most inexpensive techniques you can use to improve performance. Instead of having all of your virtual machines using a single NIC in a physical server, install multiple host NICs and assign groups of virtual machines to virtual networks with their own NICs. Now, instead of twenty virtual machines sharing a single NIC, you can have two groups of ten, or four groups of five…

Avoid running other peer applications on a Virtual Server. As a best practice and to insure best possible performance, don’t run other applications as peers to Virtual Server. If a peer application/service is running and competing with Virtual Server for resources, it’s possible that Virtual Server could be starved for resources affecting all running virtual machines. This is definitely not a good situation. While it’s understandable that there may be circumstances where it’s necessary to run peer host applications (e.g. an application that has specific hardware needs that can’t be met by running in a virtual machine), it’s best to avoid this scenario.

Virtual Server x64 SP1 Beta + Windows x64 Editions + x64 servers = Joy. If you’re purchasing a server today for Virtual Server, purchase an x64 server and run Windows Server 2003 x64 Edition. With the availability of hardware from vendors such as Intel, AMD and with the debut of Windows Server 2003 x64 Editions and Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, customers are able to reap the benefits of 64-bit computing, such as greater performance and scalability, without having to pay a premium for it. Virtual Server SP1 Beta provides native x64 host support allowing Virtual Server to run on Windows x64 Editions. Running VS SP1 Beta on Window x64 Editions allow it to be executed in 64-bit mode, which processes more data per clock cycle and allows greater access to memory.

As mentioned previously, the most limiting factor to running virtual machines is often the amount of memory present in the physical server. One of the key benefits to Windows x64 Editions lies in the 64-bit version’s ability to use much more system memory. On 32-bit Windows the limitations of 2 GB of User Mode Address Space and 2 GB of Kernel Mode Address Space With 64-bit Windows those limitations are removed allowing Virtual Server to take full advantage of large amounts of physical memory.
 
Virtual Server SP1 includes significant performance improvements. While developing Virtual Server 2005, the VM team profiled server applications and their performance characteristics. One common theme observed was how server applications tend to be modular and rely on inter-process communication. By optimizing Virtual Server for this type of workload, we have measured substantial performance improvements. In fact, some of our early adopters have reported as much as a 50% decrease in host CPU usage running the same number of virtual machines and workloads with Virtual Server SP1. Virtual Server SP1 will RTM in Q4/CY’05.

You might want to create a “base” virtual machine with an operating system and applications, and then copy its .vhd file to use for other virtual machines. Before you make copies of the .vhd, however, it’s important to run Sysprep in the guest operating system. This way, the first time you start a virtual machine that uses a copy of the base virtual machine’s .vhd file, the guest operating system will be assigned a new SID and other identifiers, so you won’t end up with network conflicts between different virtual machines that use the same copied .vhd file.

Read all about it in the article I just posted in the "Deployment" category at http://blogs.technet.com/megand/articles/357570.aspx.

Please note that Microsoft does not support using a tool other than Sysprep for cloning virtual machines. For more information, see this Knowledge Base article: http://support.microsoft.com/Default.aspx?id=162001.

Eric sent me this question: "Do you know if it's possible to migrate a virtual machine to a physical one using ADS or any other tool?"

Unfortunately, I don't know of an easy way to migrate a virtual machine to a physical one, Eric, nor do I know of any tools. The issue is fixing the hardware-dependent system files. Because the hardware of a physical computer may be (or probably is) different than the hardware emulated by the virtual machine, you may need to swap system files that depend on the emulated hardware of the virtual machine for other files that will allow the operating system to run on the hardware of the physical computer. The system files include certain HAL and kernel files. You also may need to swap storage drivers needed for the operating system to boot correctly on the physical hardware. For more information about the hardware emulated by virtual machines, see "Emulated hardware" in the Virtual Server 2005 Administrator's Guide. If you want some background information on the issues, read the documentation I wrote for Virtual Server 2005 Migration Toolkit (VSMT). It's installed when you install VSMT (go to http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/virtualserver/evaluation/vsmt.mspx).

