Windows Virtualization Team Blog : XenServer

Update: More than recession: IDC's server virtualization tracker report

porourke — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:24:00 GMT

Update: The folks at IDC asked that I remove this blog post until further notice.

That said, do check out Roger Johnson's post. He discusses Dell PowerEdge R910 and his Hyper-V deployment at Crutchfield. I met Roger at VMworld 2009. He's a VCP, having run an ESX Server-based datacenter for some time before Crutchfield moved away from VMware and onto Hyper-V/SCVMM earlier this year.

Patrick

Linux ICs for Hyper-V and GPLv2

porourke — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 20:06:00 GMT

A funny thing happened on the way to work this morning ... the Hyper-V Linux integration components (ICs) appeared in Greg Kroah-Hartman's tree (aka, the Linux Driver Project) of the Linux community. This is the first time Microsoft is contributing code to the Linux kernel; see the Q&A announcement here. The Hyper-V Linux device drivers will be licensed under GPLv2. That's 20,000 lines of code that provide the synthetic device drivers and VM bus implementation needed for a Linux guest OS to run "enlightened" on either Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V or Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008.

Greg's tree is for all Linux device drivers being contributed to the community. I'm told that within 24-48 hours it will begin to be picked up by other developers in the community, and that it won't land in the mainline tree (Torvald's tree) until it has been generally accepted in other trees along the way.

So what does this mean? Here are a few thoughts:

I'll be waiting to see the reaction from the Linux community and commercial Linux companies. There should be some positive comments in there along with the expected conspiracy theories ;-)
there's a mutual benefit for Linux distis who want to broaden their work with Windows Server, and for customers to broaden the opportunity for Linux as a guest OS running on Hyper-V
Customers will have another cost-cutting tool because Linux OS will run as a first-class citizen on Hyper-V, and they be able to manage Windows and non-Windows applications and hypervisors using System Center. IT system consolidation, reduce heat in the data center, optimize power draw.
Two Microsoft employees are listed as the maintainers of the Linux ICs, and will continue to enhance the ICs and contribute to the code. I'm sure SMP support will be high on the list.
Microsoft currently distirbutes ICs for SLES 10 sp2. With the release of WS08 R2 version of the ICs, we'll also add support for SLES 11 and RHEL 5.2 and 5.3. A list of suppoted products (via SVVP) can be seen here.

You can watch/listen to Sam and Tom discuss today's news on Channel 9 here.

Patrick

Virtualization Review's hypervisor test

porourke — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 23:09:00 GMT

The other day, Virtualization Review published a comparative performance test of three hypervisors: VMware ESX 3.5, Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V and Citrix XenServer. You can see it here.

NOTE - there are few independent, published performance reviews of hypervisors because including ESX in the review without VMware's permission violates the VMware EULA about posting benchmarks. VMark doesn't count as independent. Amongst reviewers, this EULA restriction is well-known and am told serves as a deterrent to try to do performance comparatives. Rick Vanover and his editor, Keith Ward, deserve kudos for securing VMware approval for the performance comparison without jeopardizing journalistic integrity. Way to go!

OK, back to Rick Vanover's test. His test objectives:

All the hypervisors offer essentially the same base functionality. In this series of tests, the objective was to put the same workloads on each one and see how they stack up. The types of workloads tested varied, to simulate a typical environment in which some virtual machines (VMs) are stressed, and some aren't. Each platform was subjected to the same test plan parameters, to give a fair accounting of their performance.

Read about the comparison parameters, test environment and caveats. The results will be surprising (in a "man bites dog" sort of way) to many. Keith wrote:

The results, from writer/online columnist Rick Vanover, were startling, to say the least. The Porsche of hypervisors? XenServer. Raise your hand if you saw that coming. It outperformed Hyper-V and ESX in most categories. The pokiest? ESX. Again, not at all what I expected. In fact, even in the few tests ESX came out on top, it barely edged out the competition. Microsoft did well across the board, and is definitely a fine product.

We're pleased to see Hyper-V won 4 of the 11 tests (the others going to XenServer by a less than a horse length). For example, test 2 focused on a large number of heavy workload systems: 1 database server running one midsize database and 12 VMs with a heavy workload of CPU, memory and disk operations. Key takeaways from this test:

· Hyper-V completed SQLjob 52% faster than ESX.

