Dutch Partner Technology Advisors blog : Virtualization Solutions

Microsoft and Red Hat Complete Cooperative Technical Support

Edievdb — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 21:28:33 GMT

Finally we have a formal announcement!

http://blogs.technet.com/virtualization/archive/2009/10/07/microsoft-and-red-hat-complete-cooperative-technical-support.aspx

Hyper-V Performance Comparison of Windows Server 2008 SP2 and Windows Server 2008 R2 on Intel Platforms

Edievdb — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 10:03:12 GMT

Interesting performance comparison report!

Principled Technologies tested Harpertown and Nehalem servers running various Windows Server operating systems to show the benefits of processer and of operating system improvements on simulated customer workloads. Windows Server 2008 R2 delivers over 37% more capacity on these tests on the same Nehalem-based servers.

http://www.principledtechnologies.com/clients/reports/Microsoft/HyperVR2_0709.pdf

Changes to System Center Management Suite Enterprise licensing

Edievdb — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 13:07:41 GMT

Since the 1st of July the Server Management Suite Licensing has changes.

The biggest changes are that we have added a Server Management Suite Datacenter (SMSD).

The Server Management Suite Datacenter provides rights to manage an unlimited number of operating system environments (OSEs) on a single physical server.

The Server Management Suite Enterprise provides rights to manage four operating system environments (OSEs) on a single physical server.

For more information on what’s included, pricing etc. see:

http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/en/us/management-suites.aspx

Microsoft Contributes Linux Drivers to Linux Community

matthts — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 20:58:34 GMT

REDMOND, Wash., July 20, 2009 — Today, in a break from the ordinary, Microsoft released 20,000 lines of device driver code to the Linux community. The code, which includes three Linux device drivers, has been submitted to the Linux kernel community for inclusion in the Linux tree. The drivers will be available to the Linux community and customers alike, and will enhance the performance of the Linux operating system when virtualized on Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V or Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V.

…….

For the remainder use link below.

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2009/Jul09/07-20LinuxQA.mspx

MAP 4.0 Released

matthts — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 09:29:51 GMT

The Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit 4.0 is Now Available!

With Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 becoming available in the near future, the Solution Accelerators Team is offering customers and partners a head start on deployment planning with the Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit 4.0. Over 690,000 Microsoft customers and partners including Costco Wholesale Corporation, Continental Airlines, and Banque de Luxembourg have already downloaded and used this toolkit to help plan for their Windows Server 2008 and Hyper-V virtualization deployment.

The Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit 4.0 is an integrated planning toolkit that makes it easier for Microsoft customers and partners to quickly identify what clients, servers, and network devices are in their IT environment. This agentless and scalable toolkit has the ability to discover all computers within Active Directory and workgroup environments. It performs key functions that include hardware, device, and software inventory, hardware compatibility analysis, virtualization readiness planning, and generation of actionable, environment-specific IT proposals for migration to most major Microsoft technologies.

What’s New with Version 4.0?

The Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit 4.0 has the following new features:

· Windows 7 Hardware and Device Compatibility Assessment

· Windows Server 2008 R2 Hardware and Device Compatibility Assessment

· Virtualization Candidates Assessment for Hyper-V R2 Server Consolidation

· Integration with the Microsoft Integrated Virtualization ROI Calculator

· Inventory of VMware Server Hosts and Guests

· User Interface and Proposal Customization for Partner co-branding

· Enhanced SQL Server Instance Discovery

· Enhanced Usability and Improved Inventory Performance

Additional Features

· Windows Vista Hardware and Device Compatibility Assessment

· Windows Server 2008 Hardware and Device Compatibility Assessment

· 2007 Microsoft Office Readiness Assessment

· Desktop Security Assessment for Anti-virus and Anti-malware Programs Installation

· Forefront Client Security/NAP Readiness Assessment

· App-V Infrastructure Readiness Assessment

· Power Savings Analysis

Saves Pre-Sales and Planning Time. For most IT consultants and Microsoft Partners, a detailed network inventory and assessment of servers and desktops often takes days of manual labor. With the Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit, they can conduct an environment inventory of up to 100,000 computers in a matter of hours instead of days, giving customers and partners extra time to focus on critical planning or presales tasks. In addition, for IT professionals, this toolkit can significantly reduce the time it takes to gather the information necessary to make the business case for client, server, and virtualization projects.