The "gotcha" about swapping system files is that Microsoft won't support the OS if you've changed its HAL file. If you use VSMT, the migration is supported, but not if you do it manually.

-Megan

Compacting your dynamically expanding virtual hard disks (VHDs) reduces the amount of disk space they use. Preparing a disk and compacting it is covered in the Virtual Server 2005 Administrator’s Guide, so I won’t go into it here. What’s new is this: you used to have to use a third-party tool to zero out available blank space on the VHD before compacting it. Now you can use a tool that's included with Virtual PC 2004 SP1 -- the Virtual Disk Precompactor.

If you have Virtual PC 2004, you can simply install SP1 to get this utility.* Otherwise, you’ll need to download the trial version of Virtual PC 2004, and then install SP1. (If you try to install it on your Windows Server 2003 machine, you'll get a warning that it isn't a supported OS. You can ignore the warning.)

To use Virtual Disk Precompactor, you must first capture Virtual Disk Precompactor.iso, which is installed with Virtual PC 2004 SP1. For instructions on capturing media, see "Add or remove a CD or DVD drive" in the Virtual Server 2005 Administrator's Guide. Virtual Disk Precompactor.iso is located in %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Virtual PC\Virtual Machine Additions\.

After you capture Virtual Disk Precompactor.iso, you can run Virtual Disk Precompactor from the command line by navigating to the CD drive of the virtual machine and typing Precompact. The available parameters are:

  -Help - Displays help for the precompactor.

  -Silent - Runs the precompactor in unattended mode.

  -SetDisks - Specifies the disks to be precompacted. If this parameter isn't specified, then all virtual hard disks for this virtual machine are compacted.

Example: Precompact -Silent -SetDisks:CDE

Note that you can only compact dynamically expanding virtual hard disks. To compact fixed-size VHDs, you can convert them to dynamically expanding VHDs, compact them, and then convert them back to fixed size.

* As announced in my posting of January 12, 2005 (http://blogs.msdn.com/megand/archive/2005/01/12/351756.aspx), this tool also will be available in Virtual Server 2005 Service Pack 1.

Although there are high-level instructions on performing a migration in the VSMT whitepaper (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/virtualserver/overview/vsmtwhitepaper.mspx), if you're going to do a serious migration, you need to follow the detailed documentation in the "Virtual Server 2005 Migration Toolkit User's Guide." You'll find it at %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft VSMT\Help\VSMT.chm. This documentation will get you reliably from here to there, and if you have problems, the issue is very likely covered in the Troubleshooting topic. If it isn't, please let me know. 

Also, for some guidance with planning a migration and capacity planning, be sure to read the "Solution Accelerator for Consolidating and Migrating LOB Applications," available at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/itsolutions/ucs/lob/lobsa/default.mspx.

When you add a network adapter to the host computer (including a Loopback adapter) the new adapter won't appear as an option on the Network Properties page for any virtual network, so you won't be able to connect a virtual network to it. To fix this problem, you need to enable the Virtual Machine Network Services driver on the adapter, as follows:

1. On the host computer, click "Start," click "Control Panel," and then click "Network Connections."
2. Right-click the connection that uses the new network adapter and click "Properties."
3. On the "General" tab, select the "Virtual Machine Network Services" check box, and then click "OK."

The network adapter should now appear in the "Network adapter on physical computer" list on the Network Properties page of any virtual network.

You can follow this procedure any time Virtual Server doesn’t recognize a network adapter. This is a rare occurance, but if there's already a virtual network configured on this network adapter, you'll have to remove from the virtual network any virtual machines that are using it and then re-connect them. Otherwise the virtual machines won’t have network connectivity. You do this as follows:

1. Open the Virtual Server Administration Website.
2. In the left pane under "Virtual Machines," point to "Configure" and click the virtual machine.
3. In the lower part of the page, click "Network adapters."
4. Click "Remove" and then click "OK."
5. In the lower part of the page, click "Network adapters," and click "Add Network Adapter."
6. In the "Connected to" box, select the network adapter to use, and then click "OK."

