I’ve discussed this functionality widely over the last few weeks since it was publically disclosed. What we are talking about here is the ability to boot Windows 7 or 2008 R2 from a VHD file.
To ‘deploy’ the Windows 7 RC build that I’m currently using I followed the following – highly complex! – steps:
1) Downloaded from an internal site a single VHD file and stored in on my physical HDD. This was a ~5gb download and gave me effectively a sys-prepped 7100 build on a ‘Hard Disk’
2) I then ran a simple script (part of the scripts available here), to change the boot file (bcdedit from elevated cmd line) to insert another boot option for the VHD
3) Reboot – and choose the new format.
That’s it. Upon first boot Windows 7 installed drivers etc and re-booted but that’s it. The ‘Live’ VHD now looks like this:
There is a number of articles on the web on creating a bootable VHD from a WIM or ISO image. However, I noticed this post on the Virtualisation blog yesterday and thought it well worth the read!
This is part two in our look at Hyper-V. In this post we’ll look at some of the Case Studies that are available for Hyper-V, look at some of the key SI’s who have delivered the results and provide you with resources to do your own analysis.
One of the things that has interested me most in the case studies we have on Hyper-V is the number of hosting providers that have switched to use Hyper-V. Not that they are more important than ‘customer’ usage but a hosting providers business is based upon them having a reliable, stable and performant computing environment that they can re-sell and make money from. The fact that so many have chosen to use Hyper-V is surely testament to it’s capability.
1) The first ‘case study’ that I normally quote to people is something that I still find remarkable. This study also demonstrates the long test cycles that have gone into Hyper-V. Back before Hyper-V was released, at about the release Candidate stage, Microsoft IT decided to virtualise the entirety of MSDN.com and Technet.com onto Hyper-V. I first blogged this here and I pointed to the full technical details recorded here. Remember this was prior to the release of Hyper-V and a full year ago from today. I wonder, have VMWare ever documented in so much detail there own internal use of ESXi?
2) Next we move into the early adopters and those running Hyper-V in production today. There are literally pages and pages of case studies on Hyper-V. Navigate to http://www.microsoft.com/virtualisation and click ‘Case Studies’. At the time of writing this search of Case Studies showed 81 matches globally for Hyper-V case studies.
3) SI partner adoption of Hyper-V. It’s vital that you have a good partner so any integration activity. Most, if not all, case studies will tell you who the partner was. One partner that has been doing a lot of work around Hyper-V is HP. The image below contains some of the customers that they have worked with recently.
This case study is very detailed covering the deployment at a European bank.
The UK List of case studies involves work from Charteris, Unisys, Silversands and Dell.
3) If you want to refine the above list to ‘UK’ based case studies then click HERE
4) Finally, whilst this video does rank high on the ‘cheese factor’ it does provide a good overview of Microsoft’s virtualisation technologies – focusing on Server but ensuring you understand our other offerings. Worth 7 minutes I think…
Virtualization: Customer Montage Video
What else would you like to see in terms of customer evidence and case studies. Please do let me know – malcolm ‘dot’ bullock ‘at’ microsoft ‘dot’ com.
Hi, I’ve been spending a fair bit of time talking to customers recently about Hyper-V and Datacentre Virtualisation (or Datacenter Virtualization for any US readers :) ). What I’m finding is that folks have been fed a story that leads them to believe that VMware are far ahead in the Server virtualisation market and that Hyper-V is a ‘toy’ in comparison. Now I would expect this from VMWare, we are a very serious competitor for them after all, but it seems that hardware vendors and some SI’s who a customer may respect aren’t giving a balanced view either. I don’t know why this is, it may be that they actually believe that VMWAre offers a better solution for the clients I’ve spoken to, or it may be that commercial considerations (VMware costs a *lot* more than Hyper-V lets face it and they make margin on VMWare when they probably don’t make margin on Hyper-V) or simple lack of knowledge and experience come into play.
You may even have been pointed the some pretty damming evidence such as this on VMWare’s public web site:
So, I’m going to try and make the time to write a series of articles that debunk all the myths I can find around the ‘net and in the VMWare pages, and answer some of the straight questions I get asked by customers. At the end my goal is a level playing field that will allow you to make a fair comparison. Of course the best way to compare is to *try*, and I’ve not known us loose many (if any) Proof of Concept’s with Hyper-V.
