PFE Ireland : Hyper-V

How to P2V Windows 2000 server using SCVMM 2008

DavidMcCormick — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 14:16:57 GMT

With the economic down turn and the green agenda Virtualisation has become a hot topic with my customer. These days its all about getting the best value for money as possible with your IT budget, so when my customer had a number of servers out...(read more)

Technology Day – Microsoft Virtualisation (Level: 300)

gmcshera — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 17:45:26 GMT

We are running an event this December for Microsoft Premier customers. I'm pretty excited about it actually. Premier Field Engineering and Microsoft Consulting Services are teaming up to present real world details on Hyper-V, System Centre Virtual Machine Manager 2008 and Application Virtualisation. We plan on running as many demonstrations as possible during the event so death by PowerPoint should not be an issue.

This event is only open to Microsoft Premier Customers. Contact your Technical Account Manager to reserve your place. If you are not a Premier Customer we plan on running the event again early in 2009. Drop me an email if you are interested in attending.

Here is the agenda for the event :

Title: Technology Day – Microsoft Virtualisation (Level: 300)

Location

Microsoft Sandyford
Building 3, (Atrium B)
Carmenhall Road,
Sandyford Industrial Estate, Dublin 18

Training Room 5.41

Date & Time
Fri 5^th December @ 9:15

Breaks

15 mins @ 11:15 am
1 hour @ 1pm – 2pm (Lunch)
15 mins @ 3:30pm

Morning

09:30

Workshop Introduction

09:45

Microsoft Virtualisation @ Nissan Ireland
Rory Donnelly (CIO Nissan Ireland)

10:00

Virtual Data Centre :

Microsoft Server Virtualisation and System Centre Virtual Machine Manager
Gavin McShera, Victor Arzate Rodriguez and David McCormick

This session is aimed at providing skills to deploy and administer a Virtualised Data Centre, using Microsoft Server Virtualisation products and System Centre Virtual Machine Manager 2008.

Content:

Hyper-V Architecture

Understand the architecture behind Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V and Hyper-V Server.
Learn how to increase uptime, by understanding what is happening under the covers of Hyper-V.

Getting to grips with Server Core Hyper-V and Hyper-V Server

Understand the process of enabling Hyper-V on Server Core including enabling remote management.
Understand the best practices for management and delegation.
Learn from our experience of deploying Hyper-V Server Core.

Performance Best Practice & High Availability

Understand Hyper-V Performance Best Practices – The big 4: Disk, Memory, Network & Processor.
Understand Failover Clustering Best Practices, Server Core hosts & Management.

Managing Hyper-V

Learn how to effectively manage Hyper-V hosts in an enterprise deployment using SCVMM 2008.
Understand SCVMM design considerations and best practices.

Deploying and Migrating to Hyper-V

Understand various methods of virtual machine deployment, including with SCVMM 2008.
Learn about some common migration routines.

Afternoon

02:15

Application Virtualisation with Microsoft App- V (formerly Softgrid)
Alan Stone and Paul Devlin

This session introduces Microsoft Application Virtualisation and provides notes from the field with real world scenarios

Content:

An overview of the App-V technology
How App-V can mature the IT Environment

Notes from the Field

How App-V helped a customer overcome application delivery challenges
Benefits to mobile workers
Application Compatibility
Sequencing Recipes best practices

Application Virtualisation 4.5 What does the future hold?

Integration with the System Centre family of products
New Deployment methods for Virtualised applications
Asset intelligence & App-V 4.5

03:45

Open Discussion – Q & A

Virtualisation : Support statements and Licensing

gmcshera — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 00:38:00 GMT

Over the past week or so Microsoft have clarified the support statement for server products running in virtual environments. The most significant announcement was the Server Virtualisation Validation Program (SVVP). To quote "The Server Virtualization Validation Program (SVVP) is open to any vendor who delivers a virtualization machine solution that hosts Windows Server 2008, Windows 2000 Server Service Pack 4 and Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 and subsequent service packs. The virtualization solution can either be hypervisor-based or a hosted solution. The program enables vendors to validate various configurations so that customers of Windows Server can receive technical support in virtualized environments. Customers with validated solutions will benefit from the support provided by Microsoft as a part of the regular Windows Server technical support framework."

The participating vendors (at time of writing are):

Cisco Systems, Inc.
Citrix Systems, Inc.
Novell, Inc.
Sun Microsystems
Unisys Corp.
Virtual Iron Software
VMware, Inc.

The SVVP does not mean that Microsoft support the products from the vendors listed above. The SVVP means the validated third party product provides a suitable environment upon which the Microsoft operating system can run. If you think about it, the SVVP is very similar to the hardware certification for Microsoft operating systems.

Now that you know the supportability of your Microsoft operating systems turn your eyes to the support statements for Microsoft server software. Microsoft server software and supported virtualization environments.