Michael asked the following question about sandboxing a virtual machine. I thought it might be of general interest, so decided to post the answer, which Ben Armstrong, our resident Virtual PC guru has provided (http://blogs.msdn.com/Virtual_PC_Guy).

Question: I'd like to use a virtual machine as a sandbox which permits the user to do "ugly" things in IE without damaging the host OS. Therefore, it is my interest to block any means of communication between host and guest, including drag and drop, network access, etc.
1. Do you consider Virtual PC appropriate for this?
2. How can I disable drag and drop?
3. How can I disable guest access to the host without limiting Internet access?

Answer (thanks Ben!): Yes – Virtual PC 2004 would be appropriate for this. To disable the integration features under a Windows 2000 or Windows XP virtual machine, you just need to disable the ‘Virtual Machine Additions Services Application’ and ‘Virtual Machine Additions Shared Folder Service’ services in the guest OS. To disable host access – but leave Internet access in place – use Shared Networking.

David B. asks, "I've been looking to see if Virtual Server 2005 and iSCSI will work together - any idea on this?"

Jeff Woolsey responds, "People have reported success using the Microsoft iSCSI client in a guest operating system. This scenario is not yet supported, although it's under investigation."

So David, the product team is doing a lot testing in this area, and assuming it ends up being supported, I'll write about using iSCSI with virtual machines, such as for failover clustering of virtual machines on different hosts. Meanwhile, if you decide to try it out yourself, be aware that you'll be on your own because Microsoft Product Support doesn't yet support this scenario.

Chong Lee and Thomas Mathew -- Technology Specialists here at Microsoft -- are developing a report that you can load into Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 (MOM) to monitor the performance of physical computers that are candidates for virtualization. This report can help you determine which computers are good candidates for virtualization, and of those, which computers you can virtualize on the same hardware. This report will be available for download when it's complete. I'll let you know where you can get it. In the meantime, you can ask your TAM or account rep for a copy.

Click here to see a view of the report: http://megandavis.members.winisp.net/Resources/VS-Candidate-Report.JPG

These two scripts from John Kelbley, written in VBScript, list the virtual machines that are currently registered on a given instance of Virtual Server. Remember that these scripts are provided as-is, with no warranties, and are not supported by Microsoft.

This script shows the virtual machines registered on the current instance of Virtual Server:

Set vpcApp = CreateObject("VirtualServer.Application")

Set vmCollection = vpcApp.VirtualMachines

For each vm in vmCollection
 Wscript.Echo vm.Name

Next

This script shows the virtual machines registered on a remote instance of Virtual Server:

Set vpcApp = CreateObject("VirtualServer.Application“,_ “\\remoteServer”)

Set vmCollection = vpcApp.VirtualMachines

For each vm in vmCollection
 Wscript.Echo vm.Name

Next

This Management Pack is an add-on for Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) 2005. It monitors the health, availability, and performance of Virtual Server. You can download it from the Microsoft Web site at: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=B8BBF08F-134A-46CE-9D63-FB7EF5258059&displaylang=en.
 
Overview of the Virtual Server Management Pack
The Microsof Virtual Server 2005 section of the Virtual Server Management Pack monitors the performance and availability of Virtual Server and virtual machines. By detecting and providing alerts for critical events and performance indicators, this Management Pack helps you correct and prevent possible service outages. As a result, this Management Pack can play an important role in ensuring that Virtual Server and virtual machines are available and working correctly.

By using embedded expertise, this Management Pack provides alerts for performance, health, and availability conditions that indicate problems. In some cases it can even identify issues before they become critical, allowing you to maintain a high level of availability and performance for Virtual Server and your virtual machines. As a result, this Management Pack can reduce the cost of ownership by enabling proactive management and reducing resolution times for identified issues.

