GuillaumeD's blog : Hyper-V

Ability to run and support Red Hat Enterprise within Hyper-V ?

GuillaumeD — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 23:47:55 GMT

And Windows on Red Hat hypervisor ? Short news but quite interesting :

Windows Virtualization Team Blog speaks about that.

Is that not huge ?

~ Guillaume

System Center Data Protection Manager 2007 Service Pack 1

GuillaumeD — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 00:16:20 GMT

De retour après quelques semaines intenses… Pour annoncer le SP1 de DPM 2007 qui apporte enfin le support de Hyper-V, parmi d’autres améliorations et prise en compte de produits. Hyper-V étant le produit qui m’intéresse particulièrement…

Vous retrouverez toutes les nouveautés ici : What's New in DPM 2007 Service Pack 1

A voir une vidéo traitant du sujet :

http://edge.technet.com/Media/DPM-2007-SP1-Protecting-Hyper-V/

~ Guillaume

TechNet Magazine – Octobre 2008

GuillaumeD — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 01:37:20 GMT

Ce mois-ci, le magazine est axé sur la virtualisation : TechNet Magazine Octobre 2008.

Vous y trouverez une introduction à Hyper-V, une description des nouvelles fonctionnalités de SCVMM 2008 et App-V.

On y parle aussi de la haute disponibilité pour Hyper-V ainsi que de la sauvegarde des environnements virtuels.

~ Guillaume

Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 is RTM

GuillaumeD — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 20:31:59 GMT

Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 is the product main page.

Now… Get it free !

A brief overview of requirements and capabilities :

Virtualization Needs	Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008	Windows Server 2008 Standard	Windows Server 2008 Enterprise	Windows Server 2008 Datacenter
Server Consolidation
Test and Development
Mixed OS Virtualization (Linux and Windows)
Local Graphical User Interface
High Availability—Clustering
Quick Migration
Large Memory Support (Host OS) > 32 GB RAM
Support for > 4 Processors (Host OS)
Ability to Add Additional Server Roles
Virtualization Rights per Server License	Each VM Guest requires a server license	1 Physical + 1 VM	1 Physical + 4 VMs	1 Physical + Unlimited VMs

Microsoft Hyper-V Server License Terms

Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 Configuration Guide

Hyper-V Server 2008 Getting Started Guide

~ Guillaume

New updates for Hyper-V

GuillaumeD — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 13:45:50 GMT

Hi there !

Two new updates for Hyper-V have been published.

The first hotfix deals with scalability and will let Hyper-V now support 24 logical processors (instead of 16) and be able to host 192 virtual machines (instead of 128).

The second hotfix correct some unexpected behavior while managing Hyper-V with SCVMM :

Symptom 1 : After the integration services are installed, performance counters for storage devices that are attached to the emulated IDE controller are not reported. For example, the performance counters for storage devices report 0 even though files are being transferred on the related storage devices.
Symptom 2 : Virtual machines may stop responding while performance monitor data is being collected.
Symptom 3 : The Hyper-V Networking Management Service may stop responding to incoming requests.

A Hyper-V update is available to increase the number of logical processors and virtual machines on a Windows Server 2008 x64-based computer

Description of the Hyper-V update for issues that may occur when you manage the Hyper-V role on the 64-bit editions of Windows Server 2008 by using SCVMM

~ Guillaume

Transition from Virtual Server/Virtual PC to Hyper-V

GuillaumeD — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 14:27:40 GMT

Matthij, who has developped VMRC+, has just released a new tool that helps import Virtual Server or Virtual PC virtual machines on Hyper-V.

