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Archive for November, 2009
HP offers virtualization smart bundles with Hyper-V
Nov 30th
After VMware joined forces with Cisco en EMC (VCE) in vBlock, it is not difficult to see that HP is hugging Microsoft giving Hyper-V and System Center a lot of extra attention. On the other side of the fence we see Microsoft, Citrix and HP (MCH) forming an opposing, let’s call it vPower, alternative. It helps keeping the industry healthy, from which customers can only benefit.
For the full PDF:
ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/c-products/servers/virtualization/4AA0-0100ENW.pdf
HP Virtualization with Microsoft
http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/servers/software/microsoft/virtualization/index.html
Improving network throughput between Hyper-V R2 virtual machines
Nov 26th
My colleague Norbert Westland asked me if I could explain the noticeable difference in network throughput between two Windows Server 2008 virtual machines on the same physical server in a Hyper-V R2 cluster compared to an identical file copy between the same VM and a physical host or from the physical host to the VM.
Our configuration:
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HP c7000 enclosure with a few BL460c G6 blades
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HP Virtual Connect Flex-10
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HP Brocade Blade SAN Switches
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HP EVA4400
Storage configuration
Five 500GB Cluster Shared Volumes, spread across 10 Fibre Channel disks configured with VRAID5; the EVA virtual disks are spread across both array controllers)
Network configuration
Thanks to Flex-10 we could split up the dual 10Gb ports on the HP blade server into four flexNICs with appropriate network speeds.
Management Team: 2Gb/s
Live Migration Team: 2 Gb/s
VM Network Team: 14Gb/s
VM Network DMZ Team: 2 Gb/s
VM to VM tests
When copying a number of files between the two VM’s we saw a speed of 30MB/sec. In this case the datacopy only traversed the virtual network adapter of VM1, across the VMBus directly to the virtual network adapter of VM2. No physical network was touched at all.
A similar test was performed between VM1 and VM2 on different nodes in the cluster. In this example the path was extended from the VMBus in VM1 to the physical VM Network Team of the one cluster node to the physical VM Network Team of the second cluster node and back to the VMBus and the virtual network adapter of VM2. The result was almost identical. So far so good.
VM to Physical (and vice versa)
When copying the same amount of data from either VM1 or VM2 to the physical host, the speed consistently increased to 100MB/sec. This sounded like bad news. What could explain this enormous difference in throughput.
Things examined:
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Did the VM have an emulated or a synthetic network adapter installed? In our case the Hyper-V integrations were installed and the much faster hypervisor aware network adapter was configured.
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Were there any hidden network adapters still left behind from? Using set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1 did not reveal any hidden network adapters in device manager.
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Were network optimizations turned on on the virtual network adapter? Optimizations were turned on.
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Are supported network drivers and teaming software installed? All network software was up-to-date.
After some search we found that several other people had experienced disappointing performance in network speed. On many occasions there were references to disabling TCP Offload. The HP blade server contains an embedded NC532i Flex-10 10GbE Multifunction Network adapter which supports which supports TCP Offload and Large Send Offload.
Results with TCP Offload disabled
The VM to Physical and Physical to VM copy test remained at 100MB/sec so that switch did not do much for this test.
However, the VM to VM test jumped to 100MB/sec and higher after the change. The two VM’s could be on one host or on separate hosts in the cluster. The speed would remain the same.
In the end the difference in network throughput disappeared and physical and virtual were fully on par again.
Because I was aware that virtualization MVP Aidan Finn (@joe_elway on Twitter) was also running almost the same kind of hardware, I asked Aidan if he could post his results as well.
The next day I saw this great post:
http://www.aidanfinn.com/index.php/2009/11/w2008-r2-hyper-v-network-speed-comparisons/
Microsoft has published a whitepaper on network optimization in Windows Server 2008 R2 which discusses all new networking features:
You can follow Hans Vredevoort on Twitter 
The server container is the new form factor
Nov 25th
The new form factor is no longer the blade enclosure or the rack, but rather a complete container stuffed with servers, storage and network infrastructure. In some containers you’ll recognize traditional Dell servers and HP blade servers in others.