TechEd 2005 is coming right up, from June 5 - 10 in Orlando, FL, US. Register before April 15 to save $300.

The following are some breakout sessions and hands-on labs where you can learn more about using Virtual Server and Virtual PC:

1. Consolidating and Migrating LOB Applications Using Microsoft Virtual Server 2005
2. Developing on Virtual Server 2005
3. Branch Office Infrastructure Solution Using Virtual Server 2005
4. Clustering with Virtual Server 2005
5. Advanced Desktop Testing Scenarios with Virtual PC 2004
6. Virtual PC: Getting Started with Dealer and Manufacturer Sites

In addition, technical experts on Virtual Server and Virtual PC will be available in the cabana and community lounges to answer your questions. For more information and to register, go to: http://www.microsoft.com/events/teched2005/default.mspx. See you in Orlando!

Jeff Woolsey has written this article to help you optimize the performance of your virtual machines - http://blogs.technet.com/megand/articles/406145.aspx. Thanks Jeff!

PS: I'm back from my vacation (which was grand!).

In his keynote address this morning at Microsoft Management Summit 2005, Steve Ballmer reaffirmed Microsoft's commitment to the Dynamic Systems Initiative (DSI), of which virtualization is a key component. Ballmer explained that Microsoft is increasing investment in both virtualization and virtualization management technology, describing near-term product improvements and laying out a long-term strategy for both areas. For a summary of Steve's keynote address, go to http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2005/Apr05/04-20VirtualizationInvestmentsPR.asp. For a verbatim transcript of his comments on virtualization, go to http://blogs.technet.com/megand/articles/403997.aspx. To view an on-demand Web cast (including Jeff Woolsey's demonstration of Virtual Server 2005 SP1), go to http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/events/mgmtsummit/keynotes.asp.

In his keynote address this morning at Microsoft Management Summit 2005, Steve Ballmer talked about Microsoft's virtualization strategy. The following is excerpted from the transcript of this address. To read the complete transcript, go to: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/steve/2005/04-20ManagementSummit.asp.

Increased Virtualization Capabilities

Virtualization, I think, is an area of intense interest and activity throughout our industry these days, certainly at Microsoft. All operating systems have essentially been in the business to some degree in some way, shape and form a virtualization for all time. That's how operating systems grew up, Windows grew up virtualizing the screen, the printers, et cetera, so virtualization in a sense is not a new concept.

But this notion of taking virtualization in the PC world, in the PC server world and really taking it to the next level, driving virtualization as a key technology to facilitate better compatibility, lower total cost of ownership and with the appropriate management tools really helping you operate a simple environment, that's an area of intense focus, passion and interest certainly at Microsoft and I think a number of places in our industry these days.

Again in this area if I don't get anything else across, I really want you to understand that this is an area where you should expect to see a large amount of very exciting and interesting innovation that should help you improve quality and cost of operation going forward.

We bought a company called Connectix a little over a year ago. That was part of us beefing up the arsenal of technologies that we had to apply to making virtualization a key part of our quality and cost proposition to you and we're going to show you some of the product shipments and deliverables that are coming out of that acquisition during the course of my talk here today.

I want to start though with a little longer term perspective, the "Longhorn" timeframe, and I'm not saying "Longhorn" but about that timeframe there's a number of things that we're working on that are very important in virtualization. We're going to take the virtualization format, the .vhd format, which we're working today to get standardized across industry participants, we're going to take that format and make it extensible, which we think is very important for all of you and for us in terms of where virtualization technologies can go in the future, open and extensible approach to virtualization we think is very important.

You'll see us introduce hypervisor technologies around Windows. That is important. We have virtualization technologies today but really this notion of a smaller, thinner hypervisor and what that can mean I think is very important. We're building on some of the work that we started on with NGSCB just in the security context and are broadening it out to really a very rich set of hypervisor technologies.