Provides Actionable Recommendations and Reporting. This toolkit provides valuable inventory and readiness assessment reports with environment-specific upgrade recommendations and virtualization candidate reports, making it easier for IT migration and deployment projects to get off the ground and running.

Covers Wide Range of Scenarios—from Desktops to Servers. This toolkit offers technology assessments and planning recommendations for many Microsoft desktop and server products including Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, 2007 Microsoft Office, SQL Server 2008, Forefront Client Security, Network Access Protection, Microsoft Application Virtualization, and more.

Try the Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit 4.0 now and spread the word to your customers and partners today!

· Download the Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit 4.0

· Learn more about this toolkit and read case studies on TechNet or Microsoft Partner Program portal

· Use this toolkit together with the Microsoft Integrated Virtualization ROI Calculator to get more virtualization POC wins

· Read the MAP Team Blog

· Check out other members of the Solution Accelerators family—Server, Desktop, Security, and Virtualization Solution Accelerators

Server Virtualization Validation Program: Support policy wizard

Edievdb — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 12:11:33 GMT

Our colleague Matt McSpirit wrote an article about the SVVP support policy wizard.
http://blogs.technet.com/mattmcspirit/archive/2009/07/03/the-svvp-wizard.aspx

The SVV Support policy wizard can be found here.

The support policy wizard can be used to check which version of Microsoft server software (e.g. Exchange, SQL etc) is supported on specific server virtualization technologies. Limited to Hyper-V and the server virtualization technologies that have gone through the SVVP program.

The great thing about the wizard is that it will show whether it’s supported, what restrictions apply and provides links to the support policies for that specific Microsoft server software.

Hyper-V: Multi processor virtual machines and physical processor utilization/over subscription

Edievdb — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 14:47:09 GMT

Lately we’ve had quite a few questions regarding virtual processor assignment, processor over subscription and host processor utilization.

And since systems with 8 physical cores or more are starting to become more common I thought I’d provide some additional information.

I found a very good post by Robert Larson (MS) describing how to control processor resources in child partitions and processor over subscription:
http://www.virtualizationadmin.com/articles-tutorials/microsoft-hyper-v-articles/general/controlling-processor-resources-hyper-v-guests.html

A bit from the article around processor over subscription:
Virtualization allows you to over subscribe the processing limits of the physical hardware. I could only have 4 cores on the physical server, but create and have more than 4 virtual machines running. Each virtual machine would be sharing a virtual processor in the parent partition, but with no limits imposed a virtual machine could consume an entire core in the machine. For example, if I allocate a virtual machine 1 processor on a machine that has a single quad core processor, that virtual machine will have one thread that can consume the equivalent of an entire core or processing time. If it has 2 processors configured it can consume two cores. If you configure the virtual machine to have 4 cores, it could attempt to consume all the processing power of the server and starve the other virtual machines.

More information on measuring processor performance on Hyper-V:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc768535.aspx

An interesting scenario is when e.g. a small number of servers are virtualized and consolidated to a single physical host with more physical cores than the number of virtual processors that can be assigned to virtual machines.

Example:

Two Windows Server 2003 servers
One physical server with 8 cores

Windows Server 2003 is supported with two virtual processors when running in a child partition on Hyper-V. So you can only utilize half of the physical processors of this physical server. In this specific example you will not be able to utilize all the physical processors/cores as every virtual processor runs as a thread on a physical processor/core.

So for scenario’s like this you either need less physical processors/cores or add more virtual machines.

For more information on which operating systems and the number of virtual processors that are supported in Hyper-V guests see:
Guest operating systems that are supported on a Hyper-V virtual machine
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/954958