You'll find statements for :

Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V)
Microsoft BizTalk Server
Microsoft Commerce Server
Microsoft Dynamics AX
Microsoft Dynamics CRM
Microsoft Dynamics NAV
Microsoft Exchange Server
Microsoft Forefront Client Security
Microsoft Intelligent Application Gateway (IAG)
Microsoft Forefront Security for Exchange (FSE)
Microsoft Forefront Security for SharePoint (FSP)
Microsoft Host Integration Server
Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server
Microsoft Office Groove Server
Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server
Microsoft Office Project Server
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server and Windows SharePoint Services
Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) 2005
Microsoft Search Server
Microsoft SQL Server 2008
Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager
Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager
Microsoft System Center Essentials
Microsoft System Center Operations Manager
Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager
Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS)
Microsoft Visual Studio Team System
Microsoft Windows HPC Server 2008
Windows Server 2003 Web Edition
Microsoft Windows Server Update Services (WSUS)
Windows Web Server 2008

Licensing changes:

New Licensing Flexibility : check out the press release http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2008/aug08/08-19EasyPathPR.mspx

Scripting: Hyper-V - Mount VHDs by right clicking

gmcshera — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 18:20:00 GMT

There are plenty of posts on the interweb that show you how to mount and unmount vhds via powershell. I downloaded the Hyper-V PowerShell management library from CodePlex.com here as created by James O'Neil. In it he kindly provides two scripts (mount-VHD.ps1 and Unmount-VHD.ps1) along with a REG file. Assuming you have PowerShell 1.0 installed (available feature in Windows Server 2008) these scripts and registry settings work fine.

I ran into problems once I downloaded and installed the Windows PowerShell 2.0 Community Technology Preview (CTP). Powershells execution policy wouldnt let the scripts run anymore.

You can change the executionPolicy a number of ways:

Registry:

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\PowerShell\1\ShellIds\Microsoft.PowerShell

Change the key: REG_SZ ExecutionPolicy to Unrestricted

PowerShell:

set-executionpolicy unrestricted

Note: By changing the execution policy you are technically opening your system up to remote execution of PowerShell scripts from unsigned/untrusted sources. I want to be able to mount vhds easily coz Im a lazy kinda guy. Im running Hyper-V on my laptop so Im not too concerned about security in this instance. You should think carefully about making this change in a production environment.

The second thing I noticed was that the registry settings provided by James no longer worked. So I came up with a slight modification as follows:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Virtual.Machine.HD]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Virtual.Machine.HD\DefaultIcon]
@="%SystemRoot%\\system32\\imageres.dll,26"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Virtual.Machine.HD\shell]
@="Mount"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Virtual.Machine.HD\shell\Mount]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Virtual.Machine.HD\shell\Mount\command]
@="cmd /k \"powershell -NoProfile -Command \"& 'c:\\Program Files\\Hyper-V\\Mount-VHD.ps1' '%1'\"\""

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Virtual.Machine.HD\shell\Unmount]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Virtual.Machine.HD\shell\Unmount\command]
@="cmd /k \"powershell -NoProfile -Command \"& 'c:\\Program Files\\Hyper-V\\Unmount-VHD.ps1' '%1'\"\""

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.vhd]
@="Virtual.Machine.HD"

I've used cmd/k instead of cmd/c so I can see what the PowerShell script reports when its finished along with a couple of changes to get PowerShell to accept the string after the -Command.

Now all is great in the land of Hyper-V on my laptop.

Hyper-V : Link madness

gmcshera — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 13:15:01 GMT

Need some light reading for the weekend? Have a look at the links below. All part of the growing body of knowledge around Hyper-V.

Websites

Microsoft Virtualization Home Page

http://www.microsoft.com/virtualization/default.mspx

Virtualization Case Studies

http://www.microsoft.com/virtualization/case-studies.mspx

Virtualization Solution Accelerators

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/solutionaccelerators/cc197910.aspx

Windows Server 2008 Virtualization & Consolidation: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/virtualization-consolidation.aspx

Hyper-V FAQ

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/hyperv-faq.aspx

Optimized Desktop Infrastructure (VDI and much more): http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/enterprise/default.mspx

Virtualization TechCenter:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/virtualization/default.aspx

How to Install Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V RC

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/hyperv-install.aspx

Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V Performance Tuning Guide

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/sysperf/Perf_tun_srv.mspx

MSDN & TechNet Powered by Hyper-V

http://blogs.technet.com/virtualization/archive/2008/05/20/msdn-and-technet-powered-by-hyper-v.aspx

MSDN & TechNet Powered by Hyper-V Whitepaper

http://download.microsoft.com/download/6/C/5/6C559B56-8556-4097-8C81-2D4E762CD48E/MSCOM_Virtualizes_MSDN_TechNet_on_Hyper-V.docx

