Powered by System Center
// Main banner ad on homepage
Archive for March, 2010
MVP Summit 2010 Impressions in HD
Mar 21st
Here’s a video impression of my visit to the MVP Summit 2010 in Bellevue. Some shots from Bellevue, Seattle, the Microsoft campus and several meetings. If you’re looking for NDA content, don’t be disappointed if you can’t find any 
Virtual Hard Disk Performance
Mar 18th
Liang Yang and Anthony F. Voellm have published an interesting article (March 2010) on the awesome performance improvements attained with the Microsoft VHD format in Windows Server 2008 R2, both in native VHD and Virtual Machine VHD.
The article describes the VHD format, compares VHD performance in Windows Server 2008 and in Windows Server 2008 R2, Native and Virtual Machine VHD performance and explains the difference in performance between fixed sized, dynamically expanding and differencing disks.
Supported and practical limits of VHD’s
|
Virtualization Feature |
Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V(RTM) |
Windows Server 2008 R2 |
|
Nested Depth (VHD in VHD) |
0 |
2 |
|
Default VHD Block Size |
512KB |
2MB |
|
Minimum VHD Size |
3MB |
3MB |
|
Number of Attached VHDs |
Limited by the virtual bus (64) |
Limited by the number of disks Windows allows |
|
Max Differencing Chain Length |
Effective = 8 Supported = 50 |
Effective =1024 Supported = 1024 |
|
Max Fixed Sized VHD Size |
2048GB(2040G via Hyper-V Manager) |
16TB(2040G via Hyper-V Manager) |
|
Max Dynamic VHD Size |
2040GB |
2040GB |
|
Max Differencing VHD Size |
2040GB |
2040GB |
For full article please go to this url:
http://download.microsoft.com/download/0/7/7/0778C0BB-5281-4390-92CD-EC138A18F2F9/WS08_R2_VHD_Performance_WhitePaper.docx)
Hyper-V updates & hotfix list
Mar 18th
Some time ago I asked MS to split the list for Hyper-V updates in R1 and R2. Well … they did and thanks a lot!
Hyper-V Update List for Windows Server 2008 R2:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff394763(WS.10).aspx
Hyper-V Update List for Windows Server 2008:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd430893(WS.10).aspx
Update April 2010:
A recent hotfix was made available by Microsoft as a workaround for a problem with Live Migration win AMD Family 10h processors.
When you run Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V on a computer that uses AMD Family 10h processors, the host computer may restart unexpectedly or stop responding. When the computer restarts or stop responding, you receive no error messages.
This issue may occur when the Live Migration feature is used to move a virtual machine (VM) from one Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V-based node to another node. This problem usually affects the source node that is the original location of the VM and usually does not affect the target node that is the new location where the VM will be moved.
Note This issue may occur in other scenarios and occurs not only in Live Migration scenarios.
Look for erratum #383 in this AMD support document
http://support.amd.com/us/Processor_TechDocs/41322.pdf
Thanks to IT Core Blog
SP1 gives Hyper-V R2 Dynamic Memory
Mar 18th
[Update: Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Release Candidate Released http://hyper-v.nu/blogs/hans/?p=366]
Today Microsoft officially announced that SP1 – which will be made available as a single service pack for both Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 – will enable dynamic memory for Hyper-V R2.
Currently each VM gets a fixed amount of memory. Ten VM’s with 2GB each, consume 20GB of RAM of the server. This limits the number of VM’s that can be running on a single physical host because unused memory is not available for adding additional VM’s.
The net effect is a higher virtual machine density per Hyper-V R2 host.
Making greater use of Dynamic Memory could have an impact on performance, but the slider which is shown below, allows the administrator to decide whether to opt for performance, for density or somewhere in between.
There was no release date communicated for SP1.
A second new feature in SP1 for R2 is Remote FX, a new set of platform capabilities in Windows Server Remote Desktop Services that enables users of virtual desktops and applications to enjoy a rich, local-like experience over the network from a broad range of client services. Remote FX is an RDP enhancement allowing remote workers to access any type of applications, improving end user productivity.
Hyper-V.nu bijeenkomst
Mar 3rd
Hallo allemaal,
De meeting van 3 maart zit er weer op, ik heb goede feedback gehoord. Sessies goed op elkaar afgestemd, goede technische content. De locatie was ook er goed, en volgens mij ook goed bereikbaar. Namens het team hartelijk dank aan Nobel.
Hierbij de presentaties:
Presentatie Ment van der Plas: Ment van der Plas – Hyper-V.nu FEB10 – Introducing MED-V
Presentatie Sander Berkouwer: OGD Active Directory en Hyper-V Spanningsveld v1
Hans Vredevoort: How to Protect Your Microsoft Virtualized Environment v2
Presentatie Jaap Wesselius: Exchange 2010 en Hyper-V – 3maart2010-V09
Presentatie Bert de Reus: Hyper-V Lessons Learned
Tot de volgende keer!
Twitter
RSS