David Ziembicki on Infrastructure Architecture : Hyper-V

Everything you ever wanted to know about VHDs

davidzi — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 18:33:49 GMT

The Virtual Hard Disk Getting Started Guide is 61 pages of great info outlining all the relevant scenarios, configurations, and options for using VHD files. This was release about 3 weeks ago but I missed it at the time due to training and TechReady9. The guide outlines basic scenarios like booting Windows 7 or Server 2008 R2 from VHD as well as more advanced scenarios like migrating at VHD between physical and virtual environments, etc. If nothing else this is worth a quick read of the table of contents because you will likely see things in there that you didn’t realize you could do with VHDs.

Here is the official description of the doc:

“Windows Server® 2008 R2 and Windows® 7 is the first version of Windows to provide native support for virtual hard disks (VHDs). This guide describes the scenarios that guided the development of this feature, detailed steps about how to employ the functionality (including image creation, deployment, and maintenance), and the associated tools, scripts, and APIs.”

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=d2afacbb-5af6-45c2-b275-932116e27b0b

TechReady9 Day 4 and 5 Wrap-up

davidzi — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 01:46:22 GMT

Day 4 and 5 of TechReady were action packed, I didn’t even have time to post yesterday. I skipped the first session timeslot on Thurs to prepare for the double session I was presenting with Citrix. The double session format basically allocates two sessions (3 hours) to one topic letting you get into a lot more detail. The session went very well and the feedback surveys so far have been very positive. We spent the first half of the session describing the Microsoft+Citrix VDI solution and its components. The second half was filled with demos of the solution with different types of clients accessing VDI sessions and walkthroughs of the administrator consoles.

After my session and some internal meetings, I attended a session on Microsoft’s Dynamic Datacenter Toolkit. I haven’t had much time to explore this yet but will be focusing on that a lot in the next couple months. For an example of a hosting partner using this solution, check out MaximumASP.com and their MaxV solution.

Finally on Day 4 I attended a session on the Remote Desktop Services (RDS) improvements in Windows Server 2008 R2, particularly the built-in VDI solution. I’ve been so focused on the Microsoft+Citrix solution that I haven’t had time to dig into the Microsoft in-box solution. This is being positioned toward branch and or lower complexity environments while the Microsoft+Citrix solution is targeted toward large or higher complexity implementations. The improvements to RDP and Hyper-V are the real enablers for the VDI scenarios in R2.

Day 5 opened with multiple demos of Office 2010 and Office Web Applications which are really going to open up completely new scenarios for rich collaboration. Next was a keynote from my favorite Microsoft executive, Bob Muglia, head of the Server and Tools Business. Bob covered improvements in Windows, Hyper-V, SharePoint, SQL. The thing TechReady is best for is stepping back and seeing the scope of this release of software we are going to have this year and the solid advancement in capability and features on almost all fronts simultaneously.

After taking care of some logistical items, I attended a session on Hyper-V security. Not much new info in that one, basically there is good security guidance for Hyper-V in the Windows Server 2008 Security Guide as well as the Hyper-V Resource kit. Finally, I attended a session on Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 branch office infrastructure. This covered the new Branch Cache feature which can substantially reduce bandwidth utilization in branches by caching content as well as other new features and improvements to SMB, DFS, etc.

All in all, TechReady9 was a great time. I’ve still got a list of sessions that I want to see that is longer than the list of sessions that I actually saw! I’m glad they were all recorded…

Tomorrow and Sunday I’ll be teaching a 2-day VDI class along with some MCS and Citrix colleagues. Should be a good class, the students will learn about and set up the entire Microsoft+Citrix VDI solution over the course of the two days. Then finally on Monday I will head home after almost two and half weeks on the mothership!

TechReady9 Day 3 Wrap-up

davidzi — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 18:22:11 GMT

Day 3 kicked off with a keynote by Ray Ozzie and several very cool demos on UI futures, what’s coming across some of the Bing features, and some stuff MSR is working on. There was also a good discussion of how concepts move from MSR, to Labs, then into the product groups.