Blogs:

http://blogs.technet.com/virtualization/default.aspx

http://blogs.msdn.com/virtual_pc_guy/

http://blogs.technet.com/jhoward/

http://blogs.technet.com/roblarson/

http://blogs.technet.com/virtualworld/

http://blogs.technet.com/windowsserver/

http://blogs.technet.com/mapblog/

http://blogs.technet.com/stbnewsbytes/

Webcasts:

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?culture=en-US&EventID=1032368894&CountryCode=US

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?culture=en-US&EventID=1032372420&CountryCode=US

Virtualisation Candidates – How to identify

gmcshera — Fri, 30 May 2008 16:08:07 GMT

In my post yesterday I spoke about virtualisation candidates (amongst other things) and how we now know what loads and systems are viable. Have a look at the Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) tool. Its the tool for identifying candidates. There is also a nice video demo from Baldwin Ng, showing the tool in action. The tool will remotely gather information regarding your enterprise without installing agents. The MAP tool then generates a candidacy report(s) that can be used to justify the investment including the hardware requirements for your virtualisation environment.

Note: The RTM version of MAP v3.0 only includes Virtual Server 2005. You will need MAP v3.1 Beta for Hyper-V. Check out this posting for details on joining the beta. It is still worth running the MAP v3.0 against your environments as virtualisation candidates should be the same regardless.

Hyper-V RC1 is out!!!

gmcshera — Tue, 20 May 2008 23:48:00 GMT

Check out the posting on the Windows Virtualization Team blog here for more details.

As usual its a one way upgrade process. Once you go forward there is no coming back! :)

Hyper-V RC0 to RC1 Upgrade Considerations
*Saved-state files are not supported between RC0 and RC1 releases of Hyper-V. All virtual machine saved states should be discarded before upgrading to RC1, or prior to resuming virtual machines after upgrading to Hyper-V RC1.

*Online snapshots contain virtual machine save-states and thus online snapshots taken with Hyper-V RC0 are not supported after updating to Hyper-V to RC1. Either apply any online snapshots and shut down the VM or discard the virtual machine save state associated with the snapshot before or after the update to Hyper-V RC1.

*System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 Beta does not support Hyper-V RC1.

*New Integration Components (ICs) must be installed for your supported guest operating systems. Integration Components are specific to the build of Hyper-V. RC1 Integration Components for all supported Windows Operating Systems are provided using the ‘Action’ -> ‘Insert Integration Services Setup Disk’ action.

RC1 Integration Components for all supported Windows Operating Systems are now part of the IC Setup Disk. This now includes Windows Server 2008! Simply install the Hyper-V RC1 Integration Components for Windows Server 2008 the same way you do all other Windows ICs (‘Action’ -> ‘Insert Integration Services Setup Disk’).
Note You need to close the found new hardware wizard before setup will begin on all Windows Operating Systems.

Improvements Over Hyper-V RC0
In addition to bug fixes and stability improvements we also made some additional changes largely based on feedback from customers, I might have missed a few I’ll add to this list if so…
   *Integration Components For Windows Server 2008 guest’s included in Integration Services Setup Disk
   *New Graphics for Hyper-V Manager and Virtual Machine Connection – including a “Now” icon in the snapshot pane
   *IPv4 Address Migration - when creating a new Virtual Network bound to an adapter with a static IPv4 address the IPv4 settings are migrated to the new virtual adapter

I'm just about to update my own Hyper-V installation so fingers crossed.

Step-by-Step Guide for Testing Hyper-V and Failover Clustering

gmcshera — Mon, 19 May 2008 21:40:39 GMT

I blogged recently on “How to create a Windows Server 2008 Cluster within Hyper-V using simulated iSCSI storage”. This is enough to get you familiar with how clusters work in Windows Server 2008. The next logical step is to understand the high availability options available for VMs running in your Hyper-V environment. The good news is that Hyper-V is cluster aware allowing you to use the Quick Migration functionality. Check out the Step-by-Step Guide for Testing Hyper-V and Fail over Clustering. It explains the requirements and takes you, as the name implies, step-by-step through the process.

Hyper-V: Where do I start?

gmcshera — Thu, 15 May 2008 18:49:11 GMT

There are plenty of docs and blogs out there digging deep into Hyper-V. However, a few customers have asked a simple question: “What do I need to think about before I start testing Hyper-V?"