Be sure to read the original post : VMC to Hyper-V Import Tool Available

Overview of the features :

Import of VMC files of both VS2005 and VPC2007
Creation of VM on local Hyper-V host
Creation of VM on remote Hyper-V host
Validation of virtual disk and ISO files in local scenario
Editing of virtual drive image paths (vhd, vfd, iso)
Swapping of the first SCSI disk with the first IDE disk
Specification of static MAC addresses
Specification of either legacy (emulated) or enhanced network adapter
Specification of # of virtual processors and resource control
Specification of management settings
Specification of COM ports
Specification of device boot order
Specification of alternate Virtual Machine path
Built-in help in CHM file
Support for both x86 and x64 Vista and Server 2008

~ Guillaume

Usefull post from Michael about MDT and Hyper-V

GuillaumeD — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 09:59:24 GMT

Michael Niehaus posted instructions to add Hyper-V Integration Components into WinPE :

Using the Hyper-V integration components with MDT 2008 Update 1 Lite Touch

~ Guillaume

More LiveMigration & Hyper-V Server demos

GuillaumeD — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 09:55:55 GMT

You can find them there :

Demo - Hyper-V Server and Live Migration

~ Guillaume

Virtualisation encore !

GuillaumeD — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 09:36:39 GMT

Décidement...

Les Integration Components pour Linux sont RTM et sont disponible sur Connect.

Et un hotfix corrigeant le comportement de Windows Server Backup lorsque l'on sauvegarde des machines virtuelles :

Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V VSS writer is not used during a backup job because of corrupted or invalid virtual machine configuration files

~ Guillaume

Virtualisation... du rab !

GuillaumeD — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 22:17:00 GMT

J'ai été un peu vite hier et j'ai oublié une information quelque peu conséquente, la disponibilité de SCVMM 2008 (System Center Virtual Machine Manager) d'ici 30 jours.

A noter que SCVMM 2008 sera capable de prendre en charge les produits suivants :

Virtual Server 2005 R2
Hyper-V (la version de Windows Server 2008)
Hyper-V Server
VMware Virtual Infrastructure 3

Par ailleurs, l'évènement décrit hier aura son pendant en France le 2 Octobre prochain avec la présence du bouillonant Steve Ballmer.

Pour toutes les informations et vous inscrire cliquez ici : Microsoft Days - Virtualisation

~ Guillaume

Lancement virtualisation

GuillaumeD — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 09:49:00 GMT

Le grand évènement consacré à la virtualisation s'est tenu aujourd'hui à Bellevue.

Parmi les annonces on peut retenir l'arrivée prochaine de Hyper-V Server (d'ici une trentaine de jours) et une information croustillante sur Hyper-V v. Next (la version qui sera inclus dans Windows Server 2008 R2).

Microsoft Hyper-V Server : la version "boîte noire" de Hyper-V. Cette version ressemble fort à une édition Core de Windows Server 2008 mais ce n'est pas Windows même si, pour être honnête, Hyper-V Server s'appuie tout de même sur les mêmes fondations en ne proposant que le service de virtualisation.

Voici le site du produit : Microsoft Hyper-V Server

Hyper-V Server sera disponible gratuitement depuis le site de téléchargement de Microsoft.

Live Migration : enfin... c'est public ! Live Migration (le pendant de VMotion chez notre ami VMware) fera partie des nouvelles fonctionnalités de la prochaine version de Hyper-V. Parmi d'autres...

Vous pourrez voir la première démo publique (tout juste sortie du four !) de Live Migration ici Webcast Bob Kelly, parmi les autres annonces concernant cette technologie et un tour d'horizon des solutions de virtualisation.

~ Guillaume

My working environment - Part 1

GuillaumeD — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 17:30:21 GMT

As products evolve, I want to use as much as possible the new technologies I have to support. To reach this goal I decided to build an environment respecting Microsoft security policies but enough flexible to host quickly and easily all kind of products and most of all : provide tools to troubleshoot customer issues !

From now, I have 4 more drafts in hand dealing with this subject (i.e. "My working environment") but I will begin by the beginning : describing what I installed and what I daily use in my job.

This first post will deal with an overview of the hardware involved and how I defined the job for each of the machines I have (hope nobody will ask me why I have so much machines :-) and how they work together.