The amount of processing power and vast amounts of memory is absolutely amazing. In fact it is only just the beginning. Just think of the explosion of processor cores we will experience in the coming year, both from AMD and Intel. Where are the days of 512KB of memory? Simply swop KB’s for GB’s and most likely we will see industry standard servers up to 1TB of RAM.
On PDC09 an example of the Azure Server container was demonstrated:
And an example of the HP POD: the performance optimized datacenter
Microsoft’s vision on 4th generation datacenters:
A Hyper-V update rollup package is available for Windows Server 2008 R2
Nov 25th
Several issues around VSS based protection & recovery are being addressed with this Hyper-V update rollup package. The package can be downloaded from:
http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=975354&kbln=en-us
The last three issues might sound familiar if you already perform host level protection of virtual machines on Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV) with Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager 2010.
Issues that are fixed in this update rollup package
Issue 1
Consider the following scenario:
- Some Internet SCSI (iSCSI) connections are created in a virtual machine that is running Windows Server 2003.
- You back up this virtual machine on the virtual machine host server.
In this scenario, the error code 0x800423f4 occurs when you back up the virtual machine. Additionally, the following event is logged into the Hyper-V Virtual Machine Management Service event log:
The number of reverted volumes does not match the number of volumes in the snapshot set for virtual machine "’virtual machine name’ (Virtual machine ID <GUID>)".
Cause of Issue 1
When a virtual machine is being backed up, the VSS writer of the server that is running Hyper-V makes a call to the guest virtual machine to check whether any iSCSI connections exists. This call has a default time-out of 60 seconds. If this call does not return within the time limitation, the VSS writer of the server that is running Hyper-V incorrectly assumes that there is no iSCSI connection. Therefore, the backup operation fails.
Issue 2
Consider the following scenario:
- Cluster shared volumes are enabled on a failover cluster for Hyper-V.
- Some virtual machines are saved on the same volume. But they are running on different nodes.
- These virtual machines are backed up in parallel.
In this scenario, the virtual machine backup operation fails.
Cause of Issue 2
When the virtual machines on different nodes are backed up in parallel, every node waits to become the cluster shared volume owner to create the snapshots. However, the Cluster service moves the volume owner from one node to another node immediately after a snapshot is created without waiting for post-snapshot tasks to be completed. If another node requests the same shared volume for a backup operation before the post-snapshot tasks are completed, the Cluster service changes the volume to another node. Therefore, the VSS writer that is in the previous node cannot find the cluster shared volume locally when it performs post-snapshot tasks. This behavior causes the virtual machine backup operation to fail.
Issue 3
Consider the following scenario:
- A virtual machine is being backed up on a server that is running Hyper-V.
- At the same time, an application backup operation is being performed in the same virtual machine.
In this scenario, some data is truncated from the application backup in the virtual machine. Therefore, this behavior causes data loss.
Cause of Issue 3
The application backup operation in the virtual machine is incorrectly affected by the virtual machine backup operation on the server that is running Hyper-V.
Issue 4
Consider the following scenario:
- A virtual machine that has some snapshots is backed up on a server that is running Hyper-V.
- Then, this virtual machine is restored to another location.
In this scenario, the restore operation fails and the virtual machine may be corrupted.
Cause of Issue 4
The snapshot files are not restored successfully when you restore the virtual machine.
Full details: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/975354
Moving a Hyper-V virtual machine to Azure
Nov 18th
Although not fully embracing the capability and scalability of the cloud, Ray Ozzie, chief software architect from Microsoft, talked about the ability to move a virtual machine to the cloud. I heard about it on Twitter and went on to look for the source. Apparently it was talked about during the PDC which is held in Los Angeles this week.
When I try to imagine the possibilities, I suppose you start out building your private cloud based on Windows Server 2008 R2 and Hyper-V R2 + System Center, you federate your Active Directory forest with Azure, open your System Center Virtual Machine Manager console and – when you are ready – migrate a virtual machine to Azure. Will it be that easy? Will we be able to move back and forth between private and public clouds just that transparently? This notion opens up a lot of possibilities and probably even more questions. But fascinating it is.