Next up was a very entertaining session with Jeff Woolsey, the Hyper-V program manager and president of the “virtualization nation”. This session dealt point by point with the FUD put out there by the competition. Aside from the entertainment, it was actually quite valuable because we get hit with some of these outlandish claims by customers all the time who’ve drank the cool-aid of the other guys.

Next up was a session on Terminal Services, which is being re-branded as Remote Desktop Services (RDS). Most of the new features in R2 were discussed (RDP 7, multi-monitor support, VDI) with some cool demos. One showed a six monitor setup over RDP with full multi-monitor support (I use three at home…)

After lunch was a session on the next version of OCS. Voice and PBX replacement are the key themes of this release, beyond that I can’t say much about the content.

In the afternoon I attended a session on VDI using the Microsoft and Citrix solution. This was an intro session to the deep dive that I’m doing today with the RDS PM and some Citrix colleagues. Good session, some good demos of the combined functionality that the two companies provide and how the solution is more fully featured and less expensive than the competition.

The day wrapped up in the evening with “Ask the Experts” which is an event where all the presenters and product group folks are stationed at tables in main dining area and the Techready attendees can come in and ask questions, network, etc. It’s a great opportunity to meet folks from the product groups as well as others you may not have seen in a while. Every year I bump into people I haven’t seen in years or who have recently joined Microsoft that I worked with before. This year was no different.

Day 4 should be action packed, I present during the 10:15 timeslot on VDI.

Dynamically Provisioning Customized Virtual Machines with VMM

davidzi — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 02:46:07 GMT

There’s a good technical post over on Chris Adam’s blog about how to dynamically provision customized virtual machines by using System Center Virtual Machine Manager and unattend.xml. The unattend.xml file is used in combination with a sysprep’d image and applies customization (things like computer name, installed roles, etc) that are specified in the XML file. Chris’s post explains how this can be done very easily in VMM.

This post was timely as I have been working on some unattended installations and other automation for a customer I am working with. With all the focus on the back and forth with competitors at the virtualization layer, it almost seems like the workload and configuration inside the VM is “getting no respect”.

In any event, the unattended installation realm can be intimidating at first. There are multiple ways of accomplishing most tasks, there is an enormous amount of things in Windows that can be customized, etc. Microsoft makes a large number of resources available such as the Windows Automated Installation Kit, Microsoft Deployment Toolkit, etc. There are beta updates to these for Win7, R2, etc. that can be found on Bing.com.

For a very detailed treatment on all of these topics, check out the Deploying Vista series over on WindowsNetworking.com Most of the content is the same for Windows 2008 servers as well. This article on Technet is quick and direct step-by-step guide for a basic automated installation. Between the info Chris provided and some of these resources, you’ll be well on your way to dynamic VM provisioning.

Head-to-Head: Workflow Studio vs PowerShell for Automation

davidzi — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 21:07:11 GMT

Here’s an interesting and slightly amusing mock debate between Brandon Shell and Jason Conger on Citrix’s Workflow Studio vs PowerShell for automation. If you aren’t familiar with it, here is the description of what Workflow Studio is:

“Citrix Workflow Studio™ is an infrastructure process automation platform that enables you to transform your datacenter into a dynamic delivery center.”

“Built on top of Windows PowerShell™ and Windows Workflow Foundation, Workflow Studio provides an easy-to-use, graphical interface for workflow composition that virtually eliminates scripting. Workflow Studio acts as the glue across the IT infrastructure allowing administrators to easily tie technology components together via workflows.”

The debate is amusing because in reality both guys understand that each has its place, one is a foundational component of the other, and the combination of the two can be extremely powerful. The core of the “debate” is one’s definition of automation: execution of atomic tasks with as little effort/code as possible (basic PowerShell) or event/workflow driven execution of multiple tasks with associated logic (advanced PowerShell and/or Workflow Studio). The first is an enabler for the latter.

