Cheng's Random Thoughts on System Management : Hyper-V

Hyper-V Security Guide – beta now available

Cheng Wei — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 22:15:00 GMT

The Hyper-V Security Guide can help you elevate the security of virtualized Windows Server environments to meet your business-critical needs. This accelerator provides IT professionals like you with recommendations to address your key security concerns around server virtualization. The guide provides authoritative guidance that relates to the following strategies for securing virtualized environments:

· Hardening Hyper-V. The guide provides prescriptive guidance for hardening the Hyper-V server role, including several best practices for installing and configuring Hyper-V with a focus on security. These best practices include measures for reducing the attack surface of Hyper-V as well as recommendations for properly configuring secure virtual networks and storage devices on a Hyper-V host server.

· Delegating Virtual machine management . The ability to safely and securely delegate administrative access to virtual machine resources within an organization is essential. The guide highlights several available methods to administer different aspects of a virtual machine infrastructure and ways to control administrative access to different servers and at different levels.

· Protecting virtual machines. The guide also provides prescriptive guidance for securing virtual machine resources, including best practices and detailed steps for protecting virtual machines by using a combination of file system permissions, encryption, and auditing.

The Beta release is available now for your review through March 4, 2009. After joining the Beta review program [live ID required], bookmark this link to the program site to get the latest information about project details.

Thanks for reading!

Cheng

Running SQL server 2008 on Hyper-V

Cheng Wei — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 20:20:00 GMT

Now the world of IT is turning its focus on consolidating the physical computers into virtual machines. More and more people started to ask questions like, “will my app run the same in those virtual machines?”, “will there be any performance changes for my app running them in VMs versus standalone physical machines?”. Many of those questions are discussed in our Hyper-V TechNet center and various Hyper-V team blogs.

The one in particular I heard the most is the question “if I should run my SQL Server in a VM?” or “will there be performance degradation on my SQL if I run it in a VM?”. And the answer to that question is “it depends on the workload and SLA”, according to Lindsey Allen, Principle Program Manager Lead, in SQL Customers Program team.

If you are one of the folks who are seeking best practices recommendation on running SQL Server 2008 in a Hyper-V environment, here is a perfect white paper for you:

http://sqlcat.com/whitepapers/archive/2008/10/03/running-sql-server-2008-in-a-hyper-v-environment-best-practices-and-performance-recommendations.aspx

Thanks to Lindsey, Mike, Prem and others in the SQL Server Customer Program team, who have worked tirelessly and published this whitepaper just in time with Microsoft global virtualization launch efforts.

Like me, I hope you will find this paper offering great insights into how you should evaluate and assess your applications on SQL and the hardware where SQL Server is running on, and what to expect when you move your SQL server environment onto Hyper-V.

Hope this helps and thanks for reading,

Cheng

Two important updates for SCVMM

Cheng Wei — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 20:52:00 GMT

Working with SCVMM team, Hyper-V team and BITS (Background Intelligent Transfer Service) team have just released two important updates to support SCVMM scenarios. We highly recommend our customers to install these updates to your Hyper-V host environments. In fact, if your Hyper-V hosts do not have these two updates installed, SCVMM server will report your hosts as "Needs Attention" (and the substatus for Virtualization Service Version will show as "Upgrade available").

Here are the brief discriptions (copied from the KB) and links to the updates:

Hyper-V Update:

Install this update to resolve potential issues when you manage Hyper-V with System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM). After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer. This update is provided to you and licensed under the Windows Server 2008 License Terms.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=FD44B4E3-2DCC-4299-B345-BC09A9A37B60&displaylang=en

BITS Update:

Install this update to resolve the scenario where a Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) client cannot handle files that have paths that contain the volume GUID in Windows Server 2008. After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer. This update is provided to you and licensed under the Windows Server 2008 License Terms.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=9EC9DBB9-82AD-4D34-9267-76A0126A8F18&displaylang=en

Thanks for reading and hope this is helpful,

Cheng

Get Virtual Now

Cheng Wei — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 01:10:00 GMT

Yes, today is a big day for Microsoft and a big day for the IT industry. We launched our full virtualization solution stack today at Meydenbauer Convention Center, Bellevue, WA. For the complete PR coverage, please check out this official MS news release.

Now, customers who want a full end-to-end virtualization solution stack can finally get what they really need, from physical to virtual, from datacenter to desktop, from infrastructure to applications.

There are a few things I’d like to highlight:

· FREE hypervisor – Hyper-V Server SKU will be released in 30 days via web.

· SCVMM 2008 to be released in 30 days. Without a question, VMM is a buzz word of the event. The self-paced lab for VMM has attracted tons of folks who want to try out this highly expected upcoming release.