· Hyper-V is 2.3 times faster than VMware ESX in CPU oVirtualization Review's hypervisor testperations.

· Hyper-V is 3 times faster than VMware ESX in test for average RAM operations.

At the end of the article, Rick ran one set of tests with 3 GB overcommit for ESX 3.5. Rick pointed out that this feature is useful to many in the data center, it does come at the expense of performance. The test showed that with ESX overcommit enabled:

· Average CPU Operations per VM were 3x slower

· Average Disk Operations per VM with 4.5x slower

· Average SQLjob Completion Time was 33% slower

As Rick wrote:

Results showed that while you can load more guests onto the host, there's no free lunch. There was a dip in performance and database response time.

Patrick

Microsoft at VMworld Europe 2009

porourke — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 09:30:00 GMT

VMworld Europe's tagline this year is "virtually anything is possible". Kinda reminds me of Mike's blog post on Monday about Red Hat. And for many IT pros, "virtually anything is possible" might apply to the fact that Microsoft is exhibiting at, and sponsoring, VMworld Europe for the second year in a row. Tres bien, as they say in Cannes.

So if you're one of the 3,000 paid attendees expected at VMworld Europe 2009, below's a sneak peak at what you'll find inside booth #133. If you're not attending, I'm going to attempt to post some pix ... maybe video if I'm lucky ... from the booth so you can see the action. No doubt there will be plenty of other blogs coming from VMworld Europe. You can see most of them at the Virt blog aggregator.

So what am I expecting to see in Cannes? Outside of the Microsoft booth, I'd expect to see early versions of client hypervisors, interop announcements, new product packaging, cloud computing announcements, and likely an update about VMsafe. Should be a busy week.

As for Microsoft, of course we'll be showcasing our server virtualization platform - Hyper-V. (Citrix might do a little bit of that, too). We'll have a total of 4 demos in the booth:

Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V running Live Migration
System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 showing management of VMware ESX Server and a Citrix PRO pack demo. Not sure if this will be a sneak peak of the next version or not of SCVMM.
Desktop virtualization with App-V 4.5 and beta of MED-V 1.0.
a VDI demo with Citrix XenApp and WS08 r2 remote desktop services.

I was hoping we'd be demoing the lab manager functions in Visual Studio 10, or the integration to System Center DPM 2007 sp1 and Iron Mountain cloud backup. Oh well, maybe next show. I know we will be there to answer all your licensing questions about the above scenarios. I do recall about 33%-50% of all the people I met in the booth last year had licensing questions. Thankfully Chris Wolf (Burton Group analyst) will have a session on that topic Feb. 24 at 3:15pm. Check it out.

The Microsoft-presented session (comes with the sponsorship) is Feb. 25 at 2pm in Les Ambassadors 2/3. I know Jeff and Edwin have some good demos for this session.

This will also be the first time Paul Maritz takes the stage in front of his European customers and partners. Let's just hope he can pronounce Cannes better than Diane did last year [hint: it's not pronounced like "canz"].

Now it's off to Cannes, and the beautiful promenade with lots of well-dressed locals walking their tiny little dogs. A memory I won't forget. No doubt the poodles will offer a better welcome than we did in Vegas ;-).

Patrick

The Validated Hypervisor

porourke — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 17:00:00 GMT

By now you might have seen that VMware ESX 3.5 update 2 has passed the Microsoft Server Virtualization Validation Program. They announced it here.

today announced it has qualified its industry-leading VMware ESX hypervisor under the Microsoft Server Virtualization Validation Program (SVVP). VMware ESX 3.5 update 2 (ESX 3.5u2) is the first hypervisor to be listed under the program, providing VMware customers who run Windows Server and Microsoft applications with access to cooperative support from Microsoft and VMware.