It’s been my opinion since Exchange 2007 and Virtual Machine Manager 2007 committed entirely to PowerShell and with the PowerShell team’s continued focus on simplicity and consistency, that this was the tipping point that was going to enable real automation and orchestration of IT infrastructures. Now with partners (Citrix) and competitors (VMware) alike building on and/or leveraging PowerShell, we’re going to see significant advancements in the state of the art this year.

Download the Hypervisor Functional Specification v2.0

davidzi — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 15:46:01 GMT

The Hypervisor Functional Specification v2.0 for Windows Server 2008 R2 has been posted to the web and can be found here. The original v1.0 version for Windows Server 2008 RTM was described in this post.

Here is the overview of the v2.0 version:

This document is the top-level functional specification (TLFS) of the second-generation Microsoft hypervisor. It specifies the externally visible behavior of the Microsoft hypervisor, a component of Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Windows Server virtualization. The document assumes familiarity with the goals of the project and the high-level hypervisor architecture. This specification is provided under the Microsoft Open Specification Promise. For further details on the Microsoft Open Specification Promise, please refer to: http://www.microsoft.com/interop/osp/default.mspx. The Hypervisor Functional Specifications document specifies the externally visible behavior of the Microsoft hypervisor, a component of Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Windows Server virtualization. The specifications can be used to understand the functions of the hypervisor and implement a compatible solution.

Published in the Microsoft Architecture Journal

davidzi — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 03:28:40 GMT

I was able to get a small commentary on desktop virtualization and VDI published in the Microsoft Architecture Journal. It’s based on the work I’ve been doing around creating a VDI offering to augment Microsoft’s server virtualization offerings. For a slightly expanded version of my thoughts on this topic, see this post. As with server virtualization, desktop virtualization makes sense in a lot of cases but not all. I outline a simple framework for for choosing the optimum mix of solutions for your user base.

Networking and Remote Desktop Technical Resources

davidzi — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 20:15:15 GMT

The links below lead to a series of technical whitepapers on DirectAccess, BranchCache, and Remote Desktop Services in Windows Server 2008 R2.

Networking Resources: DirectAccess and BranchCache

Remote Desktop Resources: Kerberos, User Profiles, RemoteApp

White Paper: Comparing the Power Utilization of Native and Virtual Exchange Environments

davidzi — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 15:07:12 GMT

The Exchange team has published a whitepaper on TechNet comparing the power utilization of a typical 8 server physical Exchange environment compared to a a virtualized environment using the same number of logical processors but on only two Hyper-V host servers. The result: a 50% reduction in power usage (excluding storage). If storage is included it was a 37% reduction.

The purpose of the test was to isolate on power consumption scenarios so other things like cooling and space savings weren’t considered but would also be measurable benefits. There is also a link to general guidance on virtualizing Exchange as it makes sense in a lot of scenarios but not all.

Windows Server 2008 R2 to RTM in July!

davidzi — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 02:09:14 GMT

The Windows Server Division blog announced that Windows Server 2008 R2 is tracking with Windows 7 and both are planned to RTM in the second half of July with General Availability on Oct 22! That RTM date is earlier than I thought it would be, I was thinking late August. The more I dig into R2 the more impressed I am with how many new features (Hyper-V R2, lots of RDS improvements, DirectAccess, etc, etc) were added in what the product group calls a minor release!

Clustering SQL Server Virtual Machines

davidzi — Mon, 25 May 2009 16:00:07 GMT

When planning server consolidation initiatives, particularly if using a structured offering and tools like SVAM and MAP, underutilized database servers are a frequent consolidation candidate. Similarly, if you have already widely implemented virtualization, then virtualizing database servers for new software deployments is also a common desire. As you consolidate and create more VMs, high availability becomes a requirement, particularly for database servers.