So that’s it for an introduction to this series. The next post will introduce you to provide links and information on Case Studies for Hyper-V, then we’ll go deeper looking at Hyper-V, it’s history, the versions, what’s today and what’s in R2, and then we’ll follow that with a detailed post on the Hyper-V architecture.
This isn't something that I would normally bother blogging on - and from the lack of recent posts you can glean that I'm pretty busy - BUT I've just had an e-mail from my better half's Mother (and a fine woman she is - just in case she ever reads this!!) asking if she 'should do anything' as an article had made the Daily Mail. Therefore I think the hysteria on this one must have reached fever pitch and I'll chip in the calm it down.
FIRST - There is a patch was released last night and my machines are now patched. Those who don’t use Automatic Updates should go to http://update.microsoft.com
SECOND - if you want a longer explanation and the webcast link then James has a good post
Finally, and I know that I have 'beefed' about this before lets keep some balance. On the same day the good old Beeb was suggesting people move away from IE there were two interesting article on a site with IMHO a bit more technical cred, the 'Zero Day' security blog on ZDNet, firstly according to this post ALL major browsers have weaknesses in storing passwords so which one would be BBC prefer you move to? I've written before on Chrome , or perhaps Firefox - well that's the subject of the second article. According to this post Firefox is #1 in a list of the 12 most vulnerable apps. Hmmmm so maybe not then!!
The facts still remain that regrettably security incidents do happen - and patches are required. Microsoft software is no different. What I do like now though with Microsoft software is that a) it's MORE secure by design, e.g. Vista has significantly less vulnerabilities than other OS's, and not only do we disclose but we patch quickly. Hats off to the folk in Redmond who probably didn't sleep to bring us the patch for this zero day vulnerability so quickly.
Finally, if you are a home user please make sure you follow the advice here. If you are a corporate user then you need to ensure that you have a tried, tested and trusted mechanism for deploying patches to your clients and servers.
This post is as much for my reference as yours! I've just had to find these patches again in order to update a host that I have in my 'production' VMM install.
If you see the error that a host needs attention I suggest you reads Keiths post and install the two components linked.
http://blogs.technet.com/keithcombs/archive/2008/10/26/hyper-v-server-needs-attention-after-scvmm-2008-rtm-install.aspx
There has been a host of documentation and announcements around Application Virtualisation recently. I would suggest that you read the App-V team blog here. Of note though are several whitepapers that have been produced to help you evaluate, and deploy App-V and integrate it with SCCM R2. See http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/appvirtualization/cc843994.aspx for more details.
Virtual Machine Manager is a member of the System Center family of Management tools and is responsible for managing Virtualised Server environments, such as Hyper-V, Virtual Server and now VMWare...
Like me you may have read on the BBC's web site today about a 'Trojan virus steals banking info' ....now I normally pass these articles by knowing the truth BUT I'm aware that to some they will take this as 'read' and worry. So here's the background.
It seems that the BBC and other sources (The Register for example) are quoting this RSA article. I tend to look to CERT for my data and their page HERE is very informative (and without vendor attacking hyperbole!).
So, what to do? Well, don't panic and just follow the usual security advice from Microsoft - or even the advice from CERT at the bottom of their article. There is a tool that is regularly updated that will scan your machine for Sinowal and a list of other malicious software - it's a free download from Microsoft Update but for detailed information see HERE. Now here's the thing that really bugs me when these things hit the news - if you look at the list of Malicious software on that page and search for Sinowal you will see that Microsoft first issued an advisory on this malware in September 2006! So for over 2 years there has been a free scan tool capable of detecting this - yet no mention of this in the 'press' articles. If you look HERE you'll see the information we have published on Sinowal. On this web page you'll find information and the following steps for prevention:
"
Steps
Take the following steps to help prevent infection on your system:
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Enable a firewall on your computer.
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Get the latest computer updates.
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Use up-to-date antivirus software.
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Use caution with attachments and file transfers.
Enable a firewall on your computer
Use a third-party firewall product or turn on the Microsoft Windows XP Internet Connection Firewall.
To turn on the Internet Connection Firewall in Windows XP
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Click Start, and click Control Panel.
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Click Network and Internet Connections. If you do not see Network and Internet Connections, click Switch to Category View.
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Click Change Windows Firewall Settings.
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Select On.
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Click OK.
Get the latest computer updates
Updates help protect your computer from viruses, worms, and other threats as they are discovered. You can use the Automatic Updates feature in Windows XP to automatically download future Microsoft security updates while your computer is on and connected to the Internet.