Well, first things first. The product still hasn’t RTM’d so DONT use it for production environments … not even a little one!
Hyper-V only runs on x64 processors with INTEL-VT or AMD-V.
Pick your hardware: While it has not been RTM’d the Certified hardware list is available. Check out Windows Server Catalog site BEFORE you make the decision to purchase hardware. Keep an eye open for the logo below:
Think carefully about your storage options. Badly designed or configured storage can impact the overall performance of your virtual environment.
Understand the licensing model for Virtual operating systems. More information can be found Virtual Machine Technology FAQ. Its important to note that regardless of what vitalization product you decide to run the licensing model is still the same.
Think carefully about disaster recovery. Don’t wait until the last minute to figure out how you will manage and recover your virtual machines. The smallest hardware failure can take down the biggest virtual environment. Plan accordingly.

These are all very high level points so I will flesh them out over time. Any questions, feel free to comment.

Virtual Domain Controllers and Time Synchronisation

gmcshera — Thu, 08 May 2008 19:33:00 GMT

The question of how to handle virtual Domain Controllers has been around for quite some time. The answer really depends on what product you have decided to use as your virtualisation platform: Microsoft or VMWare. Regardless of the product you have choosen, you will still have to make the same decision when it comes to Domain Controllers: How will I handle Time Synchronisation? Before I go into the details there is one thing that both companies agree on. Do not let your VMs use more than one method for Time Sync as this could lead to numerous time changes ... and you most definitely do not want this happening on Domain Controllers.

Right, so how do the two approaches differ? Well, keeping in mind that both agree you should only use one method for time sync here are the two approaches:

Microsoft: Time Synchronisation from the VM to the host via integration services or VMWare tools should be disabled for all Domain Controllers. Use the normal domain hierarchy for Domain Controllers with the exception of the PDC in the forest root. Configure the PDC to use an external NTP source
VMWare: In general, VMWare recommend disabling W32time (for non DC's) and using the VMWare tools to sync time with the host. For Domain controllers they still say to use VMWare tools but instead of disabling the W32time service they recommend running the Windows Time service in a server-only mode. Additionally, install the NTP Daemon on the ESX host and have it sync with an external NTP source.

Microsoft do not recommend sync'ing with the physical host whereas VMWare recommend that you do. So, from a supportability stance, which option do you choose? No surprise, but I would recommend starting with the Microsoft approach regardless of whether you are using ESX or not. Why? Well, from a support perspective following the VMWare approach means that you have to stop time sync from working as it should in a normal Active Directory Domain. In short, you make your Active Directory more or less unsupportable. If you run into problems and try and open a support case, you are putting yourself at a distinct disadvantage.

References:

Considerations when hosting Active Directory domain controller in virtual hosting environments

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

VMware Time Sync and Windows Time Service

Expensive Hypervisors - a bad idea even if you can afford them

gmcshera — Thu, 08 May 2008 17:40:04 GMT

Here is a great post from James O'Neill.

http://blogs.technet.com/jamesone/archive/2008/03/13/expensive-hypervisors-a-bad-idea-even-if-you-can-afford-them.asp

As Microsoft get ready with Hyper-V, VMware are beginingg their marketing blitz in an attempt to justify their pricing. As James points out in his post you can manipulate figures to come to any conclusion you want ... even if its way off base. Microsofts Hyper-V will cost a fraction, per socket, when compared to VMWare. While the VMWare products are slightly more mature Hyper-V is only a small part of the Virtualisation offering from Microsoft. Windows Server 2008 really brings Mircosoft virtual offerings to the forefront as an end-to-end solution. Check out http://www.microsoft.com/virtualization/default.mspx for more details.

Hyper-V : Windows Server 2003 VM - Where is my network card?

gmcshera — Thu, 08 May 2008 17:35:00 GMT

There are plenty of articles out there explaining how to install the Hyper-V and get a Windows Server 2008 VM up and running. One such article is Virtual PC Guy's weblog (Here).

What if you want to get a Windows Server 2003 VM up and running? One thing to bear in mind is that a Windows Server 2003 VM will not have the drivers for the virtual NIC straight out of the bag. To pick up the drivers you need to install the Hyper-V integration components. If you have created your VM with an ISO or CD that is pre SP2 then you are going to run into issues. You'll have no NIC and you will not be able to install the integration components. Why? See the image below.

No network card without the Hyper-V integration components, no Hyper-V integration components without SP2, no network card to download or copy SP2.

So how do you get around this issue? Well, there are a few options but perhaps the easiet way is to create an ISO with SP2 on it.

[Update: You could also mount the VHD offline OR you could use a pass through disk]

Tools for the job:

Windows 2003 SP2 which can be found here
Something to create the ISO with. I used NBXSoft - Free Create-Burn ISO which worked nicely on the x64 Windows Server 2008 host.

What next?

Create your ISO and attach the VMs CD drive to it
Install Windows 2003 SP2 and reboot
Try and install the Integration Services again from the Action menu

If there are any problems detecting hardware try removing it from Device Manager and bouncing the VM.

Note: You wont run into this issue with a Windows Server 2008 VM as the integration components are built in.