I wouldn’t expect Live Migration or even Quick Migration to Azure. Rapid Migration to Azure sounds good, or even Slow Migration to Azure. Anything goes as long you have the upgrade as well as the downgrade path!
If this is true and businesses start to understand its implications for future IT infrastructures, the opposing vBlock might come in for a surprise.
Review of Ray Ozzie’s keynote in which he talked about moving virtual machines to Azure:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10400244-56.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5
Fix for accidentally deleting a VHD with Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2
Nov 16th
Thanks to a tweet from @MSManageability, I finally know how to prevent losing a VHD with VMM2008 R2. If you choose to delete a VHD from an existing VM it actually deletes it.
J. C Hornbeck pointed me to a hotfix (KB976246) which addresses this problem.
When I looked for a download the KB article led me to Windows Update. It appeared the hotfix had already been installed during the last update.
With the hotfix in place VMM now asks:
How to Protect your MS Virtualized Environment with DPM2010 (Part 3)
Nov 16th
Next in this series is a TechEd Europe 2009 presentation by Asim Mitra, a senior program manager from Microsoft, on data protection and recovery of Hyper-V and Hyper-V R2 workloads with Data Protection Manager 2010.
DPM2010 beta has been publicly available for a few weeks. In my own lab DPM2010 is spinning happily, protecting a Hyper-V R2 cluster with Exchange Server 2010 in a VM on cluster shared volumes (CSV) and several Windows 7 laptops and PC’s. It is quite nice to be in control as a user and determine what to protect from my laptop disks and to be able to restore something whenever I want to. But protecting my production mail server on CSV was really urgent, so I upgraded my DPM2007 SP1 server in-place to DPM2010. It even took care of upgrading the SQL Server 2005 database to SQL Server 2008 without hassle.
Before I went to this session, I had already decided that DPM2010 beta is already more convenient and complete that its predecessor.
The number of supported data sources has grown with DPM2010 and several of them were co-authored with the application developer for a smooth protection and recovery solution. SAP, MS Dynamics re examples of these joint efforts. New data sources are Exchange Server 2010, SharePoint 2010, Hyper-V R2. I probably have missed a few.
In DPM2007 SP1 host-level backup of Hyper-V on Windows Server 2008 and Hyper-V clusters was introduced including Quick Migration.
In DPM2010 this support is extended to Hyper-V R2 with Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV) and is now able to protect virtual machines that are live migrating between hosts. Not many users realized that DPM2007 SP1 was only able to restore VM’s to its original Hyper-V host. Microsoft provided a script to work around that. Now DPM2010 can do Alternate Host Recovery and even Item Level Recovery. This last feature is really unique to DPM!
The question has always been: Should I protect from host or guest?
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I want to selectively backup individual data objects like databases & files
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I want to backup each virtual machine as a single object for protection
The following guidelines can be given to answer those questions:
Host level
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Protect or recover the whole virtual machine
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Protect non-Windows servers
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No granularity of backup
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“Bare Metal Recovery” and “Item Level Recovery” of every VM
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Requires single DPM license on host (protecting all guests)
Guest level
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Protect or recover data specifically
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SQL Server
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Exchange
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SharePoint
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Files
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No different than protecting physical server
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Requires a DPM license per guest (VM)
Whole Node Protection
- This includes the host OS and all VM’s with host level protection
- Requires same single DPM licence on host as in host level protection
Protecting both the parent and the guest is a very cleverly designed cooperation between Volume Shadow Copy writers and requestors. In the example of a Hyper-V R2 server with multiple guests this looks like this:
The Hyper-V VSS writer interacts with a requestor service which is actually the Hyper-V VSS integration component in each VM.
Because there is some time difference between the VSS snapshot of the host and in the guest, there is a potential for data corruption if this wouldn’t be handled correctly. So DPM2010 takes a post-snapshot step to fix the data.
In this post-snapshot step the VHD in the guest is mounted and the amount of changed bytes or blocks are synchronized between the host VSS snapshot and the client VSS snapshot. It sounds easy and it is easy!