You'll see us support key hardware technologies for virtualizations from Intel and from AMD and in System Center we will bring the capability to help you manage a set of virtual machines to make it easier to run virtual technologies as a way of improving datacenter consolidation, running multiple applications on a set of virtual machines, on a given server, et cetera.

So underlying core infrastructure, operating system infrastructure technology enhancements and management tool enhancements delivered in a very open and extensible way; that's the target for our technology ambition in virtualization in the "Longhorn" timeframe.

Microsoft Virtual Server 2005

Today we have available Microsoft Virtual Server 2005. We'll deliver SP 1 later in the year. It is in beta today. We have a Management Pack available for Virtual Server for MOM today. When we release Virtual Server SP 1 you'll see a number of improvements. We've added support for non-Windows virtual machines being hosted on top of our Virtual Server product, including support for Linux. Remember what I said earlier about interoperability? We're really believing that. We know folks are going to want to run Windows systems and Linux systems and other systems together on top of our Virtual Server and Windows. You'll see support for that later in the year.

We're dramatically improving our performance and you'll see us support 64-bit hosts now that we have 64-bit support in the Windows Operating System. We're licensing our VHD format broadly. You'll see that in the fall, and there's a large amount of support going into all of our Windows Server System products to support the Virtual Server in a very strong way.

Today I would tell you the following: If you are looking for a virtualization environment to improve cost and quality of any person in your environment or any set of people in your environment doing software development for tests, we have absolutely a blow-away product, and I encourage you to take a look at Virtual Server 2005.

Virtualization Today

For people looking to do data center consolidations for production applications, we have a very good product, but we also have a list as long as my arm of requests for enhancement, improvements, additional features, more performance, and we're working, and we're working, and we're working, and we're working and we're working. This really is with the technologies I talked about before, one of the most significant areas of R&D investment for us, because we think that this is a core enabler to help us improve our enterprise management, and to help deliver to you the lowest TCO platform absolutely on the planet.

What I'm going to do now is ask Jeff Woolsey from our Virtual Machine Technology Group to come up on stage. Jeff is going to demonstrate some of the new capabilities in Virtual Server 2005 SP 1. Please welcome Jeff. (Applause.)

JEFF WOOLSEY: Hi, Steve.

STEVE BALLMER: Before you get started, I'll now point out, it's been seven minutes since he kicked off the demo. We'll see how he does.

JEFF WOOLSEY: Excellent.

STEVE BALLMER: Not that I'm going to interrupt you when that thing finishes, but I may have a small celebratory dance.

JEFF WOOLSEY: No problem, we're all looking forward to Bill keeping his job.

STEVE BALLMER: There you go.

JEFF WOOLSEY: As Steve mentioned, we have some major announcements around virtualization and virtualization management, and I want to demonstrate some of those deliverables that you can start using today. As you can see, I'm running the 64-bit version of Virtual Server SP 1 Beta, and I'm running it on Windows Server 2003 Enterprise X64 Edition. With the 64-bit host OS support, and additional performance improvements in Virtual Server SP 1, we have seen significant performance improvement. In fact, some of our early adopters have reported as much as a 50 percent decrease in host CPU usage running the same number of virtual machines and workload. This translates into higher virtual machine density, and lower hardware cost, making Virtual Server an even better platform for server virtualization and consolidation.

Let's bring up the master status and show you all of the virtual machines we're currently running. As you can see, I'm running a variety of operating systems, including Windows 2000 Server SP 4, 2003 SP 1 Enterprise, and as Steve has been mentioning with interoperability and heterogeneity, you may want to avert your eyes, Steve, this is Red Hat's Enterprise Linux Advance Server 3.

STEVE BALLMER: As much as that hurts my eyes, I know that's an important capability for the virtual server technology for our customers.

JEFF WOOLSEY: We recognize the interoperability needs of our customers, and want to ensure that Virtual Server running on Windows Server 2003 is a great solution for that environment.