Of course we all read that VMware only agreed to participate in SVVP a couple weeks ago, around the time we announced expanded technical support for 31 server applications running on validated hypervisors. Congrats to them for achieving a validated configuration so quickly. ESX 3.5 update 2 now joins Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V as being validated to run Windows Server and associated Microsoft server applications. And now that ESX 3.5 has passed SVVP, VMware customers will join Novell customers as receiving cooperative technical support (if there's a support policy in place, and the customer is running the validated configuration) for Microsoft software running in/on their virtualization software.

I'd expect to see other hypervisors pass the SVVP soon. There are 7 vendors now committed to participate in SVVP, the newest addition being Unisys.

And given today's news, it's a good time to review the details on Microsoft's support policy for Microsoft software running in non-Microsoft virtualization software, read KB article 897615. Here's an excerpt:

for vendors with whom Microsoft has established a support relationship that covers virtualization solutions, or for vendors who have Server Virtualization Validation Program (SVVP) validated solutions, Microsoft will support server operating systems subject to the Microsoft Support Lifecycle policy for its customers who have support agreements when the operating system runs virtualized on non-Microsoft hardware virtualization software. This support will include coordinating with the vendor to jointly investigate support issues. As part of the investigation, Microsoft may still require the issue to be reproduced independently from the non-Microsoft hardware virtualization software. Where issues are confirmed to be unrelated to the non-Microsoft hardware virtualization software, Microsoft will support its software in a manner that is consistent with support provided when that software is not running together with non-Microsoft hardware virtualization software.

Patrick

UPDATE on Sept. 9 - I incorrectly noted that vendors who pass SVVP will be noted in a KB article. Wrong. I'm told the vendors will be listed in the Windows Server catalog. You'll see three vendors' products listed there now. And if you're attending VMworld 2008 next week, there's a new session being added so that you can learn more about SVVP from Microsoft and VMware. See session EA4460

Thoughts on today's virtualization licensing and support news

porourke — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 01:01:00 GMT

Today we announced some changes to server application licensing and support policies related to running MS server apps on top of anyone's hypervisor. Several folks have written or blogged about it, here are some:

Chris Wolf (Burton Group)

Virtualization.info

NetworkWorld

Windows IT Pro

Thoughts on application mobility licensing

As of Sept. 1, 41 Microsoft server applications are covered, both per-processor apps and server/CAL applications that are available via Volume Licensing [Enterprise Agreement and Open Agreements]. In essence the 90-day mobility rule is removed for these applications. With these changes, both licenses and software can move more freely across servers in a server farm [up to two data centers each physically located in a time zone that is within four hours, or within EU and/or EFTA].

Here are some examples of how the licensing might work for you:

· A customer has a server farm with 8 4-processor servers, running a total of 4 copies of Exchange.

o Under the old rules, they would need to either manually move the Exchange instances to another server that is already licensed for Exchange, OR they would need to license all 8 possible servers for Exchange.

o Starting Sept. 1, they will need to have a license for each running instance (4) and those licenses can be moved from one physical server to another as needed.

· A customer has a server farm with 8 4-processor servers, running a total of 4 instances of SQL Server Enterprise Edition under the per-processor model.

o Under the old rules, the customer would need to manually move an instance from one licensed processor to another, or they would need as many as 32 licenses (8x4)

o Starting Sept 1, the customer will need a maximum of 4 licenses. Because Microsoft allows unlimited instances on a processor licensed for SQL Server Enterprise Edition, the customer could have as few as one license if all 4 instances are always moved together.

A few other points:

these licensing rights don't apply to server apps acquired via OEM or retail channels
only apply to those products listed; it doesn't apply to client access licenses (CALs) or management licenses MLs) or Windows Server
If you've recently purchased these server apps listed in the"Application Server License Mobility" VL Brief based on rules prior to Sept. 1, then you should talk to the Microsoft partner or account rep to receive maximum value.
Why no Windows Server? Check out the use rights with Windows Server enterprise and datacenter editions.

Thoughts on technical support

As of today, you'll see that we're expanding tech support policy for (initial) 31 server applications for customers that run these apps on WS08 Hyper-V, Microsoft Hyper-V Server or any other validated hypervisor (type 1 or 2). The nut of it is ... customers will be able to get the same level of tech support for virtualized workloads that they get today with non-virtualized workloads.

