Night 24, Tonight I am looking at a feature in Failover Clustering called VM Monitoring.  This feature allows you to monitor the VMs running on your cluster.  If you detect the VM is in an unhealthy state you can take recovery action.  You can also look into the VM and monitor additional items!   Things I learned tonight:

• You must open the firewall for “Virtual Machine Monitoring”
• In 2012 VM Monitoring is enabled by default on each VM
• You can monitor Windows Services
• You can do event monitoring
• You can use PowerShell to set this up across multiple VM
• VM Monitoring is extensible

Here are the links I used to study this feature:

How to configure VM Monitoring in Windows Server 2012

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/clustering/archive/2012/04/18/10295158.aspx

VM Monitoring in Windows Server 2012 – Frequently Asked

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/clustering/archive/2012/10/30/10364265.aspx

Guest Clustering and VM Monitoring in Windows Server 2012 (Video)

http://northamerica.msteched.com/topic/details/2012/WSV411#fbid=Yesz_YUD4Lk

Bruce

Night 23, by now some of you may be thinking about installing Windows Server 2012.  Well, you are going to have to make a choice.  Which user interface do you want?  Your choices are:

• Server core installation – Command Window and PowerShell
• Minimal Server Interface – All of the above plus MMC and some Control Panel applets
• Server with GUI – All of the above plus Windows Explorer, Taskbar, IE, Help, and All of Control Panel
• Full Desktop Experience - All of the above plus Themes, Windows 8 Shell, Windows Store and apps and Media player

The good news is, it really does not matter which interface you choose.  You now have the option to convert between the different interfaces.  So if you install core and feel you need the GUI, just add it (reboot required).

The default install is core.  This should be everybody’s first choice.  With all the new remote management ability there really is no reason  to log onto a server locally.  All day to day activities can be done remotely.  

These are the links I used to learn about  Windows Server 2012 Installation:

Installing Windows Server 2012

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj134246.aspx

Windows Server Installation Options

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh831786.aspx

Deploying Windows Server 2012: From Bare Metal, Server Core, Minimal Server Interface, and More

http://northamerica.msteched.com/topic/details/2012/WSV309#fbid=Yesz_YUD4Lk

Bruce

Night 22, I am going strong and still studying.  Bruce here!  Tonight I am looking at Scale-Out File Servers.  Sometimes known as Active-Active.  Scale-Out File Servers is a great choice when your applications keeps files open for a long amount of time, like Hyper-V virtual hard disk or SQL Server database files.  It is going to be a bad choice for scenario like information workers that generate lots of metadata operation (opening, closing, creating, or renaming files).   It appears we also call this Continuously Available File Server too.  Below are some links I used to learn about Scale-Out File Servers:

Scale-Out File Server for Application Data Overview

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh831349.aspx

Plan for Scale-Out File Server

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj134258.aspx

Deploy Scale-Out File Server

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh831359.aspx

Continuously Available File Server: Under the Hood (Video)

http://northamerica.msteched.com/topic/details/2012/WSV410#fbid=Yesz_YUD4Lk

Day 21, It’s Bruce again.  Tonight I am looking at Hyper-V Dynamic Memory.  We first introduced Dynamic Memory in 2008 R2.   Since then we have improved on the feature.  Below are some facts I discovered about Dynamic Memory during my studies tonight.

• While the VM is running you can decrease the minimum memory
• While the VM is running you can increase the maximum memory
• A VM starting up requires more RAM than it does in its idle state.  We allow for this with a Startup RAM configuration
• If you want a Static RAM amount set Startup, Minimum, and Maximum to same value.

Below are some links I used to study about Dynamic memory.  The white paper has a good section in it ( pages 44 to 47).

Hyper-V Dynamic Memory Overview

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh831766.aspx

With the Dynamic Memory improvements for Hyper-V in Windows Server 2012, you can attain higher consolidation numbers with improved reliability for restart operations. This can lead to lower costs, especially in environments that have many idle or low-load virtual machines, such as pooled VDI environments. Dynamic Memory run-time configuration changes can reduce downtime and provide increased agility to respond to requirement changes.

Windows Server 2012 Server Virtualization (White paper)

http://download.microsoft.com/download/5/D/B/5DB1C7BF-6286-4431-A244-438D4605DB1D/WS%202012%20White%20Paper_Hyper-V.pdf

Wow I can’t believe I have been at this for 20 days!  Tonight I am learning Remote Desktop Services. I have learned some cool new facts about RDS in 2012.  Let me share some of the things I have seen tonight:

• Active/Active RD Connection Broker - Yes that’s right now all pieces have high availability
• Fareshare of Resources (CPU, Network, I/O) – Yup, now no single user can hog all the resources
• A single management interface in Server Manager for all services
• Well, two management interfaces we also support Powershell
• CPU based or Physical support for Remote FX GPU
• User Profile Disk – This is a VHD to store the user’s Desktop and files

There are Tons of resources on this topic!  I listed some below that I used to study with:

Remote Desktop Services Overview

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh831447.aspx

This includes some great lab guides:

• Test Lab Guide: Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Quick Start
• Test Lab Guide: Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Standard Deployment
• Test Lab Guide: Managed Pooled Virtual Desktop Collections
• Test Lab Guide: Unmanaged Pooled Virtual Desktop Collections
• Test Lab Guide: Remote Desktop Services Session Virtualization Quick Start
• Test Lab Guide: Remote Desktop Services Session Virtualization Standard Deployment
• Test Lab Guide: Remote Desktop Services Publishing
• Test Lab Guide: Remote Desktop Services Licensing

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Benefits

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/windows-server/virtual-desktop-infrastructure-benefits.aspx

Windows Server 2012 VDI/RDS Infrastructure and Management (Video)

http://northamerica.msteched.com/topic/details/2012/VIR314#fbid=Yesz_YUD4Lk

RemoteFX and RDP Rocking RDS in Windows Server 2012 (Video)

http://northamerica.msteched.com/topic/details/2012/VIR313#fbid=Yesz_YUD4Lk

Lessons from the Field: 22 VDI and RDS Mistakes You'll Want to Avoid (Video)

http://northamerica.msteched.com/topic/details/2012/VIR317#fbid=Yesz_YUD4Lk

Bruce Adamczak