Next, I would like to switch gears and tell you what we're doing to improve manageability around our Virtual Server. Well, some vendors have created completely separate tools to manage their virtual servers and virtual machines. We've listened to our customers who have told us very loudly and clearly that they expect to be able to manage their virtual machines using the same management tools that they use to manage their physical ones. And that's exactly what we've build.

So, I brought up the MOM 2005 console so I can demonstrate the Virtual Server Management Pack. The Virtual Server Management Pack allows administrators to monitor the health and performance of their virtual server and their associated virtual machines. So, let's take a look at the health status of our virtual server. By clicking on my virtual state view, I can get a list of all the virtual servers on my network. To drill down and see all of the virtual machines associated with this particular hardware server, I click on the virtual machine role and I can see all of the virtual machines that are actually running on this physical box.

But, because we're leveraging the power of MOM, and our Management Pack uses that intelligence very well, I want to show you an even more detailed look at our Virtual Server. I'm going to drill down and get detailed information about the role my virtual server. AS you can see here, all of my virtual machines are displayed in this role view. I can see the instance name, the guest operating system version, I can see the location of all of my virtual hard disks, the amount of memory being used, the amount of disk space being used, even the network the MAC addresses for all of the virtual machines displayed in a single detailed role view within the MOM Management Pack.

And as you've seen earlier, you've seen MOM managing a Sun box, you've seen MOM managing Solaris, now you've seen MOM managing virtual machines and virtual server. And by working with our partners such as Sun and Vintella. Vintella is working on a Management Pack to provide the same types of performance, the same type of management for Linux virtual machines, as well.

STEVE BALLMER: Today we still don't have much information about the Red Hat system, but we will that's part of our absolute plan.

JEFF WOOLSEY: You're right. Absolutely. You see the Linux virtual machine is lacking some of that detail, and we're working with them to improve that level of integration.

The last thing I want to show is actually some new features and functionality that's enabled by the virtual server Management Pack. One of the things that our customers have asked for is the ability to perform tasks on multiple virtual machines simultaneously. And with the virtual server management tasks it's simply not a problem. Select the task you'd like to perform, such as save state virtual machine, walk through the wizard, select all of the virtual machines I'd like to save state and click finish. It's that easy.

Steve, the team is really excited about this opportunity to deliver on this deeper commitment to virtualization, and virtualization management. And I hope you'll find that Virtual Server Service Pack One, and the MOM Management Pack go a long way towards providing improvement in performance, interoperability, and manageability necessary to make Virtual Server running on Windows Server 2003 a great platform for server virtualization and consolidation.
Thanks for this opportunity, Steve.

STEVE BALLMER: Thanks, Jeff. (Applause.)

Hi, I'm Megan Davis, a technical writer at Microsoft. I helped write the documentation for Virtual Server 2005 and wrote all of the documentation for Virtual Server 2005 Migration Toolkit and Virtual Server Management Pack for MOM 2005. I started this blog while working on Virtual Server, and although I recently moved to the BizTalk Server team, still have lots left to say about virtualization, so will keep blogging on it.

On this blog I've provided some links that I hope you'll find helpful. In addition, I monitor the newsgroups for popular topics to write about. If you have requests for particular information or know of other links I could include, I hope you'll send them to me.

Thanks for stopping by. Have a great day!
Megan

PS - By popular demand, here's a photo of the Windows Server Core Content team. I'm in the front wearing sunglasses. From left to right: Trina, Althea (the boss), me, Joe, Cynthia, Jan, Kathy, Michael, and Jill. Patrick is taking the picture.

http://megandavis.members.winisp.net/resources/WindowsServerCoreContentTeam.jpg

Here's a tidbit I learned about from Dave Kowalsky. Thanks Dave!

http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=164300985

Summary:

At its annual conference in SanJose, the PCI Special Interest Group detailed updates and extensions to the PCI Express specification that could drive annual silicon updates through 2007. The SIG outlined six new directions for Express, taking the serial technology into areas such as security and virtualization.