To turn on Automatic Updates in Windows XP
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Click Start, and click Control Panel.
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Click System.
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Click Automatic Updates.
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Select a setting. Microsoft recommends selecting Automatic. If you do not choose Automatic, but you choose to be notified when updates are ready, a notification balloon appears when new downloads are available to install. Click the notification balloon to review and install the updates.
Use up-to-date antivirus software
Most antivirus software can detect and prevent infection by known malicious software. To help protect your computer from infection, you should always run antivirus software that is updated with the latest signature files. Antivirus software is available from various sources. For more information, see http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/downloads/default.mspx
Use caution with attachments and file transfers
Exercise caution with e-mail and attachments received from unknown sources, or received unexpectedly from known sources. Use extreme caution when accepting file transfers from known or unknown sources.
"
Nothing new here and the threat is so old that Vista doesn't even get mentioned! So, keep you Windows Defender updated, run and keep updated Anti-Virus, Run a firewall (such as the one built in to Windows XP SP3, and Windows Vista).
Now if the BBC and others would report this wouldn't it be more helpful - if just a little less worthy of headlines??
SOLUTIONACCELERATORS - Act faster. Go further.
Infrastructure Planning & Design
Release Announcement
www.microsoft.com/IPD
I repeatedly forget to mention these in my talks - and that's bad because these documents are excellent. For each topic you get a ppt and doc. Here's the approach behind each document:
This guide is one in a series of planning and design guides that clarify and streamline the planning and design process for Microsoft® infrastructure technologies.
Each guide in the series addresses a unique infrastructure technology or scenario. These guides include the following topics:
· Defining the technical decision flow (flow chart) through the planning process.
· Describing the decisions to be made and the commonly available options to consider in making the decisions.
· Relating the decisions and options to the business in terms of cost, complexity, and other characteristics.
· Framing the decision in terms of additional questions to the business to ensure a comprehensive understanding of the appropriate business landscape.
The guides in this series are intended to complement and augment the product documentation.
and the list of subjects covered is:
IPD consists of the following downloadable packages:
- New! Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 SP1 with R2
- New! Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.5
- Windows Server 2008 File Services
- Windows Server 2008 Print Services
- Infrastructure Planning and Design Series Introduction
- Internet Information Services 7.0
- Selecting the Right NAP Architecture
- Selecting the Right Virtualization Technology
- System Center Operations Manager 2007
- System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008
- Windows Deployment Services
- Windows Server 2008 Active Directory Domain Services
- Windows Server 2008 Terminal Services
- Windows Server Virtualization (for Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V and Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1)
So as you can see it's a pretty comprehensive list. Go to HERE and download them all!
Ok, so I'm exaggerating but I have been using a Microsoft implementation of Windows Server 2008 Terminal Services a *lot* recently. It's effectively meant that I don't need to remote into the Microsoft Corporate network when working away from the office anymore. The functionality and implementation are documented here. There is full documentation on the web describing the implementation, which includes the use of Smart Cards for strong authentication when I want to access corporate data or remote into the MS network. You can also read about it on this 3rd party blog which uses the data available in the download.
The UI is really nice too:
As you can see my IT group are offering me a selection of applications, access to internal websites, fileshares and the ability to remote into a machine inside the corporate firewall.
I've taken to using this solution to remote into my demo server all the time as it works so well (and fast!).
So whilst you may not be able to decommission all of your RAS infrastructure this solution will certainly cut down on the number of connections and therefore the amount of hardware you need. Also, don't forget that Windows Server delivers a perfectly manageable and secure RAS solution out of the box. The last time I saw numbers for Microsoft IT they showed ~225,800,000+ remote connections per month - so I think it scales too!
Folks, just in case you've not picked this up elsewhere you should know that we have released an out of band security update. As you know this isn't usual and therefore you should carefully review the information here. It's worth noting that for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 this is a Critical level patch, whilst for Vista and Windows Server 2008 this is an important release. I appreciate this isn't the time or place but this does support the 'secure by design' implemented in Vista and Server 2008 as detailed in this article.
Here is some general information:
This security update resolves a privately reported vulnerability in the Server service. The vulnerability could allow remote code execution if an affected system received a specially crafted RPC request. On Microsoft Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003 systems, an attacker could exploit this vulnerability without authentication to run arbitrary code. It is possible that this vulnerability could be used in the crafting of a wormable exploit. Firewall best practices and standard default firewall configurations can help protect network resources from attacks that originate outside the enterprise perimeter.