Machines

I have some of those machines since my first(s) day(s) at Microsoft, I grabbed the old Dell OptiPlex when we had our last machines' upgrade and the GX620 from a team mate which has virtualized all his machines.

And a very old Dell OptiPlex I use to present SCSI disks to my HP xw6200.

Network

All my machines are connected to a Gb switch which is connected to the Corporate Network through my IP Phone. This one is limited to 100Mb but as most of my traffic is between my computers it's not a real issue.

I also have a private network (also on a Gb switch) to allow communication between my Hyper-V server and my Virtual Server 2005 server. I can then have more virtual machines (well... not so much !) in the same environment and have some routing capabilities which is useful to test stretched clusters or running some repro scenarios when dealing with customer issues.
This private network is also used for my physical iSCSI network (where the Initiator Software Target is my HP xw6200) used to present shared disks to my physical cluster and to some virtual machines.

Here is a schema to understand how it is configured physically :

Machines roles

So here are the roles I assigned to the machines :

Cluster Windows Server 2008
- Clustered File Server
- Clustered Print Server
- Machines involved
  - Dell Precision 690
  - Dell OptiPlex GX620
iSCSI network
- Used to share disks in my cluster
- Machines involved
  - HP xw6200 : ISCSI Software Target Initiator
  - Dell Precision 690 : iSCSI Target
  - Dell OptiPlex GX620 : iSCSI Target
Hyper-V
- Dell Precision 690
Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1
- HP xw6200
System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008
- Used to manage my Hyper-V and Virtual Server servers
- Machine involved
  - HP xw6200
System Center Data Protection Manager 2007
- Used to backup some data on my servers
- Used to backup my laptop
- Machine involved
  - HP xw6200

When I'm at the office, my laptop is the master commander of all of this. Through RSAT (Remote Server Administration Tools), the diverse MMC consoles, Windows Remote Shell and of course Remote Desktop I have a large set of tools to manage the servers. But I'll speak about this in another post.

My next post regarding this theme will describe all the configuration steps I followed to set up this small infrastructure.

To be continued...

~ Guillaume

Supportability of Microsoft products in a virtualized environment (updated)

GuillaumeD — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 23:45:00 GMT

Microsoft has announced supportability status of Microsoft applications running in virtualized environments.

You can find the official statement here :

KB957006 - Microsoft server software and supported virtualization environments

You can find additional information on the Server Virtualization Validation Program (SVVP) page to find participant vendors.

KB944987 - Support partners for non-Microsoft hardware virtualization software

And last, an updated version of the next KB article :

KB897615 - Support policy for Microsoft software running in non-Microsoft hardware virtualization software

~ Guillaume

Hyper-V Planning and Deployment Guide

GuillaumeD — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 00:54:32 GMT

Here is the first release of the deployment guide for Hyper-V :

Hyper-V Planning and Deployment Guide

In my opinion this document gives a good overview of the requirements and limits of Hyper-V and some useful information on some of the main components of this platform.

But I still wait a deployment guide for clustered Hyper-V as there is many options to set up a highly available virtualized environment with this hypervisor.

~ Guillaume

Clustered Hyper-V improvements

GuillaumeD — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 23:57:00 GMT

A new update has been released to improve the behavior of Hyper-V while clustered.

Extract :

"This update incorporates changes in the way that the Windows Server 2008 Failover Cluster Management console functions for the Hyper-V role. These changes provide increased functionality and virtual machine controls that are consistent with the Hyper-V Manager console.
This update changes the Failover Cluster Management console (the Cluadmin.msc file) and the server components of the failover cluster. If this update is installed on one node, it should be installed on all nodes of a Windows Server 2008 failover cluster. It may be installed on one node at a time. However, we recommend having all the nodes updated in a reasonable time. You may experience errors on a Failover Cluster Manager that has not been updated to a failover cluster that has had this update applied. These errors occur because of differences between the non-updated Cluadmin.msc file and the updated failover cluster."

Be sure to review the following technical article to learn about the changes and get the update (there's a link at the top of the KB) :

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=951308

~ Guillaume