The SIG announced plans to extend the Express spec for virtualized I/O. The extension will allow multiple operating systems to access the same physical I/O resources either simultaneously or in serial fashion. The spec will define supersets for accessing I/O in a single or in a multihost environment.

Software virtualization is seen as a key technique for making best use of the multicore, multithreaded processors beginning to proliferate in the PC market. Advanced Micro Devices and Intel are rolling out separate techniques for virtualizing their multicore processors. With the new spec, the SIG will extend those capabilities to Express-based I/O devices. Designers think virtualization ultimately will be applied to all PC systems — even multitasking home computers. But its first target is server blades that are evolving towards stateless collections of compute boards in a single chassis linked on an Express mezzanine bus. The virtual I/O spec will allow those compute cards to share Express, Ethernet and storage I/O resources in and outside their chassis.

The spec is still in an early stage, with the 19-company working group about to put a requirements document out for review. A completed spec is not expected until late in 2006 or early in 2007. It will also require hardware changes for chip makers who want to support its features.

The Branch Office Infrastructure Solution has been published on TechEd. It uses virtualization technologies and includes tools for automating the creation of virtual machines, among lots of other good stuff. Go take a look! http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=5624f3a5-b379-41c1-80f6-df3228cb2622&displaylang=en 

From the download page: "The Branch Office Infrastructure Solution (BOIS) deliverables provide conceptual information to facilitate the definition and deployment of a streamlined branch office infrastructure solution that provides a comprehensive set of core IT infrastructure services based on the Microsoft® Windows Server™ 2003 operating system. The BOIS deliverables also include prescriptive guidance and best practices for implementing a complete, lab-validated single-server solution for the branch office using automated deployment tools. The automation tools are part of this download and are configurable for individual branch office deployments."

This whitepaper is now available on Microsoft.com at http://download.microsoft.com/download/1/4/d/14d17804-1659-435d-bc11-657a6da308c0/VSvsVPC.doc. Thanks to those of you who gave me comments on the draft.

Abstract: Microsoft® Virtual PC 2004 is a virtual machine solution for desktop operating systems. Microsoft Virtual Server 2005, on the other hand, is a solution for server operating systems. Although Virtual PC and Virtual Server share many features in common, they are designed for different purposes. As a result, some of their features are also quite different. This white paper explains the differences between Virtual PC and Virtual Server and discusses the scenarios in which it is appropriate to use one or the other.

(Updated to correct an error: You want to enable DCOM for Authenticated Users rather than Everyone.)

On Windows XP SP2, you may no longer be able to open the Administration Website, although you could before you installed Windows XP SP2. This is due to tighter security measures in Windows XP SP2. To fix the problem, either uninstall and reinstall Virtual Server, or else do the following:

1. Click "Start," click "Control Panel," and then double-click "Administrative Tools."
2. Double-click "Component Services."
3. Expand "Component Services", 'Computers," "My Computer,' and "DCOM Config."
4. Right-click the first instance of Virtual Server in the list, and then click "Properties."
5. On the "Security" tab, in "Launch Permissions" click "Edit."
6. Select "Authenticated Users" and then, next to "Launch Permission," select "Allow." If "Authenticated Users" doesn't appear in the list, you'll need to add it before you can take this step.

If you've installed (the currently pre-release version of) Windows Server 2003 SP1, the same issue may exist. If you can’t open the Administration Website locally, you can try configuring your LAN settings so that the proxy server is bypassed for the Administration Website URL, as follows.

1. In Internet Explorer, click "Tools" and then "Internet Options."
2. On the "Connections" tab, click "LAN Settings" and then "Advanced."
3. In "Exceptions," type the full URL of the Administration Website, and then click "OK."