Until recently, Microsoft did not support clustering virtual machines running SQL server. You could cluster the hosts underneath of SQL VMs but you couldn’t cluster the VMs running SQL and remain supported. Fortunately, after finishing a large amount of testing that was required, this support policy has been changed and you can now cluster SQL VMs on Hyper-V and SVVP validated virtualization platofrms. See this article for the details: 956893.

The change in support policy opens up many new consolidation and software deployment scenarios. We have a site dedicated to SQL virtualization here and a great whitepaper on virtualizing SQL 2008 here.

Given all that, does it make sense to virtualize SQL (or any database)? The answer is an absolute, definite, maybe! Virtualization fan boys (like me) will say yes in many cases. Traditionalists in high end applications (both Microsoft’s and others) in a lot of cases will say no as they bare the scars of implementations gone bad due to going cheap on hardware or underestimating demand. Their concerns should not be ignored as they are usually based on deep experience with their apps.

What I think is unacceptable are blanket statements that “Product X should never be virtualized” or “never virtualize the database for Product Y”. These are poor excuses for trying to skip proper architecture and design. Just as bad are the vendors that promote “virtualizing everything” without any regard for performance, licensing, cost, or support considerations. This is also poor architecture and design.

Using proper capacity and availability planning practices, it is not that difficult to get to fact-based decisions on whether to virtualize a server workload or not. SQL is one of the more challenging ones as the product itself provides substantial consolidation options by supporting multiple instances and multiple databases per server/cluster. Almost all of our product groups now are releasing specific virtualization guidance (SQL, MOSS, OCS, etc.)

One of the most important considerations in this design process is the maximum size of a single virtual machine supported by your virtualization platform of choice. This will be the scale unit against which your capacity and availability requirements must be compared. If your workload doesn’t scale out well and requires a large single database server with 32 cores, that will not be a good candidate (or even possible) to virtualize as the major hypervisors today only support between 4 and 8 cores per VM. If your workload is able to scale out then this limitation can be worked around by using a greater number of smaller VMs that total up to the required capacity but you must consider the cost and management considerations of doing so (more VMs to manage, more agents, more licenses, etc).

It seems to be my mantra lately but there is no one size fits all when it comes to infrastructure architecture. That’s the fun part of this line of work, the art and science of good architecture which is a process. Beware of architects and vendors showing up and declaring that there is only one true way…

New Import and Export Features in Hyper-V R2

davidzi — Thu, 21 May 2009 15:54:56 GMT

Good news from the virtualization team. Over on their blog is a new post about the import/export functionality in Hyper-V. There are major enhancements that address several scenarios that were either not easy or not possible with Hyper-V RTM. Scenarios such as exporting a VM and importing it to a different location or importing the same exported VM multiple times, etc. R2 introduces multiple enhancements described well on the team blog.

This is the one area where I was disappointed with Hyper-V RTM as it felt like a step back from Virtual Service instead of a step forward since in VS moving VMs was a simple matter of copying the VHD and VMC to a new location. While in this area Hyper-V felt like a small step backwards, the purpose was to put much more programmability into the entire import/export process. Basically setting the foundation for the much more advanced approach being delivered now. These new features will be significant enablers for all of the backup, storage, and lab management suites being developed by Microsoft and others.

Social Bookmarking: How to know where to go…

davidzi — Sat, 16 May 2009 19:15:47 GMT

Continuing the foray into social networking I started on a couple weeks ago, today’s topic is social bookmarking. For those who are even later to the game than I am, social bookmarking is basically a site or service that lets you tag and store your website bookmarks in a central location that is accessible from any browser while also publishing your bookmarks for others to see. Advanced services let you publish your bookmarks as an RSS feed so that others can subscribe and be notified when you bookmark something. Delicious.com is the most well know of these and provides even more features like being able to subscribe to feeds based on tags so that you get a stream of all new bookmarks using one or more tags. An example would be creating a subscription for the tag “Hyper-V” where you would then see a list of all bookmarks created where someone added the Hyper-V tag. You can also use these services to see and follow what others are bookmarking, a good way to see what influentials in your area find interesting.