Protecting a Live Migrating VM
A more challenging task is the proper protection of a guest which is in the process of migrating between Hyper-V R2 hosts. DPM2010 is able to handle this as well. It works like this:
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DPM2010 performs an incremental backup of VM from cluster node A
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The VM then migrates for instance to cluster node C
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DPM2010 automatically performs the next incremental backup of the Live Migrated VM from cluster node C
DPM has to be aware of the new shared storage architecture of Hyper-V R2. CSV is implemented as a filter driver and sits directly on top of NTFS. DPM can only make a new incremental backup if it knows how to handle the underlying disk architecture. In a Hyper-V R2 cluster all nodes in the cluster can read from a disk in the CSV pool. They can also write to the disk with the VHD on it. Only the so-called coordinator node has full access to the metadata of the underlying physical disk. This coordinator node is not static and can move between cluster nodes, or else it would be a single point of failure. DPM is clever enough to failover the coordinator role to the node in the cluster that needs to take an incremental backup. So if node A owns the disk, and the VM is moved to node B, the DPM agent moves the CSV disk also to node B. This effectively switches the node from Indirect I/O to Direct I/O which makes it possible to make a local incremental backup of the VHD’s from the correct cluster node. Solved that!
There are several Hyper-V recovery options with DPM2010:
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Restore VM back to original host or cluster
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Restore VM to a different host or cluster
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Item Level Recovery (ILR) to file share
This ILR functionality requires that the Hyper-V R2 role is enabled on the DPM2010 server. Hyper-V will not have to do anything else but attach the VHD. This sounds odd since R2 can do this natively without the Hyper-V role enabled.
Planning the deployment
Normally when I plan for DPM storage I roughly calculate 300% the amount of used production disk to be used for the DPM Storage Pool. This is often enough for a retention time of about 14 days on disk. The applied schedule is not relevant for this calculation, because it doesn’t matter whether you synch the data once a day or once an hour. The amount changes per day remain the same. It becomes a different matter if you also want to protect complete guests. Some data would have to be protected multiple times. With ILR this problem is largely eliminated. But to help planning the deployment, the DPM Team offers a Storage Requirements Calculator For Hyper-V Workloads (which is currently in development). We could download a pre-release from the TechEd website.
Why is DPM a suitable data protection product for Hyper-V?
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Incremental backups only – full once (first replica)
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No more backup window – online backups
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Application consistency via VSS
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Protect Live Migration VM’s in CSV clusters
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Protects whole VM and recovers individual items
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Auto protects new VM’s
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Routine backups (nightly or more frequently)
As part of Microsoft System Center, Microsoft claims that:
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It is the best product for protecting Windows file and application servers
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It is built for Microsoft Virtualization environments
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It is designed for Windows Clients
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It has Enterprise-Ready scalability and reliablity
Best Practices to Implement Windows Server 2008 R2 and Hyper-V R2 on HP ProLiant Servers (Part 2)
Nov 15th
On the first day of TechEd Europe 2009, Doug Dewerd presented a session on best practices to implement Windows Server 2008 R2 on HP ProLiant Servers. This is in fact the combination of hardware and software I have preferred ever since Windows and ProLiant were joined, exactly 20 years ago last week. The ProLiant server was produced by Compaq and replaced the first PC based server, the Compaq SystemPro which was released in 1989. A nice best practice not many customers are aware of is that ever since the first ProLiant model, the Smart Array Controllers have shared a common driver family. Standardization even on the driver level has worked well for many of our clients. You probably have seen several vendors who introduced new technology, but have switched the configuration software and driver installation methodology quite a bit.
On the agenda were four topics:
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HP Servers and Windows Server 2008 R2
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HP and Hyper-V R2
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HP Management Tools
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HP Storage Support
HP Servers and Windows Server 2008 R2
HP ProLiant Servers combined with R2 mean a considerable reduction in power consumption and improved consolidation ratio’s. The HP ProLiant G6 servers use half the power of previous generations of servers, support more processors and are certified with R2 advanced power management. Especially combined with HP Virtual Connect Flex-10 technology virtualization ratio’s can be improved significantly at a lower price level than traditional switches in a blade enclosure. Furthermore a deep integration with Microsoft System Center improves availability and simplifies management.