You can also try changing the DCOM configuration, as for Windows XP SP2. The UI is slightly different, though:

1. Click "Start," point to "Administrative Tools," and then click "Component Services."
2. Expand "Component Services," "Computers," "My Computer," and "DCOM Config."
3. Right-click "Virtual Server" and then click "Properties."
4. On the "Security" tab, in "Launch and Activation Permissions" click "Edit."
5. Select "Authenticated Users" and then next to "Local Launch," select "Allow." If "Authenticated Users" doesn't appear in the list, you'll need to add it before you can take this step.
6. If you want to also allow remote DCOM, next to "Remote Launch," select "Allow."

This post explains the items in the Toolbox (a set of links to the left of this pane).

Virtual Server 2005 Migration Toolkit (VSMT). This is a set of command-line tools and executables that you can use to help automate the migration of physical servers to virtual machines. VSMT is a free download from Microsoft. The documentation is hard to find (I wrote it, but didn't get to say where it's installed). You can find it in Program Files\Microsoft VSMT. Here's the link to the download page: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/virtualserver/evaluation/vsmt.mspx

Solution Accelerator for Consolidating and Migrating LOB Applications. This document from Microsoft provides detailed guidance for consolidating and migrating Windows NT® 4.0-based applications in heterogeneous or mixed workload environments. I mention it here because it covers using VSMT (above) to help consolidate multiple servers running Windows NT 4.0 onto virtual machines running in Virtual Server. One of my best friends, Linda Wells, helped write this solution accelerator, and I think it’s really great! Here's the link to the download page: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/itsolutions/techguide/msa/solacc/lobsa/default.mspx

Solution Accelerator: Patch Management Using Systems Management Server 2003. This solution accelerator provides sample automation scripts and reporting that will assist you in the four-step patch management process of Assessing, Identifying, Evaluating and Planning, and Deploying software updates with Systems Management Server 2003 (SMS). It's based on Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF) and built on SMS. Sample scripts assess Virtual Server 2005 and Virtual PC 2004 installations. They assess host and guest operating system type, Virtual Server 2005 guest state (saved, stopped, running), Undoable mode (enabled/disabled), and combination reporting, which joins host and guest sessions into a single view that allows you to prepare for end-to-end patching of systems running in virtual machines. Here's a link to the abstract: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/itsolutions/cits/mo/swdist/pmsms/2003/pmsms031.mspx

Running Domain Controllers in Virtual Server 2005. This document is intended for IT administrators, engineers, and architects who are evaluating using Virtual Server to host domain controllers that are running Windows Server 2003 or Windows 2000 Server in virtual machines.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=64DB845D-F7A3-4209-8ED2-E261A117FC6B&displaylang=en

Platespin Power P2V. This is a new product offered by PlateSpin to migrate physical computers to virtual machines (P2V) and virtual machines to virtual machines (V2V). I haven’t tried the product, but the Web site says it has automated functionality that “allows users to "drag-and-drop" servers quickly and easily, without manual labor.” Here's a link to the product page: http://www.platespin.com/Products/PowerP2V_Virtual_Server.aspx

Using Virtual Server 2005 to Create and Configure a Two-Node Cluster. How to build a two-node VM-VM cluster on a single host by our very own clustering guru, Robert Larson. Here’s the link:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/virtualserver/deploy/cvs2005.mspx

There is no Word version available on the web for download yet, but one has been requested. There will also be a link to this article from the main Virtual Server TechNet page and we have requested a link directly from the Virtual Server product page. These links aren’t live as of this writing.

 On December 9, 2004, 12:30 p.m. Pacific Time, Robert Larson will be showing us how to create a two-node cluster of virtual machines running Windows Server 2003—a key feature of Virtual Server 2005. To register, go to: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/virtualserver/techinfo/events/default.mspx.

Some of you may not know that Virtual PC 2004 Service Pack 1 (SP1) is now available. It includes some fixes as well as reliability, performance, and management improvements. It's also essential if you want to run Windows XP with Service Pack 2. To download SP1, go to http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=b07c9ef0-265a-4237-ae3b-25bc8937d40f.