Lesser known than Delicious but utilized by nearly two million people are the TechNet and MSDN social bookmarking sites. Like nearly all Microsoft web properties, after an initial burst of coverage when launched, there is usually minimal follow-up coverage (hopefully that changes this summer…) so unless you caught the original announcements you may not be aware of these sites.

For a thorough introduction and steps to get started, check out this post over on Technically Speaking.

For my purposes, I will be using both Delicious and TechNet for social bookmarking. I’ll keep the TechNet list focused on the deeper, more informational bookmarks on technical topics. As with everything else I’m doing online, I will be bringing these bookmark feeds into Friendfeed which I’m using as a hub for all of my online activities.

For the bookmarks only, you can find me at these locations (RSS feeds available there as well):

TechNet Social Bookmarks: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Profile/en-US/?user=davidzi

Delicious: http://delicious.com/davidzi

Hyper-V and VMM: Scale Up, Out, and to the Cloud

davidzi — Fri, 15 May 2009 00:44:32 GMT

Between MMS and TechEd there have been a lot of announcements on the virtualization and cloud computing front. First, over on the Virtualization Team Blog, Jeff provided the announcement and details around some new capabilities coming in Hyper-V with Windows Server 2008 R2:

64 logical processor support. A 4x improvement over Hyper-V R1 and means that Hyper-V can take advantage of larger scale-up systems with greater amount of compute resources.

Support for up to 384 Concurrently Running Virtual Machines & 512 Virtual Processors PER SERVER. We are increasing the maximum number of concurrently running virtual machines to 384 per server and the maximum number of virtual processors to 512 for the highest virtual machine density on the market.

Processor Compatibility. Processor compatibility allows you to move a virtual machine up and down multiple processor generations from the same vendor. This does not mean you can live migrate between Intel and AMD nodes, just between different generations from the same vendor.

Not to be outdone, the VMM team announced a bunch of new features that will be in their Release Candidate coming out in a few weeks:

Storage Migration
Queuing of Live migrations
Rapid Provisioning
Host compatibility checks
Support for 3rd party CFS
Support for Veritas Volume Manager

Combined, these new features from both teams enable some key scenarios at both the entry level and high end of the spectrum. One of the major advantages of our stack is that it is very approachable from an entry level since it leverages so much of what your administrators already know and beginning with Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 SKU, will be available with all of the high end features (Clustering, Live Migration, etc) for free. Within a couple hours a Windows admin can become proficient with the basics of Hyper-V and be up and running (for free!). Within a few days at most, the ability to implement basic clustering, HA, and Quick/Live migration can be achieved. At the high end, very advanced architectures can be implemented including VMM, OpsMgr, deep SAN integration, etc. This is where our technical guidance, solution accelerators, and service offerings come into play.

To see an example both of how this stack is being leveraged by commercial providers as well as an example use case for enterprises wishing to use the cloud as reserve capacity, check out the video below demoing a future version of VMM and how it will integrate private and public cloud capacity seamlessly:

Finding the Hidden Costs of VDI

davidzi — Mon, 11 May 2009 15:01:10 GMT

Brian Madden has an excellent post up today called The hidden costs of VDI. I’ve been working nearly full time the last two months helping to put together a Microsoft Services offering around desktop virtualization in general and VDI in particular so have spent a lot of time looking into both the technical and business considerations that must be taken into account. I’d summarize his post in three points:

TCO models, like statistics, can be made to tell any story you or a vendor wants
Cost models typically assume full replacement of legacy systems to show maximum benefit but his rarely occurs due to technical, political, or other unforeseen reasons
Since VDI is relatively new (compared to traditional desktops and Terminal Services/Citrix Server-based Computing), there are a lot of technical and compatibility issues and considerations that are not well understood outside a small group of experts

As a well known fan and expert on Server Based Computing (SBC), i.e. Terminal Services or Citrix Presentation Server/XenApp, Brian prefaced the article by saying that he likes VDI “where it make sense”. He correctly points out that nearly all vendors and TCO models show that Server Based Computing still provides the lowest TCO due to its high user density but that there are limitations which make other approaches such as VDI relevant.