· MSFT Live Migration will be available in Windows Server 2008 R2 release. BobMu demo’ed this feature live on stage today.

· App-V 4.5 was released last week, and will be included as part of the MDOP 2008 R2.

· There are also numerous partner solutions that build on top of or extend MSFT virtualization technologies to provide more values to our customers.

This is an exciting time for our customers and the virtualization industry.

Get Virtual Now! J

Cheng

SCVMM Beta 2008 patch to support Hyper-V RC1 is released

Cheng Wei — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 23:00:00 GMT

If you are running SCVMM 2008 Beta and you are testing Hyper-V, you know that our Beta does not work with Hyper-V RC1 release.

The patch for SCVMM Beta is now availble at Microsoft Connect Site for download. And please make sure to read the instruction for installation before installing. One thing to note is that, once the SCVMM patch is installed, it will no longer work with Hyper-V RC0 release. So, please make sure to upgrade all your Hyper-V hosts to the latest RC1 release.

Hope this will unblock your Hyper-V RC1 + SCVMM 2008 Beta testing.

Thanks for reading,

Cheng

Add host into VMM 2008 Beta

Cheng Wei — Thu, 01 May 2008 02:56:00 GMT

Well, once you finish installing VMM Server and have your admin console setup, the next you want to do is to start managing your hosts. Virtual Server hosts, Hyper-V hosts and VMware ESX hosts.

I talked about managing VMware VCS and how VMM imports the existing ESX hosts managed by the VCS. Next, let me drill into how you can start adding Virtual Server hosts and Hyper-V hosts, as well as some AddHost limitations in this Beta release.

This is what you will see in the Add Host wizard from the admin console for our VMM 2008 beta release:

(Note: This UI will change by our RTM.)

First, here are some requirements for adding hosts with different types of virtualization platforms:

To add a Virtual Server host

You must have Windows Server 2003.
In beta release, we do not support Virtual Server running on Windows Server 2008.
We're looking to provide support for running Virtual Server on Windows Server 2008 in our RTM release.
The Virtual Server needs to be at version 2005 R2 SP1 release.

To add a Hyper-V host

You must have Windows Server 2008.
Your computer must meet the hardware virtualization assistance requirements:

64-bit CPU
VT (Virtualization Technology feature from Intel) or AMD-V (from AMD) enabled on the BIOS
NX (No eXecute) /XD (eXecute Disable)
And full BIOS support for hardware virtualization

You must install Hyper-V RC0 software update.

To add a VMware ESX host

You must have at least one VMware VirtualCenter Server added to VMM.
Your VirtualCenter Server must be running version 2.0 or above.
Your ESX host must be running version 3.0 or 3.1.

Here are the things your need to know for different types of server (server locations):

To add a trusted domain joined Windows host

Make sure the requirements for the virtualization platform are met (see above).
Make sure the server is domain joined.
Make sure your server is reachable (DNS, AD, network firewall, etc.).
Make sure you know the proper credentials you need to let VMM use to manage the host.
Note: When there is no two-way trust between the VMM server domain and the domain the Windows host (to be added), you will need to use to do it from the CLI (Add-VMHost cmdlet) by using the "-NonTrustedDomainHost" switch. In our Beta release, you cannot do this from the UI.

To add a perimeter network (or DMZ) Windows host or a non-domain-joined Windows host

Make sure the requirements for the virtualization platform are met (see above).
Make sure the agent is installed locally, and security file is generated and transfered to the VMM console.
Make sure your server is reachable (DNS, network firewall, etc.).

To add a VMware ESX host

Make sure you have at least one VMware VirtualCenter Server added to VMM.
Make sure you know the "root" user credential.

Thanks for reading,

Cheng

System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 Beta has been shipped!

Cheng Wei — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 20:29:00 GMT

Greetings!

Earlier this morning, at MMS 2008 (Las Vegas), we announced that SCVMM 2008 (vNext) Beta is released and available for download at Connect site immediately. Here is the official press release. More news and pictures about our beta release can be found here.

VMM vNext Beta is a much awaited release, which provides supports for three virtualization platforms (Virtuall Server, Hyper-V and VMware) and offers some exciting new features. Here is a quick overview of the features we offer in this beta release:

Continue extending our rich feature sets from SCVMM 2007:

Host Configuration
Library Management
Virtual Machine Creation
Conversions: P2V & V2V
Delegation and Self Service
Intelligent Placement
Deployment and Storage Management
Monitoring and Reporting
Automation with PowerShell

New investment in SCVMM 2008 (vNext):

Heterogeneous Hypervisor Management (Hyper-V and VMware)
Windows Server 2008 Failover Cluster Integration
Performance & Resource Optimization (with integration with SCOM)
Delegated Administration

I'll drill into some of the new features in the future posts.

Thanks,

Cheng