There are three interesting things that help efficiency in the datacenter:
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HP LeftHand SAN products which provide high availability without the requirement to buy additional synchronous replication software. This iSCSI based storage is fully transparent to Hyper-V R2 and Cluster Shared Volumes and Live Migration. LeftHand superbly mirrors data blocks (Network RAID) across storage nodes and by simply spreading the nodes of the storage cluster across sites, a fully automated and disaster tolerant solution can be built. Of course the network interconnects have to be superb as well for synchronous replication to be efficient, although asynchronous replication is also supported out of the box.
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EVA CLX (Cluster Extensions) now supports Live Migration and disaster recovery. This software, not being the cheapest around, is able to eliminate service disruption and automatically fails over or back with Microsoft failover cluster services when disaster strikes.
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An integration is made available between the HP Configuration & Sizing Tool for Hyper-V and MAP (Microsoft Assessment & Planning) tool. It can build detailed HP configurations for R2, Hyper-V and applications.
If you want to find out which HP ProLiant Servers are supported for Windows Server 2008 R2 and Hyper-V R2, just go to:
http://h71028.www7.hp.com/enterprise/us/en/servers/ws-servers-2008-r2.html
HP fully supports Windows Server 2008 R2 and Hyper-V R2 for both it’s fifth and sixth generation of tower, rack and blade servers with one or two exceptions. Just check the support matrix.
Power Control with Windows Server 2008 R2
Windows Server 2008 R2 has done great things for intelligent support for power control. R2 supports the new processor performance state interface which enables OS and platform coordination of processor power management:
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Platform is in direct control of t- and p-states
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OS specifies processor performance requirements
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Platform is responsible for delivering requested performance
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Interface is described via ACPI which is jointly developed by HP and Microsoft
The collaborative power controls are available in ProLiant G6 servers and blade and combine the OS independent HP Power Regulator and Windows Server 2008 R2’s Power Metering & Budgeting infrastructure. PMB manages power based on its knowledge of incoming work queues and task scheduling, whilst HP Power Regulator manages power based on the state of the hardware and the reaction speed necessary to protect hardware.
The process is like this:
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Windows asks for what it thinks is best
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The hardware grants that request unless it can’t because of hardware constraints
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Then the hardware tells the OS what it actually got
This joint effort at improving Green IT can reduce energy cost by as much as 70%.
Scalability and Performance
Windows Server 2008 R2 improves on physical processor and memory resources, running exclusively on 64-bit processors, it supports up to a maximum of 256 processors. R2 also improves on virtual processor resources. Hyper-V R2 now supports up to 64 logical processors (cores or hyper-threaded CPU’s). Accepting processor overcommit, Hyper-V R2 allows for 512 virtual CPU’s per physical host. The current limit of vCPU’s per virtual machine is 4.
An extremely important improvement is the support for SLAT (Second Level Address Translation) which reduces hypervisor processor time and saves about 1MB of memory per virtual machine by using processor functionality to carry out virtual machine memory management functions. In short, memory management is delegated to the processor with better scalability and performance as the result.
Doug showed an example of near linear scalability in throughput with no virtual CPU overcommit (n
o more vCPU’s are used than the amount of physical CPU’s available).
These are the graphs you want to see that could make you wonder why you wouldn’t virtualize even your heavier database servers. In fact we only need to get more experience and faith in hypervisors like Hyper-V R2.
A helpful site with technical guidance, reference configurations, performance characterization and test results, white papers, tools, system configurators, capacity planners and sizers can be found on HP ActiveAnswers.
Hyper-V Support
Most ProLiant servers support Hyper-V R2. At a minimum HP ProLiant Support Pack (PSP) 8.30 must be used. Be careful to install PSP before enabling the Hyper-V role and don’t install PSP on the guests. Furthermore, check the HP whitepapers on Hyper-V R2 integration for the minimum ROM version, supported options and NIC Teaming information.