That is where I’ll jump in with my thoughts because I completely agree with those statements and it has been the foundation of the offering I have been working on. It starts with the notion of flexible desktop computing and desktop optimization that Microsoft has been talking about for some time now. An overview of this approach is presented in this whitepaper. To summarize, there are a variety of ways that a desktop computing environment can be delivered to users ranging from traditional desktops, to server based computing, to VDI, with a multitude of variations in between with the addition of virtualization at the layers illustrated below:

Rather than selecting a one-size-fits-all solution, virtualization provides architects a new, more flexible set of choices that can be combined to optimize the cost and user experience of the desktop infrastructure. The following four steps lead to an optimized solution:

Define User Types: Analyze your user base and define categories such as Mobile Workers, Information Workers, Task Workers, etc. and the percent distribution of users among them. The requirements of these user types will be utilized to select the appropriate mix of enabling technologies.

Define Desktop Architecture Patterns: Each architecture pattern should consist of a device type (thin client, PC, etc) and choice of:

OS execution (Local, Desktop Virtualization, or Server Based Computing)
App execution (Local, Application Virtualization, or Application Remoting)
Display (Local or Presentation Virtualization)

For each pattern, determine which user types it can be applied to. For example, with mobile or potentially disconnected users, presentation virtualization alone would not be applicable as it requires a network connection. Power users may require a full workstation environment for resource intensive applications but may be able to leverage application virtualization for others. These are just a few examples where different user groups have different requirements.

Determine TCO for each Architecture Pattern: Use a recognized TCO model to determine the TCO for each pattern. Minor adjustments to these models can be made to account for specific technology differences but most include TCO values for PCs, PCs with virtualized apps, VDI, and TS/Citrix thin client scenarios. Be wary of vendor provided TCO models. To Brian’s points, be sure to gain a full and complete understanding of the chosen TCO model and what does and does not include. Consistent application of the model across the different architecture patterns is critical for relevant comparisons.

Model Desktop Optimization Scenarios: With the above data, appropriate architecture patterns can be selected for each user type by choosing the lowest TCO architecture pattern that still meets user requirements. By varying the user distribution and selected architecture patterns, an optimized mix can be determined. It is tempting to simply choose the lowest TCO architecture pattern for all users but this can be very dangerous in that it will typically impact your high value, power users the most if their requirements are not accounted for.

A one-size-fits-all approach would result in either a large number of PCs if not using virtualization, a large number of servers if virtualizing everything, or failure to meet power user needs if using only server based computing. An optimized solution is one which utilizes the right mix of technologies to provide the required functionality for each user type at the lowest average TCO. Combined with a unified management system that handles physical and virtual resources across devices, operating systems, and applications, substantial cost savings can be realized.

As I mentioned at the top, a lot of the concepts in addition to very detailed architecture and implementation guidance are part of the Microsoft Services Core IO offerings. For the last two years, in addition to my customer work I have been deeply involved in the creation of the Server Virtualization with Advanced Management (SVAM) offering. The work I mentioned above around VDI architecture will complement that and be available later this summer. Finally, specific to desktop imaging, deployment, and optimization, there is also the Desktop Optimization using Windows Vista and 2007 Microsoft Office System (DOVO) offering. Taken together in concert with the underlying product suites, these illustrate Microsoft’s “desktop to datacenter” solutions and how to plan, design, and implement them.