This security update is rated Critical for all supported editions of Microsoft Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and rated Important for all supported editions of Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. For more information, see the subsection, Affected and Non-Affected Software, in this section.
The security update addresses the vulnerability by correcting the way that the Server service handles RPC requests. For more information about the vulnerability, see the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) subsection for the specific vulnerability entry under the next section, Vulnerability Information.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/default.aspx
Webcast on Security Bulletin
Join us for a brief overview of the technical details of the security bulletin. The intent of this webcast is to address your concerns. Therefore, most of the webcast is devoted to attendees asking questions about the bulletin and getting answers from our security experts.
Register: TechNet Webcast: Information Regarding an Out-of-Band Security Bulletin Release (Level 200).
Vista performance is something that I often discuss with customers that I meet. Therefore, let me recommend good use of one hour and suggest that you watch this webcast from the Springboard series of Vista Resources.
Springboard Series Virtual Roundtable
Under the Hood: Windows Vista Performance...Need Answers? 
Join Mark Russinovich and a panel of industry experts for a LIVE virtual roundtable to explore your top of mind performance issues, common misconfigurations, and tips on how to fix them. From boot times and applets to disk performance and battery life, find out how to optimize Windows Vista and what you can do to improve overall system performance.
Watch the event!
As reported HERE Novembers Technet magazine is available. And as you can see below there’s quit a few interesting articles to read.
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FEATURE ARTICLES
Monitoring Windows Server 2008 with OpsMgr 2007
As you deploy Windows Server 2008 into your environment, you’ll need a way to manage and monitor its health, performance, and availability. Fortunately, you can use the existing System Center tools you are already familiar with. See how you can use OpsMgr 2007 to manage your Windows Server 2008 assets.
Using Configuration Manager with Windows Server 2008
The release of System Center Configuration Manager SP1 added full support for managing Windows Server 2008 systems, including such new features as server core. Get a quick overview of deploying the ConfigMgr agent and using ConfigMgr to manage Windows Server 2008 systems throughout your organization.
Granular Targeting in Operations Manager 2007
For every monitoring object you build, you must also decide what target to use. Choosing the correct target is critical, but knowing how to go about choosing the correct target is not always clear. Steve Rachui explores various options for correct targeting in OpsMgr and provides guidance for choosing the appropriate method for each scenario.
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Presentation Virtualization with Enhanced Terminal Services
Virtualization isn’t limited to virtual machines and the virtualization of operating systems. Terminal Services has been abstracting the presentation layer of remotely run applications and desktops for years. Take a close look at key improvements to Terminal Services in Windows Server 2008 and get some tips for using these new features.
Tracking Changes in Your Enterprise Database
SQL Server 2008 introduces two new features that allow you to track changes more easily and efficiently. Paul Randal examines the new Change Tracking and Change Data Capture features and discusses the implications these features will have for database administrators.
As Keith writes - Microsoft® Hyper-V™ Server 2008 is a stand-alone product that provides a simplified, reliable, cost-effective and optimized virtualization solution enabling organizations to improve server utilization and reduce costs. It allows organizations to consolidate workloads onto a single physical server and is a good solution for organizations who want a basic and simplified virtualization solution for consolidating servers as well as for development and test environments. Low utilization infrastructure workloads, departmental applications and simple branch office workloads are also candidates to virtualise using Hyper-V Server 2008.
Hyper-V Server 2008 is a cost-effective solution that is convenient because it plugs into existing IT infrastructures enabling companies to reduce costs, improve utilization and provision new servers. It allows IT professionals to leverage existing patching, provisioning, management and support tools and processes. IT Professionals can continue to leverage their individual skills and the collective knowledge of Microsoft tools, minimizing the learning curve to manage Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008. In addition, with Microsoft providing comprehensive support for Microsoft applications and heterogeneous guest operating systems support, customers can virtualise with confidence and peace of mind.
Go get it @ http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=6067CB24-06CC-483A-AF92-B919F699C3A0&displaylang=en
Now you may be a bit confused as to what Hyper-V Server is so please looks HERE to compare versions or HERE to see an overview of each version of Hyper-V server.
I came across this webcast recently and thought that it might be useful to you. The Webcast is basically a 12 minute demonstration of technologies such as Read only domain controller, BitLocker and fine Grained Password Policies in Windows Server 2008. Something that’s often of interest to those of you I meet.
View the Webcast from http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/windowsserver/2008/cc441413.aspx. You can stream it using Silverlight or download a WMV file.