Hyper-V R2 Installation Tips
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Check HP R2 white paper to ensure servers, options and storage are supported
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Update server BIOS if needed
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Enable support for No-Execute and hardware-assisted virtualization in RBSU (Rom Based Server Utility)
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Install OS, then ProLiant Support Pack without Network Configuration Utility (NCU), then enable Hyper-V
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If installing HP Systems Insight Manager or HP Insight Control for System Center, make sure that SNMP is configured and started
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NIC Teaming is supported provided that
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The latest version of Hyper-V is installed and enabled
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HP ProLiant Network Teaming Software is installed and enabled after having enabled Hyper-V
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Hyper-V Server R2 or Server Core with Hyper-V R2 Installation
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Copy PSP executables to subdirectory and extract
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If installing HP SIM or HP Insight Control for System Center, make sure SNMP service has started
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Run oclist.exe to list the services that have started
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If SNMP has not started, execute the command start /w ocsetup SNMP-SC to start the SNMP service
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Run setup.exe from folder
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Select Bundle Filter and options
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Select items to be installed
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View Installation Results upon completion
NIC Teaming Notes
- Use HP Networking Configuration Utility (NCU) version 9.35 or greater
- VLAN procedure
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- Install and enable Hyper-V, and then install the NCU
- Configure the NIC team(s)
- Configure VLANs for the team(s)
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- IMPORTANT – There is currently no way to easily uninstall HP NCU from Server Core installs
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- Can cause a problem when trying to perform Hyper-V updates
- Perform manual uninstall of HP NCU following http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c01663264/c01663264.pdf and http://support.microsoft.com/kb/950792/en-us
- HP will release a fix in a future version of NCU
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Known Hyper-V R2 Issues
- Stop 0x0000007E blue screen displays after initial reboot when Hyper-V is installed on Windows Server 2008 R2
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- Microsoft has published a KB Article and a Hot Fix to prevent the issue from occurring at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/974598
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- After enabling the Hyper-V server role on an HP ProLiant DL785 G5 Server, a black screen displays after the system reboots
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- Upgrade the ProLiant DL785 G5 server to version A15 of the System ROM dated 08/14/2009 (or later).
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- The virtual machine network is not working when the external virtual network is connected to 1-Gbps NC375i NIC on an HP ProLiant ML370 G6 Server
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- This issue has been reported to HP and is being worked
- The network driver will be released to the support and drivers page after the issue is resolved
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Networking Challenges
- The total network throughput requirement on Hyper-V host is significantly higher than on traditional servers
- Consolidated servers may not have same requirements
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- Access to different VLAN’s
- Access to additional bandwidth
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- Varying requirements lead to additional complexities
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- Increased number of uplinks
- Increased number of ports
- Increased number of cables
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If you add up all the NICs that are required for all the networks with full redundancy in an ideal configuration, you end up with staggering numbers.
In fact this could be downsized a little in my opinion. Let’s say you use fibre channel SAN and a Hyper-V R2 cluster with Live Migration, I would normally advise:
| Network | Minimum | Sufficient |
| Domain Access + Management + HB | 2 | 2 |
| Live Migration + CSV + HB | 2 | 2 |
| Production VM’s | 2 | 4 |
| Total | 6 | 8 |
In previous Windows failover clusters there was a requirement for a Cluster Heartbeat (HB) or Private Network. In Windows Server 2008 Failover Clusters, an alternative path is recommended so if one NIC goes down, another NIC is used to check the cluster heartbeat. In our example the first two networks can serve this purpose. Since Windows Server 2008 the heartbeat/cluster NIC is supported in a NIC Teaming configuration.
For production VM’s at least two teamed NIC’s can be used with at least 2 x 1GB speed. Maybe even 4 x 1GB speed to allow for more network throughput. If 8 NICs are used we end up with eight Gigabit switches in a typical HP c-Class 7000 blade enclosure. Counting these switches including, cabling and core Ethernet switch ports plus tedious management, this can easily become a very expensive solution. For this reason HP has developed HP Virtual Connect Flex-10 Interconnects. With only two of these modules, each BL ProLiant BL G6 and higher server can be configured to split the two 10Gb Ethernet ports into 8 so called FlexNICs which are not virtual but fully functional hardware based Ethernet NICS. The speed of these FlexNICs can be set to any speed between 100MB and 10Gb Ethernet.
