Dutch Partner Technology Advisors blog : Virtualization

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

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

Announcing: Virtualization Solutions Competency

Edievdb — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 00:40:40 GMT

Great news!

In the next coming months the new Virtualization Solutions Competency will be added to the competencies available under the Microsoft Partner Program.

The Virtualization Solutions competency is launching later in 2009. Attaining this competency assures that you have the skills to build your virtualization practice based on solutions like Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V technology, Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008, Microsoft application virtualization, Microsoft enterprise desktop virtualization, or Microsoft virtual desktop infrastructure.

Virtualization Solutions competency partners can qualify for the competency through the server virtualization path or the desktop virtualization path.

For more details please see https://partner.microsoft.com/global/40103468

Personally I’m happy to see that Virtualization Solutions will be a separate competency in stead of a single or multiple specializations under the Advanced Infrastructure competency.

This new Virtualization Solutions Competency will help our partners differentiate themselves!

Restore virtual machine to alternate Hyper-V host using System Center Data Protection Manager 2007 with Service Pack 1

Edievdb — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 00:19:15 GMT

Ruud Baars, one of our colleagues and System Center Data Protection Manager subject matter experts at Microsoft Services wrote several scripts to overcome a current limitation of System Center Data Protection Manager 2007 with Service Pack 1.

An abstract from the provided help (Recovering a Hyper to alternative.mht):

-------------------------------

Recovering a Hyper-V virtual machine to an alternative Hyper-V host

DPM2007 Sp1 does not offer seamless recovery of a protected Hyper-V virtual machine to another Hyper-V host and will be implemented in a future version of DPM. Until such time this blog offers an alternative based on the DPM capability to recover virtual machine files to an alternative location and the standard Hyper-V export/import feature.

Abstract

This alternative uses 3 scripts that ease the tasks to perform and are described below. The concept is to export information ahead of time using the Hyper-V export feature and modify that to suite the Hyper-V import feature. Reorganize the DPM restored directory structure with virtual machine files into a more familiar structure and finally import the virtual machines.

-------------------------------

Important notes:

These scripts are provided as-is without support
These scripts have not yet been tested for Hyper-V host-clustered scenarios or virtual machines using ‘passthrough’ disks
These scripts are intended as examples and need to be tested/adjusted/completed according to your needs

The scripts can be downloaded here.

NIC teaming for Hyper-V

Edievdb — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 00:44:44 GMT

We get a lot of questions about NIC teaming support in Windows Server 2008 so that this can be used to create fault tolerant virtual switches within Hyper-V.

It is absolutely possible to use NIC teaming with Hyper-V, however this support must be provided by the hardware vendors.

Now, HP finally released a whitepaper that explains which configurations of NIC teaming are supported for Windows Server 2008 and Hyper-V.

See the Windows Virtualization Team Blog article for more information:
http://blogs.technet.com/virtualization/archive/2009/03/02/hp-whitepapers-on-nic-teaming-for-hyper-v.aspx

I did a quick query on network teaming in combination with Hyper-V and there’s still not a lot of documentation that describes how to get this working.

I did find one from the UK Microsoft Virtualization User Group blog that specifically describes the Broadcom solution:
http://www.mvug.co.uk/blogs/mvugblog/archive/2009/01/25/broadcom-nic-teaming-and-hyper-v.aspx

When you start testing their NIC teaming solution, make sure that you:

Use the latest and greatest drivers and teaming software
Install the Hyper-V role first
Install the NIC teaming software
Configure the network team
Configure networking from Hyper-V for the network team

The above is the way to get it working for every teaming solution that has been tested and works with Hyper-V.

Edie

Red Hat Enterprise Linux will be supported on Hyper-V

Edievdb — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 22:50:11 GMT

Just a quick post to share the good news! See: http://blogs.technet.com/virtualization/archive/2009/02/15/Microsoft-and-Red-Hat-Joint-Technical-Support.aspx...(read more)

Hyper-V and SCVMM 2008: Mounting ISO’s from a network share

Edievdb — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 00:15:13 GMT

We get a lot of questions on why you cannot mount an ISO from a network share in System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008. Well.. you CAN mount an ISO but it requires some additional configuration. You need to take the following steps: 1. Open Active...(read more)

SCVMM 2008 MP for SCOM 2007 has finally been released

Edievdb — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 01:29:44 GMT

The “System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 Management Pack for System Center Operations Manager 2007” has finally been released. (Including reports!) Download it from: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=d6d5cddd-4ec8-4e3c-8ab1-102ec99c257f&displaylang=e...(read more)

Project Virtual Reality Check

Edievdb — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 14:18:31 GMT

Our partners Log•in Consultants and PQR finalized a project called “Project Virtual Reality Check (VRC)” and published their findings on http://www.virtualrealitycheck.net/ . Their findings are “interesting” to say the least! The project: Do you wonder...(read more)

Virtualization demo videos

Edievdb — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 16:56:55 GMT

Matthijs and I created several demo videos that we want to share with you. We created these videos for the Dutch virtualization launch ( VirtualQuest ). These videos are in Dutch. A selection from the list: Configuring Server Core Installing the Hyper-V...(read more)

17th of December: VIRTUALquest: the online challenge

Edievdb — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 01:38:34 GMT

Finally we’ll have our own Dutch (launch)event around virtualization. Great content, live Q&A and a chance to win fantastic prices in the online challenge. Secure your (virtual)seat at: http://www.microsoft.com/netherlands/evenementen/technetmsdn/technet_virtualisatie_launch.asp...(read more)