The kicker here, and where many journos reported inaccurate information, is that 3rd-party vendors' hypervisors must first pass the validation test before customers can get cooperative support from Microsoft and that vendor. For example, it was reported that VMware signed an agreement to participate in the Server Virtualization Validation Program. That much is true. However, it doesn't mean that cooperative support is now in place. First, ESX Server must go through and pass the validation test. Once validated, they'll be added to KB article 944987, where we list "support partners for non-Microsoft hardware virtualization software." Today only Novell is listed, and that's due to the broader technical collaboration agreement in place between the companies.

The other thing to note is that the server application teams have posted configurations that will be supported running on validated hypervisors. For example, the Exchange team posted a blog about their policy, which can be summarized as:

Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1 is supported on Hyper-V and other validated hypervisors when deployed according to the guidelines published on TechNet.

The Sharepoint team blogged about their policy today and posted an FAQ here.

Let us know if you have questions. Cheers,

Patrick O'Rourke

Guest Post: Why Microsoft and Hyper-V for HostBasket

porourke — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 01:53:00 GMT

Hi, my name is Bert Van Pottelberghe, business unit manager at Hostbasket, which is the leading hosting company and SaaS-provider in Belgium with over 30,000 SMB customers.

In a recent survey of our datacenter with over 1,000 servers, we saw that the average CPU-usage was only 12%. On the other hand, investments in new server hardware, datacenter space and the cost of power and cooling – now at an all time high - keep prices for dedicated servers high. The hosting industry is a very competitive industry, so we needed to come up with an answer.

We have been investigating virtualization technologies such as Xen, VMWare and Virtuozzo, but always found problems (such as security-issues, complex and expensive licensing, stability or scalability) that kept us from creating a virtual machine-offer.

Our Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V offering has two components:

· Flex Servers: Virtual servers on shared hardware platform. More info here.

· Hyper-V servers: dedicated hardware server with 2 virtual machines (application server and database server for example).

Both are positioned as dedicated servers, not as virtual servers. With these two offers we address the needs of 2 customer groups: The Flex servers are for websites and applications that have outgrown shared hosting, while the Hyper-V servers are for larger applications that used to be deployed on two (or more) separate physical servers.

We opted not to use the term “Virtual servers” for our offer, because a “virtual server” implies less value for money than a dedicated server. Also, “Virtual servers” are often associated with cheap solutions based on Parallels Virtuozzo.

Our solutions based on Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V provide more functionality (like snapshotting, easy installation, flexible upgrading), are more secure and stable and have a features that guarantee a higher uptime than dedicated servers.

All customers involved during the beta-stage decided to renew their subscription and gave positive comments on the stability and performance.

Bert Van Pottelberghe

Business Unit Manager

HostBasket

Virtualization and Interoperability

porourke — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 20:14:00 GMT

Two weeks ago three members of the interoperability Vendor Alliance were in Redmond to test the interoperability capabilities of their virtualization technologies. Citrix, Novell and Sun tested some interoperability scenarios with us here at Microsoft that aim to prove how interoperability is possible on heterogeneous environments where customers are running virtualized environment on multiple platforms.

The first part of the lab was about setting up all the machines, we installed Citrix XenServer, Novell XEN Virtual Server, Sun XVM and Microsoft new Hyper-V RC1 virtualization technologies on several machines in the Microsoft Partner lab. The goal now is to test some interoperability scenarios where applications and services are running on different platforms. For the next phase we decided to use the StockTrader application because it is a ready to use app that runs on IBM WebSphere and on .NET. The .NET implementation is compatible with the original WebSphere implementation so it is possible to use, for instance, a DB2 database running on a SUSE Linux machine from the Front end part of the app based on ASP.NET. In this way we will be able to mix and match the different virtualization environments to test cross-platform interoperability from both virtualization and application point of view. In the next couple of weeks we are going to complete the installation of the StockTrader application and test all the scenarios.

This is only the first of a series of labs that will focus on Virtualization, in the next months we will continue to build more complex scenarios on top of the one we use for the first lab, we will add additional aspects such as Authentication and Authorization and system management so there is more to come. I’ll be sure to post updates along the way.

- Claudio Caldato (Senior Program Manager, US Corp Interoperability)