With Flex-10 the table looks like this:
| Network | FlexNICs | Gbps |
| Domain Access + Management + HB | 2 | 2 |
| Live Migration + CSV + HB | 2 | 4 |
| Production VM’s | 2 | 8 |
| or devote some FlexNICs to iSCSI | 2 | |
| Total | 8 | 20 |
If more is required in the future with even higher densities of cores, memory and consequently VM’s, we can add up to six HP VC Flex-10 Interconnect modules with the total capacity of 24 NICs per server blade. Who said blade servers are not scalable? Unfortunately I cannot tell you what HP showed us in the NDA room, but servers are surely bound to become bigger and much more scalable. Sorry, you have to wait until some time next year. But rest assured that the current HP ProLiant G6 family is very scalable and even half-height blades can handle up to 24 cores, 192GB of memory and 4 x 10Gb of network capability (if you include an extra dual-port 10Gb Ethernet mezzanine module. Of course scalability will improve further in the next year. And you can grow with it, while keeping the server blade infrastructure in place.
HP Insight Portfolio
HP offers several management products for its ProLiant servers: HP Insight Foundation (included), HP Insight Control and HP Insight Dynamics.
The best news for HP and Hyper-V users is the tight integration of HP Insight software with Microsoft System Center:
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Provides seamless integration of the unique ProLiant and BladeSystem manageability features for customers who have standardized on System Center management platforms
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Delivered as part of HP Insight Control 6.0
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In addition to the full Insight Control capabilities, it provides a set of extensions to Microsoft System Center
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Requires one Insight Control license per managed (Hyper-V R2) server
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Integration Components
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HP Insight Control for System Center software CD components
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HP ProLiant Server Management Packs for Operations Manager 2007
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HP BladeSystem Management Pack for Operations Manager 2007
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HP ProLiant PRO Management Pack for Virtual Machine Manager 2008 (R2?)
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HP ProLiant Server OS Deployment for Configuration Manager 2007
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HP Hardware Inventory Tool for Configuration Manager 2007
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HP Catalog for System Center Configuration Manager is downloaded from the HP web
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No HP Catalog software is included on the CD
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HP Catalog support included with standard Technical Support and Software Update service
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Storage Support for Hyper-V R2
Check the support matrix for HP storage and Hyper-V R2. The tables show extensive support for the current Microsoft hypervisor. In addition to this also check the Single Point of Connectivity Knowledge (SPOCK) website. You have to create or use an HP Passport for access.
One of the first storage products that fully support Hyper-V R2, Cluster Shared Volumes and Hyper-V R2 is HP LeftHand P4000 SAN Solution. Notably the Network RAID and replication capability (included in the price) is responsible for the transparency for the Hyper-V R2 cluster. A multi-site cluster of course requires a good design and proper network setup, but HP LeftHand takes a lot of complexity out of multi-site clustering.
With storage that is optimized for Hyper-V virtualization and Live Migration, virtual machines can be moved live without downtime for users. Users will not notice that both the server and the storage is moved to another datacenter. When a datacenter breaks down or blows up, virtual machines will take over in a very short amount of time (minutes), comparable to a server crash. The virtual machine is restarted quickly and users can continue their work as if nothing had happened.
Other possibilities:
- Zero Downtime Array Load Balancing
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- IOPS
- cache utilization
- power consumption
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- Zero Downtime Maintenance
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- Firmware
- HBA
- Server updates without user interruption
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- Follow the sun/moon data center access model
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- Move the app/VM closest to the users or closest to the cheapest power source
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- Failover, failback, Quick and Live Migration using the same management software
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- No need to learn x different tools and their limitations
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HP also showed us an update to HP Cluster Extensions (CLX) for Hyper-V R2 and Live Migration. This solution is intended for HP EVA and HP XP Storage Arrays with multiple sites and synchronous replication (Continuous Access). Because of the architecture of HP Continuous Access it currently cannot use Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV), which is not a problem because Live Migration does formally not depend on CSV. HP CLX therefore uses traditional shared LUNS per VM. In the demo we saw only a few pings lost during a Live Migration of both virtual machine and storage. No packet had to be retransmitted and users would not be aware of the datacenter move.
From this presentation by Doug Dewerd and Matthias Popp, I got the impression that HP takes Microsoft and Hyper-V very seriously. They have worked together for many years in the Microsoft/HP Frontline Partnership which has now culminated into fascinating products which work really well together.
With the recently formed vBlock called VCE (VMware, Cisco and EMC), I contend that HP is sort of forming an opposing block. I propose calling them MCH (Microsoft, Citrix and HP).
In fact this combination of best of breed server, storage and virtualization solutions happens to be my primary job: designing and architecting fast, flexible, highly available and highly scalable infrastructures. I got a feeling …
For Hyper-V R2 and HP Full Featured DSM / MPIO also see:
http://hyper-v.nu/blogs/hans/?p=292
TechEd 2009 Europe Sessions (part 1)
Nov 14th
This year I decided to ignore as many sessions that are part of my core competency set. Broadening the scope to several other topics that might help me in my job as an infrastructure consultant and architect. I went to sessions on Azure, Federation, Exchange 2010, System Center Road Map, Configuration Manager R3 and v.Next, DPM2010, SharePoint 2010, Best Practices Implementing R2 on HP ProLiant Servers.
The sessions that are somehow related to Hyper-V or clustering, I will discuss a sequence of blogs.
The first presentation I will talk about in this edition was presented by Kenon Owens:
The True Value of Microsoft Integrated Virtualisation
If you find an s in the word Virtualisation, you can bet your life on it that the speaker is English, at least not American. Kenon started telling us he had been working for VMware for nine years and had been doing competitive analysis. He has recently joined Microsoft and was now fully enthusiastic about the new world of Windows Virtualization (Although I hold a masters in English, I keep on spelling it the American way if you don’t mind).
The speaker argued that a lot has changed since 2007 for customers and their investment plans. Two years ago companies focused on growth, now on survival. It is all about saving money and With Less, Do More.
Nevertheless, CIO’s still think that Server, Storage en Desktop Virtualization as well as Cloud Computing are among the top four trends driving spend decisions for this year and the next.
Of course the differences between vSphere and Microsoft Virtualization + System Center clearly boil down to this slogan of With Less, Do More. Even for an ex-VMware employee this was easy to convey.
Many businesses are progressing from a traditional datacenter towards a virtualized datacenter with consolidated servers increasing utilization and transforming to private clouds, further decreasing cost and introducing IT as a service. It could be only a small step to move parts or all IT services to a public cloud, provided that the next step is evolutionary as is promised with Azure. Returning from the cloud, backup to the private often on premises cloud should also be possible. For instance if security dictates that certain data should be kept in-house. It could be risky living on a cloud. The metaphor of the cloud does not bring much confidence in the stability of its foundation. If you risk falling off a cloud, the way back should be guaranteed. This is exactly what Microsoft Azure has to offer. In another presentation on SQL Server Azure, I saw the same database of the private cloud exported to Azure and back. Exchange 2010 will probably also live in the combined world of the private and the public cloud. Moving mailboxes back and forth has become a non-brainer.
This evolutionary approach seems in step with what many business find reasonable. Confidence in the cloud and its foundation is of utmost importance. This process can be prepared by virtualizing greater parts of the traditional datacenter.
Owens went on to stress the importance of Dynamic IT and all the different technologies from server, application and desktop virtualization. Central and integral management of physical and virtual devices, deep knowledge of the applications running on top of those devices make Microsoft Virtualization a very viable solution.
The Microsoft Infrastructure Optimization model and tooling has helped to gradually progress to the dynamic virtualized private cloud, getting ready to take the final jump to the public cloud, already taking profit of Microsoft Virtualization at a relatively low cost.
In troublesome times it is certainly important to not only talk about this, but also delivering on those promises. The product suite around virtualization and management is certainly able to do this.
What are the steps to actually accomplish this goal of Dynamic IT and reaching the steppingstone to the public cloud?
Here they are:
I actually work for one of those Microsoft Gold Partners and they can help you attain your goals. In our practice we build local clouds with products from Microsoft, HP, Cisco and Citrix.
In my next blog I will talk about a session presented by Doug Dewerd from HP talking about best practices for Windows Server 2008 R2 on HP ProLiant Servers.
VHD Attach
Nov 13th
Here’s a nice little tool to atttach and detach VHD files. It can be used with Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2:
http://www.jmedved.com/?page=vhdattach
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